Backpedaling

***QUOTE***

Jim Lippard said:

Steve:

Your post is a bit heavy on the ad hominem and you have drawn inferences about my position and circumstances that aren't based on what I actually wrote. If you read the comments on my original post at the Secular Outpost, you'll see that my own answer to the survey question is "rarely" rather than "never."

So, to address your points in order, your claim in (i) that I assume without argument that torture is always wrong is mistaken. I neither said nor implied that--the most you can infer from what I wrote is that leaning in favor of widespread use of torture is less moral than opposition to most use of torture. For the record, I do think that torture is prima facie wrong, and as a public policy matter should be prohibited across the board. There are possible circumstances where the use of torture to obtain information may be the best possible course of action on utilitarian grounds, just as there are possible circumstances where murder or cannibalism may be the best possible course of action--but I don't think that calls for a revision of public policy to have anything other than an absolute prohibition on them. There is always the necessity defense in a court of law. I happen to think that the U.S. should abide by the 8th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the Geneva Conventions, and UN Convention Against Torture (UNCAT) which the U.S. Senate ratified in 1994. What do you think?

In response to (ii), I agree that there are interrogation techniques that fall short of torture, which also have the added benefit of being more reliable--recipients of torture tend to say what they think their torturers want to hear. You say I don't bring my critical thinking skills to bear on a topic that I didn't even discuss.

In response to (iii), again you've fabricated a position for me to disagree with (i.e., you've engaged in the straw man fallacy). My actual position is that those who fall on the end of the spectrum of endorsing widespread use of torture are less moral than those who fall on the end of the spectrum of opposing most or all uses of torture. Likewise for murder.
3/25/2006 11:38 AM
Jim Lippard said:

To bring home a more specific example--Bush administration advisor John Yoo (who, along with Alberto Gonzales, was the primary architect of the Bush administration's position on torture) has said that the president has the authority to order that the child of a terrorist be tortured, by crushing his testicles, in order to get the terrorist to talk.

Do you think that such an action could be moral? I don't, and I think it not only should be but is illegal as well (I strongly disagree with the "unitary executive" arguments for expansive presidential powers that seem to have completely lost sight of the fact that the judiciary and legislature are supposed to have equal weight to the executive branch).

Also, you stated as a premise in your argument to the erroneous conclusion that I'm "intellectually isolated" in the sense of not having any non-like-minded friends that I have posted "many ill-informed or ill-reasoned posts." Which posts are you referring to, can you point out a few of the many, and possibly explain why you characterize them as such?

Finally, why didn't you link to the post on the Secular Outpost you are responding to? That reduced the likelihood that I (or other Secular Outpost readers) would see your comment. Fortunately, Sean Choi pointed it out, encouraging some cross-blog and cross-worldview interaction, which I welcome.

***END-QUOTE***

Let’s respond in order of importance, from the most trivial to the most serious.

i) I don’t hyperlink because I’m a Mac-user who employs Safari, a browser which Blogger doesn’t support when it comes to certain html-type refinements.

ii) As to intellectual isolation, Lippard’s own blog is rich with caricatures of those with whom he disagrees.

iii) As to the ad hominem charge, I chose to partly pitch my response at Lippard’s own level. His post was an ad hominem smear against Christians.

iv) Which brings us to the straw man charge. After he was challenged in the combox, he began to backpedal and caveat his position in various ways.

The inferences I drew from his original post were not a straw man argument. Rather, since, in his original post, he elected to stake out an unqualified claim, I drew the inferences which follow from the unqualified terms in which he himself chose to frame the issue.

v) But this presents a dilemma for Lippard. The reason his original post was so unqualified is that he needed to cast it in utterly simplistic terms to make it a successful hit-piece against Christians.

For as soon as he begins to admit to certain moral ambiguities and exceptions and borderline cases, the smear job loses its simplistic impact.

All that aside, since Lippard has now mounted a substantive reply, let’s run back through the substantive material:

“For the record, I do think that torture is prima facie wrong, and as a public policy matter should be prohibited across the board. There are possible circumstances where the use of torture to obtain information may be the best possible course of action on utilitarian grounds, just as there are possible circumstances where murder or cannibalism may be the best possible course of action--but I don't think that calls for a revision of public policy to have anything other than an absolute prohibition on them.”

i) Lippard fails to define “torture.”

ii) His position is a moral and legal muddle. He seems to believe that torture can be justified under certain circumstances, but even so, that it should be illegal. This doesn’t make any sense.

If there are licit exceptions, why should these exceptions not be codified?

iii) Whether “torture” is ever licit is, in my opinion, a qualitative rather than quantitative question. So I reject the way in which the question was framed.

iv) The fact that he also thinks that murder or cannibalism may be justified under certain circumstances sheds a very revealing light on secular ethics (pardon the oxymoron).

Given his outlook, who would you rather have with you in a lifeboat, James Lippard or Franklin Graham?

“ There is always the necessity defense in a court of law. I happen to think that the U.S. should abide by the 8th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the Geneva Conventions, and UN Convention Against Torture (UNCAT) which the U.S. Senate ratified in 1994. What do you think?”

i) I’m not a lawyer, and even if I were a lawyer, that would not automatically make me a legal expert on the relevant area of law.

ii) I believe that laws ought to exist to protect the innocent from those who would do them harm. If we have laws which impede that function, they need to be repealed.

iii) As far as Constitutional law is concerned, I subscribe to original intent.

iv) The rationale behind the Geneva Conventions is that we will treat your POWs with respect if you treat our POWs with respect. If one party to the contract fails to keep up its end of the bargain, then the original rationale is moot.

v) This doesn’t mean that we should abuse detainees simply because we can. But those who don’t play by the laws of warfare are not entitled to its protections.

vi) The US should pull out of the UN.

vii) I don’t object to the idea of international treaties governing basic human rights.

“In response to (ii), I agree that there are interrogation techniques that fall short of torture, which also have the added benefit of being more reliable--recipients of torture tend to say what they think their torturers want to hear. You say I don't bring my critical thinking skills to bear on a topic that I didn't even discuss.”

i) You didn’t discuss the moral and practical nuances because you wanted to do a hatchet job on Christians, and nuance would get in the way.

ii) Reliability is a necessary (though insufficient) criterion.

“In response to (iii), again you've fabricated a position for me to disagree with (i.e., you've engaged in the straw man fallacy). My actual position is that those who fall on the end of the spectrum of endorsing widespread use of torture are less moral than those who fall on the end of the spectrum of opposing most or all uses of torture. Likewise for murder.

i) You mean your ex post facto position, after you were called on your cheat shot.

ii) That’s the easy way out. The hard-cases are never at the extreme end of the spectrum. Rather, it’s the borderline cases that present the hard-cases.

“To bring home a more specific example--Bush administration advisor John Yoo (who, along with Alberto Gonzales, was the primary architect of the Bush administration's position on torture) has said that the president has the authority to order that the child of a terrorist be tortured, by crushing his testicles, in order to get the terrorist to talk.”

Do you think that such an action could be moral?”

No, I don’t.

“I don't, and I think it not only should be but is illegal as well (I strongly disagree with the "unitary executive" arguments for expansive presidential powers that seem to have completely lost sight of the fact that the judiciary and legislature are supposed to have equal weight to the executive branch).”

Once again, I’m not qualified to comment on all the legal technicalities. However:

i) I notice that those who think that the judiciary should function as a check on the executive don’t seem to think there should be any check on the judiciary itself.

ii) There’s a difference between what is morally wrong and what is legally wrong. A common tactic, used here, is to taint a Bush official with the opprobrium of a morally odious example when he is merely offering a legal opinion.

Now to ask you a question: what is your case for secular ethics? What is your source and standard of moral norms?