re: #626 researchok

So you would not agree torture that might stop the carnage could ever be justified?

While I’m not the one to whom you directed the question: No, I would not agree. The key word in your sentence is “might”.

There’s an old aphorism. How many innocents will you punish to ensure a single guilty one does not escape justice? The flipside is how many guilty will you tolerate to ensure one innocent is not wrongfully harmed.

It is impossible to deal with absolutes in the real world. “might”, “probably”, “likely”, these are the qualifiers with which we must live.

There are lines I will not intentionally cross. Torture is one of those lines.

As I stated earlier, it’s an easier morale line than most to resist because it does not work better than the alternative. The alternative is as fast, more certain, and gives long-term and strategic advantages. Choosing to torture is somewhat analogous to using your pogo stick to commute to work. It works, but there’s no real-world situation where it works better than the alternatives.