8 ms·

It is uncharitable and silly to believe that a good person could not have those positions in good faith. You may disagree with it, but "torture is sometimes per

by simon_ 12y ago

It is uncharitable and silly to believe that a good person could not have those positions in good faith. You may disagree with it, but "torture is sometimes permissible" is not an evil opinion held exclusively by evil people.

lazyjones 12y ago
> "torture is sometimes permissible" is not an evil opinion held exclusively by evil people. ... for a rather arbitrary definition of "evil" (and "good"), one I don't share. Doesn't it make you think a little when every depiction and description of hell contains various forms of torture?
thanksgiving 12y ago
> It is uncharitable and silly to believe that a good person could not have those positions in good faith. Imagine someone who just straight up punches people in the face without any warning for using the n word. Can that ever be in good faith? At what point is it OK to physically hurt others?
- jdbernard 12y ago
  This doesn't justify torture, but I can imagine many situations where it physical violence can be good. I would say it is ethically good to physically harm someone if that harm prevents then from harming others, for example. There are tons of questions surrounding when it is OK, but to say that physical violence is never appropriate is to live in a fantasy world where evil doesn't exist. There are some forms of aggression that cannot be successfully resisted without resorting to violence.
  - thanksgiving 12y ago
    You know that it is just a slippery slope away from supporting violence against charlie hebdo, right?
  - lostcolony 12y ago
    It's really easy to come up with hypotheticals when violence stops other violence, with no other ill effects and no risk. Real life isn't as pretty. You meet violence with violence and all you're guaranteed is violence. You may 'win', you may not, but all you're certain to achieve is perpetuating the cycle.
letstryagain 12y ago
That's debatable. Remember the Geneva Convention?
snowwrestler 12y ago
Good faith and good intentions are not enough to create good in the world.
dreamfactory2 12y ago
Oh yes it is
guelo 12y ago
I think the only way it is possible to hold it "in good faith" is to be unconsciously bigoted. That is, you don't realize you're a bigot, probably because you haven't examined your underlying beliefs. To see this most clearly, try to imagine a situation where you would find it acceptable for an American soldier to be tortured by some foreign power.
- throwawaytime 12y ago
  First, thank you for providing a thought experiment that challenged my own beliefs on the topic. Something like that is rare. Given the social climate surrounding the issue, it seemed appropriate to switch to a throwaway. I'll strive to keep the discussion interesting and thought-provoking. I'd like to followup with you and get some insights. Thinking over your example leads me to conclude, "There is no such thing as what's 'acceptable,' only what's effective." Do you feel that's true, or off the mark?
  - Devthrowaway80 12y ago
    Torture has been shown repeatedly to not be "effective" - people will say literally anything to get it to stop.
    - yummyfajitas 12y ago
      This makes it useless for getting a confession to a crime with no corroborating evidence. However, if you have a method of independently verifying the information you get, you can get useful information. Note: I oppose torture, but effectiveness is orthogonal to my opposition. Something can be effective and still evil.
    - olavk 12y ago
      Not that effective for gathering reliable intelligence in a timely manner, but very effective for other purposes: To punish, to instill fear in potential enemies, to satisfy a need for revenge. The "gathering intelligence" excuse is used only because it allows "good people" to convince themselves they support torture for rational, "good" reasons. Nobody would openly say they support torture because they want to see the enemy writher in pain and fear and be forced to eat their own shit. Even if this is the real reason.
justin66 12y ago
> "torture is sometimes permissible" is not an evil opinion held exclusively by evil people I took air to mean that support of torture eliminates a person from the top strata of the category of "good person" - by itself a handwavy categorization - that should be held up as some kind of exemplar of virtue, as pg has done. It's a point I happen to agree with, and regardless of whether or not you think Dante would create a special place in hell for rich guys who provide political cover for torturers, it does undermine to some extent the premise of of pg's article. Writing an article like this about someone you actually like is dangerous. As Pappy Boyington said, "Show me a hero and I'll show you a bum."
- SilasX 12y ago
  Good people can't ever support anything with (moral) downsides?
  - TillE 12y ago
    By most definitions, a good person cannot support evil actions ("moral downsides", really?), no.
    - SilasX 12y ago
      Considering that most choices -- and all hard ones -- have such downsides, then no such people exist and the term as you've used it is not useful.
  - blazespin 12y ago
    It's not the moral downsides so much as torture is a race to the bottom. It's like, which side can be more awful.
  - justin66 12y ago
    Did you even read the first sentence I wrote?
    - SilasX 12y ago
NhanH 12y ago
"Good", "evil" and "good faith" are all too ill-defined to be used in a philosophical discussion like this: you will have to define them. It's fine for pg to used, because a) He's almost using good as the opposite of mean, and b) He's not discussing about morality. When it comes to morality discussion, a lot more bets are off and you have to be careful on what basis you're defining "good", "evil" and the like. To be more on point, there are a lot of "evil" people that are acting on good faith - the comical image of an evil genius who's hell bent on taking over the world for his own greediness or for fun doesn't really exist in real life. You can truly believe that the best way to win a war for your country (and help your fellow country men) is to exterminate the other country, so you make an order to massacre everything that move. That would be evil acting in good faith.
jbapple 12y ago
Perhaps he could have the opinion that, as he tweeted, "the CIA saved American lives" in good faith. But he was criticizing a 525-page Senate report on the same day it came out, December 9th. This report has a lot of details on CIA misrepresentations on how they "saved lives". I doubt he read the report before he tweeted. I don't think that's in good faith. It is in good company, as Dick Cheney admitted he hadn't read the report, while still asserting it was "full of crap". Let me give a single example of the kind of CIA claims about the effectiveness of torture that the report documents. On page 188, the report describes a briefing George Tenet and a CIA lawyer gave to some White House officials. (See footnote 1101 for a partial list of attendees.) Their slides included the claim that their torture techniques helped identify Richard Reid. Richard Reid was arrested before the CIA tortured anyone under this program. This program could not have helped catch Reid unless it also involved the use of a time machine. You may think this is a silly example, but the report documents dozens of instances of this level of misrepresentation. Footnote 1393 demonstrates another causality inversion that the CIA thinks they caused, in which they tortured someone in 2003 to get enough information to disrupt a plot in 2002. Check it out for yourself; you can read the Senate report's 525-page executive summary here: http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/study2014/sscistudy1.pdf http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/study2014/sscistudy1.pdf and the CIA's response here: https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/CIAs_June2013_Response_to_the_SSCI_Study_on_the_Former_Detention_and_Interrogation_Program.pdf https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/CIAs_June2013_Response_t... Maybe I'm wrong about torture, and maybe I'm misreading or misunderstanding the report. But I think Conway's dismissal of the report without reading it is in bad faith.
olavk 12y ago
Except he doesn't say "torture is sometimes permissible". He supports the specific actions of CIA where torture were used, but didn't lead to reliable intelligence of value. So it was not a "ticking time-bomb scenario", it was "torture because we have the power to do it".
SideburnsOfDoom 12y ago
> It is uncharitable and silly to believe that a good person could not have those positions in good faith. No it is not. Certain things are just incompatible. "good person" and "supporter of torture" are a good example of this. The illusory "effectiveness" of torture doesn't matter, you may as well ask if slavery is profitable, as others have pointed out. If you're asking that then you have already lost your way. If this upsets you, then that's on you.

by simon_ 12y ago

lazyjones 12y ago

> "torture is sometimes permissible" is not an evil opinion held exclusively by evil people. ... for a rather arbitrary definition of "evil" (and "good"), one I don't share. Doesn't it make you think a little when every depiction and description of hell contains various forms of torture?

thanksgiving 12y ago

> It is uncharitable and silly to believe that a good person could not have those positions in good faith. Imagine someone who just straight up punches people in the face without any warning for using the n word. Can that ever be in good faith? At what point is it OK to physically hurt others?

jdbernard 12y ago
This doesn't justify torture, but I can imagine many situations where it physical violence can be good. I would say it is ethically good to physically harm someone if that harm prevents then from harming others, for example. There are tons of questions surrounding when it is OK, but to say that physical violence is never appropriate is to live in a fantasy world where evil doesn't exist. There are some forms of aggression that cannot be successfully resisted without resorting to violence.
- thanksgiving 12y ago
  You know that it is just a slippery slope away from supporting violence against charlie hebdo, right?
- lostcolony 12y ago
  It's really easy to come up with hypotheticals when violence stops other violence, with no other ill effects and no risk. Real life isn't as pretty. You meet violence with violence and all you're guaranteed is violence. You may 'win', you may not, but all you're certain to achieve is perpetuating the cycle.

letstryagain 12y ago

That's debatable. Remember the Geneva Convention?

snowwrestler 12y ago

Good faith and good intentions are not enough to create good in the world.

dreamfactory2 12y ago

Oh yes it is

guelo 12y ago

I think the only way it is possible to hold it "in good faith" is to be unconsciously bigoted. That is, you don't realize you're a bigot, probably because you haven't examined your underlying beliefs. To see this most clearly, try to imagine a situation where you would find it acceptable for an American soldier to be tortured by some foreign power.

throwawaytime 12y ago
First, thank you for providing a thought experiment that challenged my own beliefs on the topic. Something like that is rare. Given the social climate surrounding the issue, it seemed appropriate to switch to a throwaway. I'll strive to keep the discussion interesting and thought-provoking. I'd like to followup with you and get some insights. Thinking over your example leads me to conclude, "There is no such thing as what's 'acceptable,' only what's effective." Do you feel that's true, or off the mark?
- Devthrowaway80 12y ago
  Torture has been shown repeatedly to not be "effective" - people will say literally anything to get it to stop.
  - yummyfajitas 12y ago
    This makes it useless for getting a confession to a crime with no corroborating evidence. However, if you have a method of independently verifying the information you get, you can get useful information. Note: I oppose torture, but effectiveness is orthogonal to my opposition. Something can be effective and still evil.
  - olavk 12y ago
    Not that effective for gathering reliable intelligence in a timely manner, but very effective for other purposes: To punish, to instill fear in potential enemies, to satisfy a need for revenge. The "gathering intelligence" excuse is used only because it allows "good people" to convince themselves they support torture for rational, "good" reasons. Nobody would openly say they support torture because they want to see the enemy writher in pain and fear and be forced to eat their own shit. Even if this is the real reason.

justin66 12y ago

> "torture is sometimes permissible" is not an evil opinion held exclusively by evil people I took air to mean that support of torture eliminates a person from the top strata of the category of "good person" - by itself a handwavy categorization - that should be held up as some kind of exemplar of virtue, as pg has done. It's a point I happen to agree with, and regardless of whether or not you think Dante would create a special place in hell for rich guys who provide political cover for torturers, it does undermine to some extent the premise of of pg's article. Writing an article like this about someone you actually like is dangerous. As Pappy Boyington said, "Show me a hero and I'll show you a bum."

SilasX 12y ago
Good people can't ever support anything with (moral) downsides?
- TillE 12y ago
  By most definitions, a good person cannot support evil actions ("moral downsides", really?), no.
  - SilasX 12y ago
    Considering that most choices -- and all hard ones -- have such downsides, then no such people exist and the term as you've used it is not useful.
- blazespin 12y ago
  It's not the moral downsides so much as torture is a race to the bottom. It's like, which side can be more awful.
- justin66 12y ago
  Did you even read the first sentence I wrote?
  - SilasX 12y ago

NhanH 12y ago

"Good", "evil" and "good faith" are all too ill-defined to be used in a philosophical discussion like this: you will have to define them. It's fine for pg to used, because a) He's almost using good as the opposite of mean, and b) He's not discussing about morality. When it comes to morality discussion, a lot more bets are off and you have to be careful on what basis you're defining "good", "evil" and the like. To be more on point, there are a lot of "evil" people that are acting on good faith - the comical image of an evil genius who's hell bent on taking over the world for his own greediness or for fun doesn't really exist in real life. You can truly believe that the best way to win a war for your country (and help your fellow country men) is to exterminate the other country, so you make an order to massacre everything that move. That would be evil acting in good faith.

jbapple 12y ago

Perhaps he could have the opinion that, as he tweeted, "the CIA saved American lives" in good faith. But he was criticizing a 525-page Senate report on the same day it came out, December 9th. This report has a lot of details on CIA misrepresentations on how they "saved lives". I doubt he read the report before he tweeted. I don't think that's in good faith. It is in good company, as Dick Cheney admitted he hadn't read the report, while still asserting it was "full of crap". Let me give a single example of the kind of CIA claims about the effectiveness of torture that the report documents. On page 188, the report describes a briefing George Tenet and a CIA lawyer gave to some White House officials. (See footnote 1101 for a partial list of attendees.) Their slides included the claim that their torture techniques helped identify Richard Reid. Richard Reid was arrested before the CIA tortured anyone under this program. This program could not have helped catch Reid unless it also involved the use of a time machine. You may think this is a silly example, but the report documents dozens of instances of this level of misrepresentation. Footnote 1393 demonstrates another causality inversion that the CIA thinks they caused, in which they tortured someone in 2003 to get enough information to disrupt a plot in 2002. Check it out for yourself; you can read the Senate report's 525-page executive summary here: http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/study2014/sscistudy1.pdf http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/study2014/sscistudy1.pdf and the CIA's response here: https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/CIAs_June2013_Response_to_the_SSCI_Study_on_the_Former_Detention_and_Interrogation_Program.pdf https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/CIAs_June2013_Response_t... Maybe I'm wrong about torture, and maybe I'm misreading or misunderstanding the report. But I think Conway's dismissal of the report without reading it is in bad faith.

olavk 12y ago

Except he doesn't say "torture is sometimes permissible". He supports the specific actions of CIA where torture were used, but didn't lead to reliable intelligence of value. So it was not a "ticking time-bomb scenario", it was "torture because we have the power to do it".

SideburnsOfDoom 12y ago

> It is uncharitable and silly to believe that a good person could not have those positions in good faith. No it is not. Certain things are just incompatible. "good person" and "supporter of torture" are a good example of this. The illusory "effectiveness" of torture doesn't matter, you may as well ask if slavery is profitable, as others have pointed out. If you're asking that then you have already lost your way. If this upsets you, then that's on you.