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Oh i didn’t mention, this charrie in question is not a MC.
oh, sorry everybody, i didn’t know i was supposed to intro firstXP Sorry….
Oh dear, I do believe i have frightened everybody off… xP
@Littlebrowndog It’s fine you posted here first. 😉
Also, I think someone said it but I’m not sure who…a ‘good’ character could use torture without you promoting it. Perhaps he’s really angry when he uses it; or maybe he matures more later on or becomes a Christian and then he realizes it might not have been the best thing to do (assuming we end up coming to a decision here).
INTJ - Inhumane. No-feelings. Terrible. Judgment and doom on everyone.
ok thank you @hope . The problem sort of arose because he originally had one character arc where he became a traitor, but then his author (me of course :P) changed it and he eventually became a more likable character. But the event of his interrogation of Piper was a bit of a catalyst for some of the plot and the character arcs…
You didn’t scare me away. I just had to eat dinner. 😛
It sounds like you’ve done a good job of having this be a story element, @howlingwolf, but not promoting it. That’s perfectly fine. In fact that can actually be a very good thing, as it forces the reader to stop and think about these things. And that’s always good.
I think it’s safe to say torture is not to be promoted, but as with all things of this nature, that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be considered a valid story element.
Define the terms.
What qualifies as torture?
D’yknow, whipping is actually a pretty common one. Romans used it. I’m fairly certain we’d all agree on that. And…Jesus did too. Soundly whipped all those in the Temple, disgracing it. Perhaps not in the same manner the Romans did, but the idea behind it was the same.
I’ll need to double check again for the next example, but there was a king in Canaan who, when he captured enemy kings, he would chop off their thumbs and big toes, and have them grovel on the floor of his banquet hall. When he was defeated by Israel, the same thing was done to him. Seems pretty tortuous.
Agag, king of the Amalikiets, in 1 Samuel, he was captured by Saul. Saul was supposed to kill him, but didn’t. Samuel came and “hacked him to pieces”. For some reason, the words “hacked” and “pieces” do not make me think of a very peaceful, and painless death. Just a gut feeling I’ve got.
What I’m saying is, what do you qualify as torture? The simple inflicting of pain? That wouldn’t make much sense. But then where do you draw the line? ‘Course, the Spanish Inquisition /tried/ to make it all right (don’t spill a drop of blood), but that didn’t turn out too well. (I’ve always felt the prisoners actually would have been happier without that rule…)
Really, I don’t have much more to say. It’s a very…vague question. One of those things that can mean many different things, to many different people.
In other words…I doubt there’s a hard and fast rule.
Inflicting severe pain to make someone do or say something is the def. We’re not talking about punishments.
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Well, this is quite the topic. Haven’t really thought too much about it before.
I agree there’s a definite difference between torture and punishments. Torture = physical pain to gain information or otherwise make someone do something. It presumably has nothing to do with whether or not they did something wrong.
My first inclination is to say no here. It seems like using physical mistreatment for your own gain, even if it’s for a good cause. But David’s terrorist example was a thought-provoking one.
Not sure on this one. Have to think about it some more.
There’s a difference?
By definition, the use of torture /is/ a punishment. For the withholding of information in this case, or the causing of innocent people to die through negligence.
In principle, the two matters /shouldn’t/ be different. Consider the terrorist example. Contrast it to the examples of ‘punishment’. The terrorist is being punished for the allowing of innocents to die, whereas the others were being punished for active acts they committed.
What I’m saying is, if you’re allowing the one, it makes sense to include the other. You can’t separate the two. Why is hurting another human being justifiable if done in the law under /one/ circumstance, but not under another?
@Ezra-Wilkinson— the difference between torture and punishment is this. If you commit a crime, you are dealt some painful consequence of that crime to teach you not to commit that crime again. Once you have received that punishment and paid, presumably, for your wrongdoing, you are free to go and need not face any consequence again unless you commit a crime again.
Whereas with torture, the person has committed no crime except opposing you in a war or in some other militaristic organization, which in itself is not a crime. If you’re going to say that’s a crime, by your own definition you also are a criminal.
So torture is the undeserved infliction of pain to force someone who has committed no real sin other than devotion to his own cause to give up information you need.
Therein lies it’s injustice.Does that make sense?
It makes sense, but it seems to me like we’re redefining the parameters as to why it would be wrong or right. (As a note, I’m very much being devil’s advocate, as I don’t have an opinion on this really.)
When I quickly scan through the first few pages, we’re not assuming that the person is innocent. As in the terrorist example. We know they’re guilty of something. Perhaps not according to the justice systems our courts have set up right now, but according to the moral law, yes they are guilty. Sin is not just an action, it can be lack of action to. Failing to take the necessary action to help someone, is not much better than doing it yourself…as laid out in the Pentatuch.
If you’re going to say we’re torturing someone innocent, then we’re dealing with an entirely different moral issue: The wrongful taking and placing under the law of someone who is innocent. It’d be just as wrong to throw them in jail.
If you go the prisoner of war route, again, it becomes a case by case basis. Perhaps a common soldier may be innocent as you say it. But what if you capture a general who knows information about how you could save innocent people from being killed by his faction? Is torture OK then?
The question, as I see it, lies heavily on the idea of what are you morally allowed to do to someone? And then, in what cases does this change?
Hey, you raise some good points there, Ezra.
Let’s try this then. Suppose we take someone who is by definition a wrongdoer— a terrorist, for instance, or some general who has committed mass atrocities— unquestionably outside the bounds of what is acceptable in war. Someone like Hitler.
They deserve death. By every definition, they are guilty of sin, and by the law of justice and by God’s laws (which are always just) they ought to die.
In these circumstances, if torture will save lives, I am going to say I think it’s acceptable. The person you are torturing deserves to die, and by torturing this person you will save many, many lives.
But if torture will profit nothing (I’m don’t belong to the Spanish Inquisition, so I don’t believe it will purify a sinner’s soul. Ugh) then I would say just kill the person quickly and cleanly, otherwise torture becomes pure vengeance.As to what you are morally allowed to do to a person, I think the question is rather broad and greyish.
This notion of no cruel or unusual punishments is a fairly modern idea, after all.
I would call stoning cruel and unusual. I would call beating cruel. I would call burning with fire cruel. I would call ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’ cruel. But all these are Biblical principles as pertains to the law.An argument i’ve often seen used is that Is one person’s life and dignity worth the same as a 100 peoples’ lives? As a writer, I’m often inclined to say that 100 people are worth more, but then when using torture there’s the problem of lying. So it really is a super complex questionXP Because what is going to stop the theoretical terrorist from simply saying what his questioners what to hear, just to stop the pain? So the method is often simply ineffective…
Someone brought up the Inquisition as an example (this is one of favorite time periods to study, please dont think I’m crazyxP). But often, innocents where tortured in inquisition prisons and ended up confessing to things that they’d never done.
Or during the Bamberg witch trials in 1700-something, Johannes Junius was tortured into confessing he was a “witch” after being accused by several other who’d also been tortured. In a letter he later wrote before his death, he told his daughter that he’d simply confessed so that his torturers would stop.Amazing how this topic became a cool moral discussion!:P
Yeah, that tends to happen around here. 😀
You raise good points, @howlingwolf. But the question here is not whether or not torture can be faulty, but is it even an acceptable practice, whatever it’s faults.
I certainly grant you there are problems with the system. 😛
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