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PaperclipPerfector  7d ago (text post)   31363 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 14, 2025

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"Worse" is a confusing term in this context. There is a sense in which being killed is "a worse fate" than being tortured - but torturing someone is a worse thing to do, and a worse thing for a society to condone. I can respect someone who's killed a man, even if I didn't approve of his actions. I couldn't really, fundamentally respect a torturer even if he'd committed torture as part of some trolley-problem with a terrorist and a ticking time-bomb with which I could find no logical fault. By the same logic, I do not want to be part of a society, or indeed, if at all possible, species, which condones torture as punishment, ever, for any reason.

I do not think it wise to empower the state to torture people, but that's not because nobody deserves to be tortured.

My post was intended to be agnostic on the question of whether some people abstractly 'deserve' to be tortured. What I am sayng, what feel in my gut, is that the act of torturing is wrong. Not just "a power we shouldn't give to the state" - wrong. Torture is depraved, an act which stains anyone who commits it. "This sinner deserves Hell", even if it's true, is no excuse to become the Devil yourself.

(I am also against the death penalty for the same reason. But my moral sentiment that killing is wrong is nothing next to my burning certainty than torture is wrong, wrong, WRONG.)

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