Torture

I understand that you believe that torturing is "the most accurate" approach, but I disagree. I believe that 9/11 is not relevant to this topic, as there is still much controversy surrounding that cataclysmic event and also it"s difficult to say what the authorities would have done had they known that someone knew of the attack. And also, it is difficult, or implausible to say that, "torture can be the only reason where it can save many lives." Interrogation, or other non-harming tactics, all have the potential to save many lives. Therefore, to say that torture is the only one is incorrect. What are the scenarios in which torture is the only answer? When you question how a person could find torture bad if they were in a certain situation where it may help, it seems as if you are, once again, hinting at the subjectivity of the concept of torture in relation to morality. It"s difficult to see how having a responsibility to help means that the moral thing to do is to help. One does have a responsibility to help. But just because they have this responsibility it doesn"t necessarily follow that it is the moral thing to do. It is fine to say that there are different definitions of morality. But to say that "morality is subjective" means that you think torture is okay while I think torture is not okay, and that it is all well and fine. You also acknowledge that this "can be minimally controversial" yet in your first round you state that morality IS controversial. This is clearly a contradiction. You feel that Premises 11 and 13 of my argument contradict. This isn"t the case. I didn"t state that lying would bring harm. The torturer does not have to torture another person. Also, the negative duty to avoid harm applies to the torturer in this case. His negative duty is to avoid harm and by continuing to torture the person he is not doing that. Just because you reason that my premises contradict, doesn"t mean that there are no such things as negative duties. There doesn"t seem to be any controversy as to the existence of negative duties. You state that, "If there were negative duty which mean avoiding harm then that would mean the victim is not going to give false information." Not necessarily. Even if the negative duty premise applied to the tortured person and worked in the way you had reasoned, which it does not, it doesn"t mean that the tortured person would be aware of their negative duty to avoid harm. So he may continue to give false information. It is definitely possible for a person to continue to give wrong information, as they may not be aware of their negatives duties. But once again, the negative duty concept does not apply in this way. I don"t understand what you mean by "What the torturer wants or needs is always neutral." The statement attempting to clarify the meaning is a little ambiguous, or unclear. I state that just because you protect the tortured person after the torture it doesn"t mean it is okay. And I know you disagree with this and don"t necessarily see it the same way. But why? What do you mean by, "Because at the end of the day, I think everyone does the same."? This is a little unclear. Accidental killing is "is not seemed as wrong" because it is just that, and accident. Unintentional. Torturing is intentional, making it wrong and quite different from accidental killing. But then you go on to just state "killing". So by killing do you mean the death of a person? If you mean killing in the sense of murder then it is wrong and immoral. This is so because it is intentional. Similarly torture is intentional, there"s nothing accidental or unintentional about it. This is why it is also considered wrong and immoral. And therefore not justified. If you say by killing you do not mean the death of a person, that what exactly are you referring to? To sum up, torture is not the only effective route, as you claim in the first paragraph of this round, so it isn"t necessarily justified. Because you have a responsibility to help someone, it isn"t necessarily the moral thing to do. Morality is not subjective. There is no question concerning the validity of negative duties. Accidental killing differs greatly from torture. So it doesn"t follow that torture is minimally, morally justifiable.