Torture is sometimes morally permissible.

Resolved: Torture is sometimes morally permissible. ======= Case Pro ======= The Daughter Scenario The point about the appeal to emotion is a fairly minor one. I already made my case on it, so I will move on. Cases such as Jeffrey Dahmer are so famous because they are so extraordinarily rare. There have perhaps been a dozen such people in all of recorded history. Exceptions should not be made for these rare cases. No real-life scenario is impregnable. There is always another option. So my opponent's scenario with an impossible-to-open door, etc. is unrealistic. There is no such scenario in reality. Finding other ways out is not "drivel and elusion" since in life there is always another way out. Using a SWAT team is far preferable to torture. My opponent had to think up an extraordinarily elaborate scenario to even attempt to justify torture, which speaks for the frailness of his case. "I am confident, almost certain, that if my opponent found himself in my "daughter scenario" he would do whatever is necessary to save his own child." Even if at the time I wanted to torture the captor, it is far from justified. My personal feelings about my daughter cannot justify such a terrible act. "I have more respect for any person than to think they would be so calloused as to idly witness the death of their own child at the hands of a psychopath." There are so many alternatives to torture that my opponent is ignoring. I could rescue my daughter, or find a different method of extracting the necessary information. If torture is the only option, then idleness is the most noble course of action. It is never justified to inflict such great harm on another human, no matter the circumstances. As they say, two wrongs don't make a right. Collateral Damage "So, if I torture a convicted terrorist in order to avert a catastrophe would not my intentions help determine whether or not I'm acting ethically?" This is a misconstruing of "intention". Yes, the moral thing to do is to try to avert the catastrophe. But intentionally harming another is not the proper way to go about it. My opponent's elaboration has made his statement more understandable. However, it says nothing that I have not already responded to. ======= Case Con ======= Contention 1: Torture is unreliable. 1b. Yes, my statistics are 30 years old. The Theory of Gravity is over 300 years old, and yet we still use it. Age is no indication of reliability. My opponent has said nothing but baseless claims and speculation. No refutation necessary. 1c. (My opponent has conceded 1c, and has instead argued against 1a.) Killing innocent children during wartime is tragic, and should by all means be avoided. But accidents happen. There is a monumental difference between accidental deaths and intentional torture. This is why involuntary manslaughter, while still a crime, is not nearly as reprehensible as murder (http://karisable.com...). 1d. My opponent has never advocated ANY method of torture. I assume that he supports waterboarding. Waterboarding has been found to cause long-term physical and psychological harm (http://www.scientificamerican.com...) (http://www.time.com...): "One patient couldn't take showers, and panicked when it rained." (http://www.newyorker.com...) Like any sort of severe physical and mental suffering, waterboarding leads to a fear of imminent death, causing panic, an increased heart rate, and increased stress, which can easily lead to confusion and disconnect from reality (http://en.wikipedia.org...) (http://intelligence.senate.gov...). ========== Contention 2: There are better alternatives. There is nothing fictitious about brain fingerprinting. It is still being refined, but has been used before, and even successfully caught a serial killer: "Missouri Sheriff Robert Dawson engaged Dr. Farwell to conduct a Brainfingerprinting test on J. B. Grinder, who had been a suspect in an unsolved murder case for 15 years. The test results showed that the record stored in his brain matched critical details of the crime scene that only the perpetrator would know." (http://www.brainwavescience.com...) The brain fingerprinting process does not have to be foolproof. It could even be less reliable than torture, and would still be a viable alternative. However, torture has a rather low success rate while brain fingerprinting has a success rate of virtually 100% (http://www.nytimes.com...). ========== Contention 3: Torture is harmful. "The suffering of millions of people killed in a nuclear explosion has to be given less weight than the suffering endured by torturing a single terrorist." Suffering is not measured in "less" or "more". We have a responsibility not to harm any individual, no matter the situation. But even so, it is not a matter of torturing a single terrorist. What if the person isn't really a terrorist? What if the terrorist knows nothing, or refuses to talk? Torture has a laughably low rate of success. There are no methods of torture that do not place the subject's wellbeing in jeopardy. We have fundamental rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Torture takes away at least the latter two of these rights. It is unconscionable to torture another human being and throw away his fundamental rights. Resolution affirmed. I will not respond to the summary of Case Pro. It does not include anything that has not been already said, and I want to avoid parallel threads.