[lit-ideas] Re: Is torture wrong by definition?

  • From: Eric <eyost1132@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 13:10:22 -0400

Omar to Donal: *You "suggest," but you don't make an argument that things cannot be wrong by definition. You are merely assuming that the others are supposed to agree with you from some undefined reason.

Eric: I thought I made a fairly obvious argument that torture was not wrong "by definition."

For something to be wrong "by definition," I am assuming you mean "essentially morally wrong," i.e., that all occurrences are wrong. Further, I am assuming that you mean something like, "torture, because it deprives an individual of their volition and dignity, and also causes them temporary and sometimes permanent suffering, is always wrong."

*If you believe that killing is sometimes justified (as you seem to do in the case of national self-defense) then, in your view, killing is not wrong "by definition."

*Killing is worse than torture. The damage it inflicts on the individual is permanent and total. The damage torture inflicts is partial and usually temporary.

*If killing is not wrong by definition, then torture cannot be wrong by definition.

As I said in my first post, there are many arguments against torture. One powerful argument is that the institutionalization of torture may be worse than any particular act of torture. But I don't see how an absolute argument against torture can be consistent with the view that killing is sometimes justified.


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