![\"Debate\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/572\/2015\/01\/Debate.png\")
<\/a><\/div>\n\u00a0[Wikipedia<\/a> \/Creative Commons<\/a>\u00a0Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0<\/a>\u00a0license]<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Apparently, KSM [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] went through 5 waterboarding sessions, which consisted of 183 \u201cspills\u201d of water. I could be wrong about this, by the way. But that\u2019s the way I understand it.<\/p>\n Having said that, couldn\u2019t someone respond this way, \u201cThe fact that he went through 183 spills means that it wasn\u2019t torture to him<\/b>. That is, a successful waterboarding is the result of the prisoner believing he could drown based on the sensations he is experiencing. But someone who is mentally tough could overcome those sensations by what he knows to be true, that in fact he is not drowning.\u201d<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n I did not merely<\/i> say \u201cThe fact that he went through 183 spills means that it wasn\u2019t torture to him.\u201d I said that \u201csomeone could say that,\u201d which means that \u201csomeone,\u201d and not necessarily me, \u201ccould say that.\u201d . . . that\u2019s what philosophers do, they think about stuff by suggesting different conceptual schemes. They don\u2019t just uncritically repeat the talking points of Moveon.org or Human Events<\/i> as if they were gospel.<\/p>\n . . . you see what\u2019s going on here. If anyone wants to think about this stuff, they are shouted down by extracting their words out of context and offering loaded questions in order to imply bad faith.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Yes. Someone could. In fact, someone has: it\u2019s been a standard talking point of the Rubber Hose Right since Limbaugh first proposed it for mass consumption by dittoheads a week or so ago. <\/span><\/p>\n Of course, it\u2019s an argument of almost preternatural stupidity. But still, you are right: someone could respond with it and lots of people are either born stupid or working hard to achieve stupidity by force of will.<\/span> ***<\/p>\n Fellow philosopher Edward Feser:<\/p>\n
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\nYou see, in torture sessions, it\u2019s not the victim<\/i> who decides how many times he will be tortured. It\u2019s the torturer. You might as well say that since a woman was gang raped multiple times, that means it wasn\u2019t rape to her<\/b>.<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\nBlackadder\u2019s right, Dr. Beckwith. Listen to him. Instead of merely proposing preternaturally stupid responses as hypotheticals, go all the way and analyze why they are preternaturally stupid. Philosophy is, after all, about the love of wisdom.<\/span><\/p>\n
Yes, Frank, only preternatual stupidity or a Cafeteria Catholic Bush-worshipping Ay-rab -hating Dittohead desire to shill for the Rubber Hose Right could possibly<\/i> (or, to be excessively charitable, at least plausibly<\/i>) motivate anyone even to raise conceptual questions about what constitutes torture. So, come on now, listen to your moral betters, then go see your confessor ASAP, OK?<\/span><\/p>\n
I mean, as I noted in an earlier post, it\u2019s all just so obvious<\/i>, right? Nothing more need be said!<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
***<\/p>\n
I\u2019m sorry, but I cannot teach music to the tone deaf or art appreciation to the blind. If the gang rape analogy could not alert you to the problem of Dr. Beckwith\u2019s hypothetical response, no mortal power can put in what God has left out of your critical faculties.<\/span><\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
For myself, I have tended to confine my examples of torture to what is unambiguously torture (waterboarding, freezing prisoners, strappado). Of course, there are grey areas where seemingly innocuous things can<\/i> be used for torture (and have been). But since the Makers of Fine Distinctions are so eager to always pretend that such grey areas are proof we do not torture, I have tended not to bother with them.<\/span><\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
I\u2019m attempting to say that a man who is actually tortured and a woman who is actually gang-raped are both at the mercy of the people who are torturing and gang-raping them. The fact that these evil acts are perpetrated against them multiple times is no proof at all that it is not torture or rape to them<\/b>. To say that it is evidence of this is preternaturally stupid. To mention that \u201csomebody\u201d might say it, without noting the preternatural stupidity of the argument is not what I would call an optimal exercise of the vocation of \u201cphilosopher\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
As I have already noted, the 183 number is highly misleading.<\/p>\n
No. What\u2019s misleading is the claim the 183 acts of torture become five acts of torture if you cluster the 183 acts into groups of five. <\/span><\/p>\n
But that, of course, does not have any effect on the judgment as to whether the act itself is torture.<\/p>\n
I actually had not heard Limbaugh\u2019s comments on this matter. (I really don\u2019t remember the last time I listened to his radio show). I thought of the fictional comments all by my lonesome. That\u2019s what we philosophers tend to do. It is not our first thought to reach for the rubber hose remark.<\/p>\n
But, of course, it should not matter who <\/i>says this or that. What should matter is whether one has a good or bad argument, whether one has carefully thought through the issue in question.<\/p>\n
Yes. And that\u2019s what I addressed: the fact that your (or \u201csomebody\u2019s\u201d) argument was extraordinarily bad. <\/span><\/p>\n
As I have said on numerous posts, I carry no brief for torture. I think, as the Church teaches, that torture is intrinsically evil.<\/p>\n
Good. <\/span><\/p>\n
There are, of course, clear cut cases of torture. And there are, of course, clear cut cases of non-torture. But there are, whether we like it or not, borderline cases whose intrinsic evil a reasonable and well-informed person may call into question.<\/p>\n
The old \u201cWhat O What is<\/i> Torture?\u201d gambit. I can answer that in this case. Forcing somebody to undergo simulated drowning once, much less 183 times, is a clearcut case of torture, not a \u201cborderline case\u201d. Attempting to argue to the contrary is sophistry. <\/span><\/p>\nAlthough I understand Mr. Shea\u2019s passion, and indeed respect the tenacity he employs in making his case, I cannot help but think that his pious pose and profane prose do little in reminding his listeners that he is an advocate for the good, the true, and the beautiful.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n1. just because Rush Limbaugh says something doesn\u2019t make it wrong.<\/div>\n<\/div>\nTrue. Which is why I never said so. I merely noted that \u201csomebody\u201d has in fact made the point you are making and that lots of other somebody have been repeating it.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n2. a sneer is not a rebuttal.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
Consider this example. The Church teaches that active euthanasia is intrinsically immoral, including some acts of withholding treatment that lead to death. On the other hand, there are acts of withholding treatment that lead to death that are not intrinsically immoral. So, if someone were to simply employ colorful pejoratives to distract us from the serious work of thinking carefully and cautiously about these borderline cases\u2013e.g., \u201ckiller,\u201d \u201crubber hose right,\u201d\u2013that someone would be planting the seeds of intellectual vice into his listeners. He would be providing the occasion for a person to harm his own soul.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
Mark is boxing with phantoms in his own mind. I\u2019m not defending torture. Never have; never will. What I am defending is thinking rather than emoting and demagoguing.<\/p>\n
A few things to remember:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Correct. This<\/i> is a rebuttal:<\/span><\/p>\n