Comments on: By The Power of Stipulation: I Have The Power!

By: Crooked Timber » » Eugene Volokh jumps the shark

Crooked Timber » » Eugene Volokh jumps the shark — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 15:56:23 +0000

[...] #8217;s unreasonable to suspect that most of the nonsensical defences of torture, invoking ticking bombs and the like, are so many insincere publi [...]

By: Crooked Timber » » Needles Under the Nails

Crooked Timber » » Needles Under the Nails — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 17:30:41 +0000

[...] comes up with scenarios where torture seems justified—the ticking bomb case that we know and love. As we know, real torture never meets the [...]

By: yabonn

yabonn — Mon, 21 Jun 2004 22:18:52 +0000

“Why won’t the reader pick up the new feed? The address hasn’t changed!” I just love that parallel universe feeling. :-)

By: chris

chris — Mon, 21 Jun 2004 09:39:12 +0000

Ursula LeGuin wrote The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas in 1973. It seemed to sum it up fairly well at the time. Has anything changed?

By: Old Ranger

Old Ranger — Sun, 20 Jun 2004 17:24:28 +0000

You are 100% right. However, you didn’t mention the pleasure that comes from feeling superior to others, torturing and kicking them around. Do it once and you’re likely to do it again and again, for lesser and lesser stakes. Naturally, you will focus on non-whites if you are white, and vice-versa. Would that Alan Dershowitz would ponder your point.

By: Peter

Peter — Fri, 18 Jun 2004 17:01:19 +0000

So, why don’t amateur philosophers ever consider the alternative scenario: The cops think there is a ticking bomb. Maybe there is maybe there is not. They are positive that YOU know where it is, and the disarm code (but you do not). They torture you to get the information out of you (which you do not have). What do you do? Should the guy who tortured you be “excused” for making a mistake? Was he “justified” in torturing you because he really believed that YOU knew where it was? Will that get your teeth and fingernails put back in your body? If you tell them (the torturers) the truth (that you don’t know where it is), they will believe you are holding out, and knock you around some more. Eventually, they will kill you and blame it on you being a fanatic, who held out till the very end. I don’t think they will ever consider that they made a mistake. There is a reason we have the Miranda decision. And why police are no longer allowed to use rubber hoses and lead lined gloves to facilitate investigations. I wonder just how civilized we really are, if one little scratch will make us roll over and turn back into the savages we used to be.

By: BigMacAttack

BigMacAttack — Fri, 18 Jun 2004 16:00:00 +0000

So you admit we all basically subscribe to utilitarianism. We just might have a hard time measuring utility and expected utlility. Anyway. It is obviously a trick. Like in that Star Trek episode. If I torture the girl they will destroy us. If I refuse they will give us the technology.

By: paul

paul — Fri, 18 Jun 2004 15:09:02 +0000

I didn’t realize there were any moral absolutists on the left: I hear they’re all squishy relativists, not a shred of moral fiber in the bunch.

By: asg

asg — Fri, 18 Jun 2004 13:53:15 +0000

And what scares you about the moral absolutists on the left, just out of curiosity?

By: SCOTT FANETTI

SCOTT FANETTI — Fri, 18 Jun 2004 13:47:29 +0000

Of course, anyone that is willing to die for their religious beliefs might not be all that well persuaded by torture. Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq with an iron fist, but he still never slept in the same bed twice because his administration was under constant siege by rebels. He would kill whole families to get information, but the rebellion persisted. People with rabidly strong beliefs only become more strident when they are faced with such a moral and ethical dilemmas. This is what scares me about the moral absolutists on the right. These people are just a few steps away from rounding up the nonbelievers, liberals, and gays for some ‘ol timey justice.

By: Matt McIrvin

Matt McIrvin — Fri, 18 Jun 2004 13:46:03 +0000

You just saved me the trouble of having to write that essay. Mine wasn’t going to be as funny.

By: akaike

akaike — Fri, 18 Jun 2004 11:44:09 +0000

This is all just one big passion play anyway, but with the roles reversed…

By: me2i81

me2i81 — Fri, 18 Jun 2004 09:30:38 +0000

But…tough guy Jack Bauer tortured that guy on 24, and I read this stupid spy novel once where the sweet old guy who was actually a super-secret uber-agent ended up sliding a knife under the bad guy’s eyeball, because deep down he was a tough guy too.

By: Ted Barlow

Ted Barlow — Fri, 18 Jun 2004 06:17:40 +0000

As one of the few resident non-PhDs, I’m glad that someone else broke the “fuck” barrier on this site first.

By: Kieran Healy

Kieran Healy — Fri, 18 Jun 2004 05:02:05 +0000

No worries—the import is nearly finished but the DNS propagation hasn’t happened yet and will take a little while. But then repost it, because I want people to STFU about the bomb as well.