The use of Torture can be Morally Permissible

On Morality and Debate CriteriaBased on Pro’s own criteria, how moral a person wants to be is completely inconsequential. There must be one of two outcomes:A. There must be a “net moral good” (1 million people saved minus 1 sadistic killer tortured = good), orB. The act must be entered into because it is the morally preferable decision, and and only after this determination is made are results moot.Other than by completely dumb luck, neither of those criteria can be met, because while the ends don’t necessarily need to justify the means, there must be either a reasonable belief that they will.Morality is about the moment in time when a decision is made, and one cannot consider themselves moral should they perform an act they know to be both immoral, and completely unlikely to yield “positive moral results”, and then have some fluke occurrence sweep in and “save their morality”.Unless, of course, we’re now adding in the concept of Christian absolution to this discussion, in which case, bring me my almond scented Kool-Aid and let me quietly drift into death.I can’t say that any act will fail with 100% certainty, and I certainly can’t prove it, but fortunately, requiring me to do so would be fallacious, and regardless, I don’t need to. All I need to prove is that in each given scenario, when faced with a choice to torture or not torture, the moral option is to choose not to torture because torture will not produce a “net moral” outcome, nor is it the most likely choice to do so. The actor in each scenario has a number of choices, and if torture gives the least likely chance of success, then it is therefore not the moral choice, whether or not it succeeds by some sort of dumb luck. The duty, under the Deontological criteria, is to make the choice which is believed to produce the best outcome, or at least a net morally positive one. Under the Consequentialist criteria, it is making the choice which actually produces that outcome.Scenario PurposesAs Pro discussed, these scenarios are about both a means and an end, and since by one of his criteria, the end is inconsequential, we have before us ONLY TWO SCENARIOS:1. Coercive Interrogation2. Capitulation to the Demands of a Terrorist Hostage TakerAnd, even if the ends were of any consequence, Pro’s actors only need to save 2 people, conceivably, from a fate worse than the torture of 1 person, so who cares if there are a million people, twenty people, or the fate of every human on the planet hangs in the balance?There only needs to be 2.Implausible Morality Under Each Scenario, Using Each CriteriaAs I have stated, nothing can be proven to be 100% ineffective for any purpose. I walked my dog this morning. I can’t state with 100% certainty that I did not save an entire planet, teeming with life, by doing so, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t, and even if I did, it was by pure luck and it has no bearing on my morality one way or another.In my previous round, I stated that I could provide numerous studies which supported my positions, but that I didn’t believe it necessary, however I would be happy to provide them upon request. This, it seems, inspired Pro to accuse me of deceiving onlookers with false tales of nonexistent studies. Unfortunately for Pro, he was wrong in that accusation.Scenarios #1 and #2 - Coercive InterrogationIt doesn’t work, no matter how “good” the reasons are for the tortured party to provide correct information. If the terrorist (which is what we’re dealing with in both scenarios) has a good reason to give correct information, then why the need to torture him in the first place? Once captured, why would he not just spill the beans.It is because the need to torture the terrorist implies that he has incentive, for whatever reason, to hide the truth.Choosing to torture the terrorist means that, for it to be moral, the torture must produce truthful information around the questions asked during the torturing, or it must be the most likely means to do so, given all the other restraints of a situation, for how can an act so deplorable be considered moral when a less despicable means of extracting truthful information is both available AND is more likely to be successful?Fact One: To recall information stored in the brain, you must activate a number of areas, especially the prefrontal cortex (site of intentionality) and hippocampus (the door to long-term memory storage).Fact Two: Stress such as that caused by torture releases the hormone cortisol, which can impair cognitive function, including that of the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. Studies in which soldiers were subjected to stress in the form of food and sleep deprivation have found that it impaired their ability to recall personal memories and information[1]So, even in Pro’s utterly ridiculous scenario where the terrorist, really, really, really wanted to tell the truth, they more likely than not would actually be unable to do so because the torture itself would render them unable to do so.Torture, in and of itself, make information received from a tortured individual less reliable than information from someone not tortured. Given everything hanging in the balance of Pro’s scenarios, is it moral to choose a technique that is more likely to produce false information when other techniques produce correct information?According to the U.S. Army’s own field manual on interrogation, published in September 2006, torture “is a poor technique that yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say what he thinks the [human intelligence] collector wants to hear[2]Rather than limiting the use of harsh interrogation techniques to a few cases, exemptions for torture and cruel treatment very quickly allow them to become routine.[2]Now, I’m sure that Pro will state that in his scenario, the people doing the torture “really, really, really promise” not to make this the standard for information extraction, but that just isn’t the case in the “really, really, really real world”. Once you open up Pandora’s box of testicle electrodes, there’s no going back.When torture and cruel treatment yield misinformation, the cost of pursuing the wrong lead can be enormous. [2]And, since it is much more likely than not to produce false information, one is much more likely to cause additional damage by using it.Lastly, I will state once again, morality comes down to a choice. When the choices are using a morally deplorable means which are less likely to meet your ends, or using a morally agnostic means which are more likely to meet your ends, both of Pro’s criteria fail because should the torturer, by some ridiculous luck, garner correct information from the tortured, another method of information extraction was available which not only would have been more humane, but also faster and more reliable.When there is no good reason to torture, torturing comes down to sadistic pleasure, which Pro already stated was absolutely immoral. Since there is no good reason to torture, sadistic pleasure is the only reason to do so. This, by Pro's own admission, means a FAILUE of both his DEBATE SUCCESS CRITERIA.Scenario #3 - Capitulating to the Demands of a Hostage Taker...if anyone who took hostages immediately had all of his or her demands granted, the world would face one hostage crisis after another.[3]‘nuff said (or, it should have been when I said it originally).[1] http://harpers.org...[2] http://www.humanrightsfirst.org...[3] http://people.howstuffworks.com...