>>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.
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>There is again one of those wonderful laws, that in case of clear and direct danger some borders can be crossed - but as the kid was dead it did not fall into that category.
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>But if the living kid was locked on rails with an unstoppable train approaching, some torture would have been allowed to get the lock combination. (IANAL, but that is my take on it here in germany)
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>My other question to Tracy was in earnest: is such an atitude only "excusable" in case of your own kids ?
>Or is the (hopefully) normal policeman the better role model, as he decides to "torture" even in the clear danger of losing his job or being convicted just on the hope to save the kid ?
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>The case on the kidnapper already was quite clear, so why protect the rights of the kidnapper as long there *might* be a chance of protecting the kids right to live ?
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>The "reduction" to personal level as means to deride it as contrapoint of "civilized society" is making me quesy. The rights of the kid are forgotten by "civilised society" mostly looking after the rights of the kidnapper in custody.

The way I see it, the laws are there to protect us all, not just the kidnapper. If he can be tortured, then so can anyone else even if the person being tortured has no information to give. How will you protect the rights of the innocent suspect if you don't have laws defining what is allowed and what is not?

If the policeman decides to commit torture knowing full well the consequences to his career of that action, then that is a personal decision he has to make. Afaic, those laws need to be in place. Breaking a law is a personal choice, but it cannot be expected to be condoned by a society that created that law in the first place.