[lit-ideas] Re: Is torture wrong by definition?
- From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2006 09:59:12 -0400
I'm not sure I agree. People sometimes take the same word and talk past
each other with it. Success, for example, might be one thing to me and
another to you. We might think we're disagreeing when in fact we're
talking about different things. Sometimes people use a word not knowing
themselves what it means. It makes thinking fuzzy and discourse difficult
if there is no agreement or clear understanding of terms. Anything can be
overused, it's true. I wondered myself where in the definition of killing
one finds the word wrong. If one says by definition, one needs to look in
the dictionary and see it defined that way.
> [Original Message]
> From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: 4/4/2006 9:29:58 AM
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Is torture wrong by definition?
>
>
>
> Is anything wrong _by definition_? Only, I suggest, a definition can be
wrong
> by way of a definition - and even here the definition is just a
stipulation
> that we are not compelled to accept - it being a mere convention as to the
> permissible use of words.
>
> Of course 'ordinary language' is occasionally littered with expressions
like
> 'By definition it is clear that...', 'It is a contradiction-in-terms to
> suggest that...', 'The only logical conclusion given the terms of the
> debate..'. Insofar as such expressions, and others, are attempts to win an
> argument by (covert or overt) appeal to a definition, no deviation from
which
> is logically permissible, they are another muddled aspect of ordinary
usage
> or commonsense - which after all frequently abuses the appeal to 'logic'
(eg.
> 'The only logical to do is x) when logic can only strictly decide points
of
> logic and not between proposals as to what we ought or ought not to do.
>
> Here is a possible example of a genuine contradiction (provided we
> interpolate the parenthetical words): "...I think that killing humans is
> also wrong by definition, i.e. in itself (and no matter what the
> circumstances). It might be
> justified only in special circumstances when
> committing the wrong would prevent a greater wrong."
> It is not a contradiction if we read Omar as saying merely: "I think
killing
> is, on the face of it, wrong - unless someone shows special circumstances
> that justify it."
> But then, to me at least, it is hard to see how this position is not
merely
> "a purely semantic distinction" away from LK's position that whether
killing
> is wrong depends entirely on the context (say, on the existence or
> non-existence of "special circumstances").
>
> It is a separate point entirely whether we put the burden on the killer to
> justify his killing (which seems sensible) or on ourselves to show the
> killing is unjustified; but even here I doubt there would be much
practical
> difference given that, even if we placed the theoretical burden on
ourselves
> to show the killing was unjustified, our moral intuitions/instincts would
_in
> most ordinary circumstances_ guide us to often find that burden easily
> discharged (eg. when someone went up and shot a stranger in the street).
>
> The use and abuse of so-called 'definitional' or 'logical' arguments does
not
> clarify debate on these matters and is, I suggest, best avoided.
>
> Eric wrote:-
> > If not all killing is essentially morally wrong,
> > how can all torture be essentially morally wrong,
> > since killing is worse for people than torture?
>
> For what it's worth, I can easily imagine circumstances where inflicting
> great pain on an individual to get them to give information might be
> justified (admittedly, this may be just a callousness on my part that has
> been inculcated by the examination-system). To deny this possibility by
way
> of definition, by saying that if justified such pain-infliction could not
_by
> definition_ be torture, seems to me beside the point.
>
> > Of course, you can stumble across some torture
> > accounts while reading history, like some of the
> > things the Mongols did, that are just diabolically
> > awe-inspiring: all that human ingenuity going into
> > total sadism and cruelty.
>
> A moral philosopher might wish to theorise about the line to be drawn
where
> it would be better to kill someone [or be killed] without justification
than
> inflict pain [or suffer pain] without justification but without killing.
This
> is a reason why sometimes moral philosophy can lead into a swamp when it
> moves away from practical moral problems in the here-and-now to teasing
out
> some set of principles against extreme and unreal cases.
>
> Donal
> Somewhere near a swamp
> In England
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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