this person should be tortured

if the person is stating that he knows things like who the criminals will attack, knows the city.. and admits guilt.. then beyond a reasonable doubt, he is guilty. this is even higher proof than a reasonable doubt, because next to certainly no one but a perpetrator would know this stuff. there may be a theoretically slight chance of us getting it wrong.. btu the odds are so astronomically low to take seriously for effective purposes. i am quick to dismiss not the arrest circumstances are irrelvant, but the distracting arguments. there are a host of possiblities, that if true, can change things... but if i haven't included it in the facts, why hinge one's arguemnt on those, when this is the only way to win the debate? the essense of the debate after all is about the morality of torturing Bob v letting untold numbers be raped tortured and killed. who cares if he sometimes lies or gives wrong information? we torture for the times that he has given accruate inforamtion. we could decide he's a to a point where he is psyhologically etc incapable of anyting accurate... we'd decide the genuineness on the specifics of his case. more than likely, he'd be able to give accruate right information at least for awhile... and that is all that matters, at least for awhile. how is it better to "raise awareness" etc, when that scenario is unlikely to produce results? that would be a huge use of resources... with very minimal if any results, not a "real" possiblity of results. torture is simple and doesn't use many resources... and has a very real possiblity of producing results. if it's likely he knows the info, and ther's a decent chance he will give it... he's negate our respect to not torture etc. comapred to the resource uses given, torture is the easiest and most probably effective option. even if Bob was insane... but has the info and won't disclose it... we should torture him. of course, if it seems he's incapable of disclosing it, we could take that into consideration... but we're assuming the natural course that he seems capable of disclosing it. if he knows and won't disclsoe and is able to disclose but won't.... that's reason enough, regardless of inherent worth consdierations of respecting those who are mentally ill. it's like i give a hypotehical that is straight forward and someone comes and says all kinds of things unrelated to the case. law schools or court rooms they call this "assuming facts that aren't there". at least if you had soemthing ebside facts that aren't there... it'd be more excusiable. you continue questioning if he knows or not. there is only a theoretical or very very slight possiblity that he does not know. all i can do is repeat what i said... there is a theoretical possiblity that Bob does nto know the future acts. but, for effective purposes, he has shown that he does know. espeically if he says he knows, also. effective reality, this is enough to justify torturing him. we might decide when or if to stop on a case by case basis. but the odds are way too high that he does know, to not torture him. for effective purposes. therefore you cannot state unequivically... as you did... that it would not be useful to torture him. it might be, and the probabilities are way too high to ignore. at the end of hte day con just wants to find all kids of ways to distract... from something akin to admitting that it's better to let untold numbers be raped tortured and killed, than it is to torture someone, and expanding how this is right. at the very least argue "even if we could get teh info and somehow knew we could..." etc etc. but con knows that it's immoral to allow these things, and would rather use distractions as arguments.