>>>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 civilized 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 civilized culture, and then it must live by that decision, or collectively change it. The decision about torture not belonging in a civilized society was made long ago in western society, and the general consensus has not changed as far as I can tell.
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>>>Now, as to the point of threatening torture, well, I have no qualms at all about lying to a suspect to get information.
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>>In order for a threat to have any value it has to have credibility. By explicitly stating up front what you will never do and where the boundaries are you give a tremendous advantage to the other side. this is true in military confrontation, business, pretty much anything.
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>>the whole point of not explicitly banning anything is to make those threats credible.
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>>As to 'society deciding collectively' ... I think it is more important that an individual decide personally what is important and what isn't. I am not convinced consensus is, per-se, wisdom.
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>It may not be. But isn't the notion of everyone deciding individually what justice is a step in the direction of anarchy? Collective laws came about because individual ones weren't working.
Yes, but moral choices are ultimately personal choices. Collective law, collective action, collective responsibility were offered in defense at Nuremberg as well.
Making a choice to do or not do something based on an internal compass is different than absolving oneself of responsibility by 'following orders'.
Of course, in most areas one is not a key player and not heavily invested, so it makes perfect sense to cooperate with the norm.
But occasionally at key moments it is possible to be a in a position where one has a responsibility or a stake that requires a more personal analysis. I those cases it is more difficult - but in my opinion more laudable - to use one's own judgment.
Charles Hankey
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
- Thomas Hardy
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
-- T. S. Eliot
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
- Ben Franklin
Pardon him, Theodotus. He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
