These things can always be reduced to a personal emotional level (imagine it was you, or imagine it was your...), but it's worth asking if a supposedly civilised society should be operated on the basis of every individual's personal emotions? It would be chaos. At some point a society must decide collectively on what it considers to be a civilised culture, and then it must live by that decision, or collectively change it. The decision about torture not belonging in a civilised society was made long ago in western society, and the general consensus has not changed as far as I can tell.

Now, as to the point of threatening torture, well, I have no qualms at all about lying to a suspect to get information.

>Here in Frankfurt a not so far in the past was a case of an abducted child. Police only threatened the kidnapper with "torture" to get an idea where the kid was, not knowing if he was alive. The kidnapper showed them where the dead body was.
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>There is still some legal wrangling over all this (the interviewer stood by his decision and had to go, the kidnapper i AFAIK is still mounting legal proceedings) and I know that there are a few imaginable other situations:
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>The kidnapper being "tortured" and they find the kid alive
>The kidnapper being "tortured" and keeping quit
>Somebody innocent being tortured and having no idea where to send them to find the kid
>
>Now imagine it would have been your kid.
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>>Sure, tickle his feet all you want, but don't start ripping out his nails. The truth is that torture has been shown over and over to be an unreliable method of obtaining valid information. It says more about the torturer than the victim afaic.
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