[lit-ideas] Re: Is torture wrong by definition?
- From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2006 07:25:32 -0700 (PDT)
I was a bit busy these days so I could not respond to
Mr. McEvoy's previous batch of philosophical
reflections. Fortunately, he repeats himself, as is
his wont:
> The post pointed out that the _persistent_ demand
> for definitions in order to
> to establish meaning is _logically incoherent_
> because it leads
> (logically/inevitably) to either an (unsatisfactory)
> infinite regress or
> circularity. You fail to challenge, or perhaps even
> understand, this.
*The Amago post, which you don't seem to have
understood, was making a point that it is not always
necessary to define every term, because language has
clear enough meanings for most terms. If it didn't,
language communication would not be possible. Your
wising about infinite regress or circularity was
anyway irrelevant to the issues in this debate, since
nobody was questioning the possibility of defining
torture or murder. Torture is defined as:
"Infliction of severe physical pain as a means of
punishment or coercion." Or, in some more detail:
Especially, severe pain inflicted judicially, either
as punishment for a crime, or for the purpose of
extorting a confession from an accused person, as by
water or fire, by the boot or thumbkin, or by the rack
or wheel.
Please point out which of the terms involved in this
definition are circular, and which are problematic so
as to require further clarification and thus lead to
infinite regress.
> The last point you make on behalf of OK may be
> alright if we water-down his
> thesis - but so watered-down it has nothing to do
> with definitions being
> integral to meaning and so does not attack my attack
> on the idea that
> something _substantive_ can be proved _by
> definition_.
*Right. Next some time someone shows me a donkey cart
and claims that it is a space-ship, I guess that I
should answer: "Well, it depends on your definition of
space-ship."
Please understand: "torture" is _at best_ a necessary
evil (in my
view,
> anyway).
*How is this different from the view I was expressing
?
>
> But I do not think the serious fight against
violence and suffering
is
helped
> by saying that these, or even "torture", are wrong
_by definition_;
and I
> still suggest it is wrong to say that they are
wrong _by
definition_.
*Your objection seems to be a pedantic one to my use
of "by definition." No, the logical definition of
torture does not say whether it is right or wrong, but
intuitive moral opprobrium attaches to the concept.
Further, this is reflected in linguistic usage, as to
talk about justified torture (of justified murder, or
justified rape) seems to violate the rules of normal
discourse. My earlier use of the expression "by
definition" was merely a shortcut for saying this, as
anyone who is not obsessed with formal logic would
immediately have understood.
O.K.
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