Mark: Good job.
Since some of the "amusing results" you quote mention me, I'd just like to note that what they say is a lie. In fact, both in comboxes and on HMS, over the past year or however long it's been, I've made fairly detailed arguments about the texts of GS, VS, EV, the CCC, and the Compendium of Social Doctrine. I don't feel a need to repeat them ad nauseum when - in fact - it's the folks on the other side who've done little but assert baldly that they can't mean what they say because of what this would imply for their personal ecclesiologies.
Hi Mark,
Interesting reply. I understand your position a little better now, and I suspect that others were looking for this kind of concise treatment from you.
Since I haven't read probably anymore than a tenth of the 500 or so comments at Against the Grain, I don't know if the way you portray what you call "the more virulent Coalition for Fog types" is accurate or not. You wrote:
"[T]here is an interesting discussion to be had about the relationship of the Church's developed teaching on torture (i.e. it's intrinsically immoral) with the Church past though and practice. The same can be said for the Church's developed teaching on slavery and various other morail issues (including, even, abortion). The telling thing is how little actual interest the Coalition for Fog types have in actually engaging that question. That's because the mission is not finding out how to understand and obey the Church's moral teaching on torture. The mission is *refuting* that clearly stated moral teaching."
". . . driven by an agenda to try to liquidate John Paul's teaching."
". . . "Ignore JPII" agenda."
". . . all about winning a political fight against the teaching of John Paul rather than having an actual balanced discussion of the Magisterium."
"The sotto voce idea at work among the Coalition for Fog types is, at the end of the day, that we can basically ignore John Paul when he says that torture is intrinsically immoral."
". . . essentially denying it says what it says."
". . . simply trying to ignore John Paul."
". . . just like Catholics for a Free Choice, laboring to persuade Catholics to ignore that teaching using much the same sort of rhetorical trickery."
"The lunacy of that same group of people, and its supporters, now telling the Church she doesn't know what she's talking about when she teaches that torture is intrinsically immoral . . ."
I haven't seen this in my admittedly limited perusal of the 5000 (oops, 500) comments. Would you be able to point me to a few which flat-out state that we ought to "ignore John Paul II," etc.? I haven't seen it. If you could actually document that, then your point would be a lot more solid.
Even if you could produce some, the next obvious question is whether they are representative of the whole group that you are criticizing. I would like to see how these people respond to this charge (it seems many of them are banned from your blog; I've never banned a fellow Catholic from mine: one was temporarily but soon restored).
Are you saying that these people are "traditionalists"? Perhaps some of them are. I can't keep track of who is and who isn't. Too much to do. That would be a legitimate cause for suspicion as to their prior hostilty to JPII, and might explain a lot in this particular discussion. We've seen, after all, what radtrads think about ecumenism and how they often frown upon Vatican II and its counsel. JPII was nothing if not a man of Vatican II.
Also, I'm confused that you understand well my goal in working through the issue, yet I have agreed with Fr. Harrison, whom you seem to have dismissed to some extent. I also agree profoundly on this issue with Cardinal Dulles, and it is clear that you like him because you advertised his arrival in Seattle. perhaps you could clarify your remarks with regard to Fr. Harrison, since his position seems to be little different from Cardinal Dulles' viewpoint.
Bottom line is: people don't like to be put into a box. I suspect this may be happening on both sides of this debate, including by yourself in more than a few instances. We can't judge people with a "group mentality" approach as if they all fit into a cookie-cutter pattern predetermined by the one doing the critiquing.
I've often been subject to that; I'm sure you have, too, so I would urge all parties concerned to avoid doing that, and stereotyping and caricaturing other opinions. You were quite fair with me. But that may be due to the fact that we know each other a bit and have met. I think you could, with all due respect, do better with some of these other folks, in how you characterize their opinions, and they could also do better in how they represent your own.
Your present post -- apart from the judgments I have cited, on which I reserve judgment until I see documentation -- is constructive, I think, and shows a better way to discuss the issue.
Thanks for hearing me out, and again, for fairly treating my stated opinions even when I gave you somewhat of a hard time.
Dave Armstrong
Maybe one day you will realize that many of those you are disagreeing with couldn't care less about the politics of the torture debate (Especially since these base political accusations seem to be such a large part of your argumentation) Perhaps you ought to ask yourself what other reasons faithful Catholics might have for seeking more subtlety in this issue.
Or are we all just, you know, apologists for Satan?
Iacobus:
My apologies for failing to address the each and every one of my readers individually. I do the best I can.
In answer to your question, if you are denying the teaching of the Church that torture is intrinsically immoral, then yes, whether you know it or not, you are an apologist for Satan. All depends on that "if".
Dave:
As you were writing your note, I was updating this entry. Please re-read it and let me know if I have answered you.
Mark:
RE: Past Torture
I am a dummy. I have no business getting into this area of the torture debate; but here goes. I am beginning to suspect that the reason there appears to be a disconnect in past and present Church teachings on torture is that we may be speaking about two different things.
Indeed what the Royal Spanish Inquisition defined as torture and what we moderns define as torture are very different. The Royal Spanish Inquisition limited torture to a single session of 15 minutes duration. During this session neither bone could be broken nor blood spilled. What is more the subject knew the time and force limitations. This took away a portion of the terror. Further a medical doctor had to be present during the session and he could stop it anytime during its 15-minutes. Compared to what is going on at GTMO this was pretty benign stuff.
Now why put so many limitations on torture in to the point that it no longer remains torture? Also having mellowed out torture to the point where it is now an irritation why retain it?
Back in the old days some of the veteran cops told us stories about how they used to deal with scions of powerful families who was in serious trouble. The young men just did not believe they was in trouble. They thought that their fathers could get them out of any problem. This time they were wrong but did not know it.
To bring them back to reality the cop would slap the young man in the face. This came as a severe shock to the young man. A blue collar guy had laid his hands on him in a very insulting manner. A lot of boundaries were crossed in a moment. Certain illusions disappeared very quickly.
I wonder if the torture used by the Royal Spanish Inquisition served the same purpose. We know that the Royal Spanish Inquisition went after the elite of society. We also know that the Judges normally dismissed testimony obtained under torture. Was torture used to bring a rich and powerful prisoner to reality? I have problems reading English never mind Spanish or Latin. Perhaps one of your readers who knows the relevant languages and the subject could shed some light on this matter.
God bless
Richard W. Comerford
Looking at Fr.Brian Harrison's articles on the subject (at http://www.rtforum.org/lt/lt119.html), I thought he cited a teaching from St. Alphonsus Ligouri that both gives a precise account of torture and a way of understanding current magisterial teaching on the subject. St. Alphonsus said that no-one may be tortured so severely that "it is morally impossible for him to endure" the pain. This teaching is both obviously right and decisive for the current debate. The U.S. is dealing with hardened terrorists who are willing to risk their lives, and the object of loosening interrogation regulations (as of shipping them off to Egpyt, etc., to be interrogated) is to get them to reveal information that is helpful to the cause they are devoted to, and that they are thus determined to keep secret. They are not in any way like Richard W. Comerford's scions of privileged families. The only way that physical abuse is going to do this is by inflicting pain on them that it is morally impossible for them to endure. This is the sort of pain that the administration's torture enthusiasts want to use - have used in the past (in e.g. waterboarding) - and want to make legally permissible. It is thus the sort of torture that is relevant to the current debate, and arguments about what would constitute it are evading the issue. Anyone who does not admit that this is so is not grasping (or not facing up to) reality. This evasion of reality is as Mark has rightly pointed out due to cowardice and lack of integrity. People, fearing terrorism, want the information that can be obtained by inflicting intolerable pain on terrorists, but they don't want to face up to the fact that that is what they are asking for. Mark, I am grateful to you for your principled stand on this issue.
Richard,
From the wikipedia article on the Spanish Inquisition:
"In order to interrogate the criminals, the Inquisition made use of torture, but not in a systematic way. It was applied mainly against those suspected of Judaism and Protestantism, beginning in the 16th century. For example, Lea estimates that between 1575 and 1610 the court of Toledo tortured approximately a third of those processed for heresy.[24] In other periods, the proportions varied remarkably. Torture was always a means to obtain the confession of the accused, not a punishment itself. It was applied without distinction of sex or age, including children and the aged.
The methods of torture most used by the Inquisition were garrucha, toca and the potro. The application of the garrucha, also known as the strappado, consisted of suspending the criminal from the ceiling by a pulley with weights tied to the ankles, with a series of lifts and drops, during which arms and legs suffered violent pulls and were sometimes dislocated.[25]. The toca, also called tortura del agua, consisted of introducing a cloth into the mouth of the victim, and forcing them to ingest water spilled from a jar so that they had impression of drowning.[26] The potro, the rack, was the instrument of torture used most frequently.[27]
The assertion that "confessionem esse veram, non factam vi tormentorum" (the confession was true and free) sometimes follows a description of how, presently after torture ended, the subject freely confessed to his offenses. [28]
Some of the torture methods attributed to the Spanish Inquisition were never used. For example, the "Iron Maiden" never existed in Spain, and was a post-Reformation invention of Germany. Thumbscrews on display in an English museum as Spanish were recently argued to be of English origin. The “Spanish Chair,” a device used to hold the victim while the soles of their feet were roasted, was certainly in existence in Spain during the period of the Inquisition. It is uncertain, however, whether it was in fact used.
Once the process concluded, the inquisidores met with a representative of the bishop and with the consultores, experts in theology or canon law, which was called the consulta de fe. The case was voted and sentence pronounced, which had to be unanimous. In case of discrepancies, the Suprema had to be informed."
Based on my reading of that summary, there is no way in hell you can conclude that "torture" during the Spanish Inquisition was not "torture" as we know it today. If anything, it's worse, since it's a hell of a lot worse than being led around by a leash (not to minimize that, but I'd rather take that than anything the Spanish did during the Inquisition).
Good point, Richard. Thanks.
Hi Mark,
I think you clarified your position vis-a-vis Fr. Harrison and Cardinal Dulles.
I'd still like to (since you asked!) see your reply to these things:
1) Documentation that your critics want to ignore JPII's (and the Church's) teaching.
2) [now after your revision]:
Documentation that your critics would adopt situational ethics with regard to torture, even as far as to say that what we could presumably all agree is torture based on Church teaching, is variable according to situation. I don't think they are saying that, from what I've seen (but that is my weakness in all this, because I haven't read all 500 comments), which is why I keep wanting to see documentation. I think they see it primarily as a matter of definition and of complexity that deserves closer attention.
3) Documentation that your critics are "traditionalists." [i.e., if you believe this; I don't know]
4) Some reasoning as to whether the critics you document (per 1-3 above) are representative of the whole of those who differ with you on this. [otherwise, treating them as some sort of sheep-like group of clones in their thinking is objectionable and non-factual]
"The Church's teaching is that torture is *always* wrong. Always. Without exception or excuse."
But this IS the discussion, because one has to determine exactly what John Paul II and the Church means (assuming it has authority that should be heeded, short of infallibility: I agree) in order to apply and follow the teaching.
So I don't see how the discussion could not be about the definition of "torture." Nor can I see how the past cannot be taken into account in interpreting John Paul II's comments. One has to understand how exactly he defined the word, within the overall framework of the Church's historic teaching, which he is not at liberty to reverse; only develop.
If we could definitively determine, e.g., that waterboarding falls under the "intrinsically immoral" description, then it could not be done, period. And if someone said an intrinsically immoral thing could be done, I would be in full agreement with you.
I don't believe that is what your critics are doing, however. I think they're saying that what they advocate doesn't fall under the category of acts that can never be morally done. If that's not the case, then surely you could easily document otherwise. Moral relativism and situational ethics are clearly forbidden in Catholic ethics.
Now, how do we determine what JPII had in mind, and harmonize it with past Church history? Cardinal Dulles made what I think is a plausible argument. He writes:
"In 1993, in his encyclical Veritatis Splendor, John Paul II took, from Vatican II’s pastoral constitution on the Church in the modern world, a long list of social evils: 'homicide, genocide, abortion, euthanasia and voluntary suicide . . . mutilation, physical and mental torture and attempts to coerce the spirit; whatever is offensive to human dignity, such as sub-human living conditions, arbitrary imprisonments, deportation, slavery, prostitution and trafficking in women and children; degrading conditions of work which treat laborers as mere instruments of profit, and not as free responsible persons.' Where Vatican II had called these practices 'shameful' (probra), John Paul II calls them “intrinsically evil.” In the same encyclical the pope teaches that intrinsically evil acts are prohibited always and everywhere, without any exception.
Did John Paul II, by including slavery in his list of social evils, effect the revolution in Catholic moral theology that Noonan attributes to him? It seems to me that if he had wanted to assert his position as definitive he would have had to say more clearly how he was defining slavery. He would have had to make it clear that he was rejecting the nuanced views of the biblical writers and Catholic theologians for so many past centuries. If any form of slavery could be justified under any conditions, slavery as such would not be, in the technical sense, intrinsically evil.
". . . If pressed, I suspect, the pope would have admitted the need for some qualifications, but he could not have specified these without a rather long excursus that would have been distracting in the framework of his encyclical. So far as I am aware, he never repeated his assertion that slavery is intrinsically evil. Neither the Catechism of the Catholic Church nor the recent Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, in their discussions of slavery, speaks so absolutely.
". . . Radical forms of slavery that deprive human beings of all personal rights are never morally permissible, but more or less moderate forms of subjection and servitude will always accompany the human condition.
". . . The Catechism of the Catholic Church, summarizing current Catholic doctrine, explains: 'The right to religious liberty is neither a moral license to adhere to error, nor a supposed right to error, but rather a natural right of the human person to civil liberty, i.e., immunity, within just limits, from external constraint in religious matters by political authorities.'
"Noonan, arguing the case for a reversal, overlooks these important qualifications. As a historian he might be expected to situate documents like the Syllabus of Errors in their historical context, as he fails to do. His own interpretation of Vatican II is curiously similar to that of the reactionary Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who went into schism because he thought of the council as a departure from the constant teaching the Church. While there has surely been a development of doctrine in this sphere, John Courtney Murray, one of Noonan’s heroes, ended a lengthy article on the subject with the judgment: 'The legitimate conclusion is that between Leo XIII and the Second Vatican Council there was an authentic development of doctrine in the sense of Vincent of Lerins, "an authentic progress, not a change of the faith."'
"The change in teaching might be called, in the language of John Paul II, a 'necessary and prudent adaptation.' . . . the principle of noncoercion of consciences in matters of faith remains constant."
http://www.firstthings.com/ftiss...ews/
dulles.html
Fr. Harrison gets more technical and speculative but argues similarly. It seems perfectly plausible to me (as one whose favorite theological topic is development of doctrine, who has web pages on both Cardinal Newman and development, and has written a book on the topic - albeit as yet unpublished).
I think with an understanding of factors such as these, the language of VS can be harmonized with past teachings.
But as to whether we have learned some things about power, corruption. psychology, and the dignity of the human person since Inquisition and Crusades times, absolutely, we have.
That said, I think there is a degree of coercion that is not "torture" as JPII defines it, which is morally permissible in the case of terrorists, etc. I haven't worked all that out in fine detail, but I think there is some room for acceptance of a degree of coercion that is not "torture."
It's actually logically required in VS itself by the analogy to slavery, since that is not intrinsically evil, yet it was included on JPII's list. So by analogy, it would seem to follow that he meant an unjust, immoral cruel form of slavery; therefore, an unjust, immoral, cruel form of torture that can never be performed.
Ergo: some milder forms of torture or coercion are permissible. They have been in the past by the Church and in police stations and certain unfortunate scenarios during wartime. And they still are. This takes care of the "difficulty," as far as I am concerned.
Re-reading Fr. Harrison's theological analysis of the subject (per Armstrong's recommmendation) it is worth noting the extent to which the criticisms raised by the "Coalition" reflect those of Fr. Harrison.
If Mark is tired of invectives and rancorous exchanges, he could easily forego accusations of "liquidating JPII's teaching" and practicing "rhetorical trickery," (the latter strongly reminiscent of Dale Vree's charge of "rhetorical witchcraft" -- do you really want to adopt this approach?) and opt to respond with clear, calm, point-by-point rebuttal of Fr. Brian Harrison's analysis of the texts as expressed here.
I think that would be beneficial to your readers and likely satisfy Dave Armstrong as well.
Considering that much of Harrison's conclusion is logically dependant - not only on his history - but also on the assertion that it's something like ecclesiologically impossible for the Church to have approved of something that turns out to be intrinsically evil (in effect, then, that when the Church, in what would otherwise be a non-infallible act, approves of action X, then this amounts to an infallible teaching that X is not intrinsically evil) - I'm not sure why a detailed response is necessary. "What is gratuitously asserted may be gratuitously denied."
As for the attempt (in Dulles also) to show that "torture" in VS can permissibly be read somewhat narrowly because, e.g., "slavery" can or must be - again, this seems gratuitous. The argument that if JPII had really meant to call all slavery intrinsically evil he'd have said more than he did is, specifically, a gratuitous argument from silence.
Besides, I think that CCC 2414 pretty clearly also teaches that slavery is intrinsically evil, even without using the word "intrinsically." For instance, it speaks of slavery as (apparently, directly) contrary to one of the Ten Commandments.
(I'd also question Dulles's reading of the teaching on religious liberty, but since that doesn't come up in the key passage from GS/VS/EV, I'll leave that for another time.)
A final point before I leave this discussion (I just don't have time to keep pursuing it). Let me note that one of the things that some of Mark's opponents have said is that the CCC (2297) defines "torture" as the use of violence only for certain specific purposes, and that therefore its use for other purposes - e.g., to extract life-saving information about a ticking bomb or whatever - isn't "torture" - and that GS/VS/etc. need to be read in this light.
But, let me note also that another tack they've taken is to argue that in general we can punish people for doing evil - including for doing evil by omission - and that failing to cough up information one has about (say) a "ticking bomb" is evil - therefore, we can punish people for that omission - including by inflicting pain.
But, going back to the CCC, one of the purposes that it does explicitly include in its definition of "torture" is ... punishment!
You know, its fascinating, all this going back to the Church doctors and fathers to discuss contemporary moral theological problems.
I seem to recall not nearly so much interest in, say, St. Thomas and St. Augustine when many were swearing up and down that we were in a brand new type of assymetrical war [tm] and the old analyses were of little use.
I mean there was the assertion that JPII and BXVI were artificially curtailing Church Just War Doctrine. Yet when Natural Law parameters for that doctrine were delimited--these were dismissed as anachronisms.
Sydney Carton:
Thank you for your kind reply.
I appreciate your cite from wikipedia. However I must question its Objectivity. Did you notice the citations were from moders anti Catholic bigots like: "Carrol. James, Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews: A History"? Where are teh primary documents? Some of the comments in the article were very anti Catholic.
As posted I am a dummy. I read neither Spanish nor Latin. I have problems with English. That said the few good translations of primary documenst from that period on this matter give a very different picture of the Spanish Inquisition. As you know here in the USA we were told for generations that the Spanish Inquisition murdere 90 million people. The with the introduction of the Internet someone realized that teh population of Sapin in the 16th Century was about 8 million; and all of Eurpoe about 80 million.
Now scholars, using primary documents, estimate that over the 350 year period of the Spanish Inquisition in the entire Spanish Empire about 2,000 to 5,000 people were handed over to the Civil Authority for the death penalty.
In my opinion we need some serious scholarship in this area by someone with a big brain who can read the original documents in Spanish and Latin.
God bless
Richard W. Comerford
John Lamont:
May I reply?
You posted in part: “The U.S. is dealing with hardened terrorists who are willing to risk their lives, and the object of loosening interrogation regulations (as of shipping them off to Egpyt, etc., to be interrogated) is to get them to reveal information that is helpful to the cause they are devoted to, and that they are thus determined to keep secret.”
I am a little confused. It appears that most of the prisoners at GTMO were not hardened terrorists when they arrived at GTMO. They were already prisoners in the hands of Afghanistan warlords before 9/11/01. The USA purchased them from the Afghanistan warlords and Pakistani Intelligence. They were not taken in the field bearing arms against the USA; but captured in tribal and clan squabbles. We are not going to get any information from a non terrorist no matter how tough you are on him.
Now about 10% of the prisoners, in my opinion, at GTMO are enemy combatants. Exactly what, 5-years after they were captured, do you think you are going to get out of them by torture? UBL’s e-mail address? The secret rocket fuel formula?
We have been merrily torturing away for five years now and what has it produced? UBL is still at large. The Taliban are on the offensive in Afghanistan. The USA is preparing to retreat from Iraq – defeated. And you want to continue to torture captured enemy combatants instead of processing them properly and exploiting them as intelligence assets?
Can you find a single instance on the internet where a policy of torture has led to actionable intelligence and battlefield victory?
I cannot but then I am a dummy. I suspect that our policy of torture has lost us the first campaign in what is likely to be a very, very long war.
God bless
Richard W. Comerford
Fr. Harrison wrote:
Unfortunately, the same indulgence was not always accorded by the See of Peter to those who opposed the use of torture for another purpose – that of putting heretics to death.
This is the same idiotic argument that Jonah Goldberg made: if it is sometimes OK to execute, and the method of execution causes pain and suffering, then by golly it just must be sometimes OK to torture. Or rape, or sodomize, or "walk the dog", or waterboard, etc because those things are just so much nicer and more humane than actual execution.
Fr. Harrison also wrote:
It also seems important to remember the pastoral character of the council in general, and of this "Pastoral Constitution" in particular.
Gee, where have we heard that song before?
And:
"Subhuman living conditions", for instance, cannot possibly be "intrinsically evil" in the classical sense the Pope gives to this term in the first lines of #80, because they do not even constitute a human act!
If in the moral object of one's act - because with intrinsically evil acts we are always talking about the moral object, and this is the bloody subject matter of Veritatis Splendour - one makes another live in subhuman living conditions, this is intrinsically evil. It isn't difficult unless you want it to be difficult.
Sorry, but whatever their private intentions may be, Armstrong and Blosser (and Harrison) are objectively engaged in the same sort of dissent as (e.g.) Curran; just on different pet issues. Sometimes, one guy has it right and mushy compromise isn't possible. In this case, Mark Shea has it right and the Coalition and their bedfellows and tag-alongs are just outright wrong.
I appreciate your cite from wikipedia.
Hey, welcome to Wikiality.
going back to the CCC, one of the purposes that it does explicitly include in its definition of "torture" is ... punishment!
Yes. Torture is not a just punishment, by definition.
Coversely, just punishment is not torture. One who imposes a just penalty does not torture, by definition.
The question is: Can any of the measures under discussion (calorie deprivation, stress postions, belly slaps, etc), be imposed as just punishments?
Or are these measures so severe or inhumane that inflicting them on an offender is always unjust and hence torture, regardless of the gravity of the offender's offense?
I am a pure novice asking a couple of questions here.
I know that clarity is crucial in such a serious matter as torture, but it just occurred to me to ask: is it *really* necessary to deliberate on whether some forms or cases of inflicting pain are permissible or even required in some situations? Does loving (and protecting) your family (and your nation) really require that you abandon the love of your enemy (whom you have already apprehended)?
I do not presume to have sure answers, but I am sure that I will not be entirely happy with the answers either way. Perhaps this is just a situation when there are no easy (and clear-cut) answers.
The question is: Can any of the measures under discussion (calorie deprivation, stress postions, belly slaps, etc), be imposed as just punishments?
The question is, why should anyone buy the manifestly false premise that "aggressive interrogation" has anything whatsoever to do with just punishment?
...is it *really* necessary to deliberate on whether some forms or cases of inflicting pain are permissible or even required in some situations?
That is a really good question. It seems to me that it is only necessary if we intend to inflict as much pain as we can morally get away with in order to make the captive talk: if we are asking the question "how can I torture this prisoner without torturing him?"
I have a couple of posts on why I think it is inherently wicked to even ask these questions with the proximate intention they imply.
The question is, why should anyone buy the manifestly false premise that "aggressive interrogation" has anything whatsoever to do with just punishment?
Because agressive interrogation techniques are to be reserved for those who are manifestly guilty of grave, ongoing crimes?
Because Catholic teaching on just punishments is developed in sources such as the Rule of St. Benedcit — and if unruly Benedictine wards can justly be punished with fasts, vigils, and even beatings, in order to effect a change of behavior, then this is true a fortiori of defiant mass murderers known to be planning further slaughter?
The Church is already looking pretty damned prescient in her refusal to catch war fever from the Administration in 2003.
It required no great prescience to refuse to catch war fever from the Administration in 2003.
Because agressive interrogation techniques are to be reserved for those who are manifestly guilty of grave, ongoing crimes?
Yeah. Because we only "aggressively interrogate" them after they have been tried and convicted, and we "aggressively interrogate" them in proportion to the crimes of which they were convicted whether or not we think they have useful information.
I don't know who is supposed to be fooled by the conflation of "aggressive interrogation" with just punishment. Maybe the people who advance that argument are using it to fool themselves. To anyone who hasn't drunk the Kool Aid it is just manifestly ludicrous.
Mark,
In your post, you say that there are three possible view regarding the Church's teaching on this matter:
1) There is no real contradiction between Veritatis Splendor and previous thought and practice.
2) There is a real contradiction and John Paul II is wrong.
3) There is a real contradiction and previous thought and practice is wrong.
You suggest that (3) is the way to go here. Fine. But you also suggest that anyone who doesn't go for (3) is really going for (2), which is quite unfair. Most of the debate on this issue has been between (1) and (3), not (2) and (3).
I find it interesting that people are using Cardinal Dulles to argue something contrary to what he was saying. Dulles claimed that the teachings of VS, properly understood, were not revolutionary, or vague, or in conflict with past teachings.
The slavery example is instrutive. Dulles noted that depriving human beings of personal rights is intrinsically evil, whereas there will always be some forms of subjegation and servitute that accompanies the human condition. And although he doesn't address torture directly, the same argument can easily apply: Torture is intrinsically evil if and when it violates the God given dignity and integrity (the intrinsic worth) of human beings. That's all we need to know. Since the intention of Bush's techniques is to coerce the spirit and will, they are thus intrinsically evil. As Zippy correctly points out, we are talking about the moral object of the act. This holds for all of the other categories in GS 27. In the case of deportation, Zippy is totally right that "if the moral object of one's act one makes another live in subhuman living conditions, this is intrinsically evil."
It might have taken teh Church a long time to make this explicit in the sacred deposit, but it was there all along. The issue, as Micael Liccione points out, is that the Church was mistaken in its view that the commonn good was served by torture.
Richard,
I have no way of verifying the facts in the Wikipedia article. I note that it deliberately discusses certain things that lore attributes to the Inquisition, but which in fact were never used. I also note that its torture devices seem consistent with the oft-repeated statement that no blood should be shed during the torture. I have no reason to doubt that the statements about the methods used are entirely historically accurate.
Furthermore, I'd advise you to read the torture subsection in Spanish Inquisition article on the Catholic Encyclopedia. It is completely consistent with the Wikipedia article (but too lengthy to quote here because it's primary task is to explain away all the bad facts).
"Since the intention of Bush's techniques is to coerce the spirit and will, they are thus intrinsically evil."
I'll remember that the next time a liberal wants to raise my taxes, and other threats against my livelihood by the power of the government's monopoly of arms. Help! I'm being coerced!
"This illustrates something of the difficulty of having a conversation about this in a time of charged political allegiances."
This illustrates the inevitable contradiction in the attempt to have *charged Christian morality* and political allegiances (conformity to the world) simultaneously.
Yeah. Because we only "aggressively interrogate" them after they have been tried and convicted...
Whatever our current practice, I am asserting only this:
(a) That it is not intrinsically evil to inflict punishment on an offender one knows to be lying about or refusing to disclose ongoing crimes
(b) The punishment must be proportional to the offense (eg, lying or refusing cooperation in an investigation)
(c) The "knowledge" needed to punish does not always require a formal trial -- especially when the punishment doesn't have a lasting effect.
Speaking of manifestly ludicrous, that is a good description of the assertion that all punishment can only be imposed after a formal trial and conviction.
For what it's worth, I've found Kevin Miller to be nothing but civil and insightful in these exchanges.
For those looking for insight into the question, Caeleum Et Terra offers dueling Thomists, F.R. Salazar and Christopher Zehnder. (The link takes you to their part of the debate.) I believe it is valuable for those who want to go beyond the argument from authority that torture is intrinsically evil.
At the end of his article on the matter, Father Harrison gives three examples of activities he thinks fall under Veritatis Splendor's statement that torture is intrinsically evil:
1) direct infliction of severe pain or suffering for purposes of extracting confessions;
2) direct infliction of severe pain or suffering "to frighten opponents, or satisfy hatred"; and
3) direct infliction of severe pain or suffering by private individuals or outside of clearly defined legal norms.
He doesn't think (for reasons laid out in the article) that the statement applies to the direct infliction of severe pain or suffering as punishment, and is somewhat equivocal on the status of direct infliction of severe pain or suffering for the purpose of extracting life-saving information.
Now, I'm inclined to think that there can't be any real difference between inflicting suffering to get information and inflicting suffering to get a confession. If the later is intrinsically evil (and I agree that it is), then so must be the former. And I think that Father Harrison's argument as to why VS might not apply (relying on the Catechism) is rather weak, for the reasons Kevin Miller mentioned.
Nevertheless, suppose someone were to say that he accepted VS's statement that torture was intrinsically immoral, but thought that it only applied to the three types of actions listed above. Would that make him an apologist for Satan or dissenter along the lines of Charlie Curran?
I Josiah interprets Harrison correctly, then he (Harrison) is worse than I thought. If Harrison truly believes that torture to extract confesssions is intrinsically evil, but sees a loophole for "extracting life-saving information" then he is a consequentialist, pure and simple.
I think what Josiah is asking is whether torture includes as part of its definition the categories listed above. That is, directly inflicting severe pain is not a complete definition of torture - the defintion must include some component as to why the pain is inflicted (eg, inflicting severe pain to remove a decayed tooth is not torture).
I tend to agree w/ MM though that the components that F. Harrison suggests are ulitmate ends, not part of the definition itself, and therefore lead to consequentialism. I can't quite articulate why.
Sydney Carton:
Thank you for your kind suggestion.
I have read the entry and I read it again at yoru suggestion. It is very frustrating. For instance it reads in part:
"The Spanish Inquisition deserves neither the exaggerated praise nor the equally exaggerated vilification often bestowed on it. The number of victims cannot be calculated with even approximate accuracy"
This is simply not true. The Spanish Inquisition kept detaled records of every case and most of which are extant. Secular historins based on said records place the number of deaths at 2,000-5,000 over a 350 year period throughtout the entire Spanish Empire.
An amazing figure in my opinion.
The article also fails to clearly describe or define exactly what torture was used and by which different inquisition and when. It does say that the Popes did not intend torture to be the torture actually used in the differnet inquistions ("When Clement V formulated his regulations for the employment of torture, he never imagined that eventually even witnesses would be put on the rack;") but again it does not define clearly what the Popes intended.
The article is a mess. We need in my opinion some serious scholarship on this matter.
God bless
Richard W. Comerford
I don't think JP2 was being civil and fair [TM] like I am. Thus, I think the burden of proof is still on the Pope.
Fr. Harrison's two-part article is a great resource of Scriptural and Magisterial references to torture. His conclusions, though, strike me as somewhat ad hoc.
In Part I, he writes of "torture in the most common sense of the word, namely, the infliction of severe pain as a means of coercing the will (i.e., with a view to extracting new information or a confession of guilt from the sufferer, or forcing him to commit an act commanded by the torturer)" (emphasis in the original).
In his conclusion in Part II, though, he splits the infliction of severe pain as a means of coercing the will into an intrinsically evil kind ("Torture for extracting confessions of a crime of which one is accused") and non-intrinsically evil kind ("for extracting life-saving information").
My question would be, because why?
"Speaking of manifestly ludicrous, that is a good description of the assertion that all punishment can only be imposed after a formal trial and conviction."
In which system of law?
Nevertheless, suppose someone were to say that he accepted VS's statement that torture was intrinsically immoral, but thought that it only applied to the three types of actions listed above. Would that make him an apologist for Satan or dissenter along the lines of Charlie Curran?
In the most charitable possible interpretation it would make him confused**; which happens also to be the most charitable possible interpretation which would apply to Curran.
[**] It would make him confused because when we talk about intrinsically evil acts we are talking about acts which are evil in their object; so attempting to "slice" them along lines drawn by remote intentions (punish, extract confession, extract life-saving info) exhibits a basic lack of undserstanding of what it means for an act to be intrinsically evil.
In which system of law?
In natural law.
The natural law doesn't require a "trial and conviction" for a CIA agent to put an uncooperative detainee on bread and water for 48 hours, any more than it requires an unruly student to be represented by counsel before being sentenced to 45 minutes after school detention.
Tom:
You posted in part: “In Part I, he writes of ‘torture in the most common sense of the word, namely, the infliction of severe pain as a means of coercing the will (i.e., with a view to extracting new information or a confession of guilt from the sufferer, or forcing him to commit an act commanded by the torturer)’.”
I do not know about this. In my pompous opinion, as a rule of thumb an interrogator cannot expect to coerce a subject’s will with pain in order to extract truthful information.
You can break or more properly subvert a subject’s will by inflicting pain to the point where the subject is driven temporarily or permanently insane. However once the subject is insane then he no longer has control of his will. The subject can neither knowingly tell a lie nor tell the truth. You cannot trust what the subject says.
On the other hand if you inflict pain and do not break or subvert the subject’s will then the subject retains his ability to lie. Again, you cannot trust what the subject says.
Then there is the problem of trying to figure out whether the interrogator having employed torture has broken the subject’s will. Is the subject lying, telling the truth or babbling?
Certainly torture is great for extracting a false confession or false information. One of the reasons intelligence services use torture is that they can coerce a subject to say just about anything and to (falsely) substantiate the intelligence agency’s analysis of a situation.
You also posted in part: “in Part II, though, he splits the infliction of severe pain as a means of coercing the will into an intrinsically evil kind ("Torture for extracting confessions of a crime of which one is accused") and non-intrinsically evil kind ("for extracting life-saving information").”
Father may have a big brain but he is an idiot. For the above cited reasons an interrogator cannot trust anything a subject says under torture. We have known this for centuries. Wrapping a pair of pliers around a subject’s testicles is always a violation of the 5th Commandment.
Shame on Father.
God bless
Richard W. Comerford
Zippy,
It's true that if the object of an act is evil, then the act will be intrinsically evil regardless of any further intentions or circumstances. It does not follow, however, that intent cannot be relevant to whether a given object is evil.
What constitutes the object of an act often depends at least in part on the intent of the actor. So, for example, uttering a falsehood with the intent to deceive is lying and is intrinsically immoral, whereas uttering a falsehood without that intent is not.
Similarly, whether a given act constitutes torture depends less on the physical aspects of the act than on the purpose with which those acts are done. This is why it isn't torture when we waterboard our own troops as part of their training, but it is torture when we do it to the enemy.
Richard,
Father Harrison's article only deals with the subject of torture as a matter of moral principle. The considerations you mention are certainly relevant to the question of whether it is ever a good idea to use torture, but they lie outside the scope of his article.
Wrapping a pair of pliers around a subject’s testicles is always a violation of the 5th Commandment.
Richard, if you read Father, he's not talking about wrapping pliers around testicles.
He's discussing whether there's ever any justification today for the kind of penalties mandated in Scripture and the Rule of St. Benedict — but termed "torture" by Amnesty International.
Presumably medieval Benedictine abbeys were even more wonderful places than the prisons of the Spanish Inqusition. Yet they could be the scene of penal calorie deprivations ("fasts"), sleep deprivations ("vigils") and even flogging.
Is the Rule of St. Benedict a torture manual?
Or is it possible that Amnesty International et al's definition of torture is wrong?
Posted at Against the Grain in reply to Fr. O'Leary, and relevant here:
Hi Fr. O'Leary,
Fr. O: "Personally, I attacked your reasoning - that because the Church has clearly allowed something not unlike torture in the past, at the highest levels, its infallibility would be impugned if it now declared torture intrinsically evil."
DA: "My argument is actually designed to bypass the infallibility issue altogether (I made that quite explicit and plain in my reply to Scott Carson), but at the same time to acknowledge that these things (coercion of some sort) had very wide sanction in the Church. There are development of doctrine issues here that apply, I think, even if magisterial and infallibility factors do not. Even Fr. Harrison stated that no magisterial statements can be had."
I did not say that you said torture was infallibly taught; but you did say that the widespread practice of torture by the Church would put her infallibility in jeopardy if torture is intrinsically evil.
DA: ". . . You have misconstrued my premise, so this doesn't apply. These would fall under the past sins committed by Catholics, for which JPII often asked forgiveness."
You do make a valid point here. I stated in my last reply:
"I may have worded it poorly in places, but the issue is very complex, and so I had to explain in detail as I proceeded, what exactly I had in mind."
As I have looked over the first part of my argument, I see that it is the case that the wording no longer conveys my present opinion. When I first began the discussion, I wasn't sure if the past justification for the Inquisition, etc., was magisterial or not. Now that I have studied it a bit more, I see that it probably was not (as Fr. Harrison himself - whom I cited in agreement - holds).
And (in retrospect) I had confused somewhat the distinction between "magisterial" vs. reversals or corruptions and consistent developments of doctrine. We believe that doctrines consistently develop in the Church. This is a category larger than infallibility. This issue involves moral teaching and disciplinary actions. I believe (with Fr. Dulles) that the moral principles remain constant, whereas applications and disciplinary matters may be modified according to changing cultural situations, increased understanding, and prudence.
Even so, in the original statement of my argument, I allowed for the possibility of the issue being sub-magisterial (as indeed appears to be the case). I wrote:
"I should add that even if the Inquisition-era sanctions are not infallible (I leave those sorts of technical questions to canon lawyers), there is still a big problem that such acts were sanctioned at all by the Church in any way, shape, or form.
"That would mean the Church was on the side of (and an outright proponent of) an intrinsically immoral act. I don't believe (in faith) that this has ever happened (call me naive if you like, but there it is). If someone thinks that it has, I think it has implications at the very least, for their ecclesiology, even if infallibility is not involved."
As it turned out, I developed this second line of argument. In so doing, my other statement that you cite, ought to be discarded, because it clashes with my present, more developed argument. For your part, you didn't adequately take into account my later qualifications. But it is true that you spotted a contradiction that I have now rectified, based on my own greater understanding of the issue than what I had some three weeks ago.
Therefore, I'll delete the following (originally, beginning portion) from my existing paper on the topic:
"The Church has clearly allowed something not unlike torture in the past, at the highest levels. If it is intrinsically immoral, then the Church would not have been properly protected by the Holy Spirit and would have defected in a serious way. Thus, Mark [Shea]'s remarks about supposed infallibility not only are uncalled-for, but also (if he is right) would raise huge issues about the infallibility of the historic Church (and, one might say, its responsibility in sanctioning acts which would be - if Mark were right - intrinsically immoral). Nuh uh. I don't think so.
"It would be like saying that capital punishment is intrinsically immoral, or all warfare whatsoever. It just ain't so."
[Mark Shea has also clarified that he didn't intend to say that the remarks in VS were infallible; only authoritative and binding upon Catholics; to which I readily agree]
(cont.)
Also, I will modify the sentence:
"Torture in limited amounts for extremely important strategic and preventive purposes is no worse than warfare itself, which the Church has never condemned in toto."
to:
"Certain clearly specified, morally acceptable forms of coercion in limited amounts for extremely important strategic and preventive purposes are no worse than warfare itself, which the Church has never condemned in toto."
This is because I don't wish to be interpreted as saying (as Mark has strongly criticized):
"John Paul II condemns all forms of torture, but I dissent from that and would allow some forms."
My argument (see my latest comments at Mark Shea's blog; cross-posted to my own) is that his language, closely examined in light of history, allows some measure of coercion, according to past Church practice. Mark Shea himself noted that I made this distinction.
And the widespread use of torture would not? On what basis do you make this distinction between one category of church crime and another?
On the basis that the Church en masse (folks like Aquinas and Augustine and at least one ecumenical council) supported some forms of coercion. So does Holy Scripture. Does inspired Scripture teach intrinsic evil too? That is a problem far greater than sins in the Church in practice and sub-magisterial widespread error. Now we're talking about God commanding intrinsic evil in the very Law that He gave to Moses and the Jews.
The treatment of Jews, for example, was every bit as intrinsic to church law and policy as the use of torture, or rather it was more so.
This is a huge black spot, for sure. I can only say that the Church has grown immensely in its understanding of religious toleration and liberty. It's difficult to harmonize past and present on this issue, but I believe it can be done, and has been, by Cardinal Dulles and others.
A Te Deum was sung in Rome after the [St. Bartholomew's Day] massacre, if I remember correctly.
That is correct, but the question is, "what was it sung for? According to Catholic historian Warren Carroll:
"Pope Gregory XIII ordered a Te Deum said in thanksgiving for the deliverance of the French royal family and Christendom from Coligny's alleged plot to murder the king, seize the crown, support the rebels in the Low Countries, and march on Rome.
"However, the Pope was horrified by the cruelties of the massacre, shedding tears and saying, 'I am weeping for the conduct of the king [Charles IX], which is unlawful and forbidden by God.' Spanish ambassador Zuniga described him as 'struck with horror' at the details of the massacre. Later the Pope said he wept for the many innocent dead, and refused to receive the assassin Maurevert in audience."
(The Cleaving of Christendom, Front Royal, VA: Christendom Press, 2000, 370).
But Carroll also notes that a procession of thanksgiving took place in Rome and that the pope "celebrated the event in a special bull, though it was worded to praise only the execution of the leaders, not the slaughter of the two thousand." (Ibid., 370-371)
As usual, the truth of the matter is both more complex and interesting than the myth.
DA: "my position doesn't require me to somehow wink at or be forced to condone any sins in the past."
Since you say that church torture in the past was not a sin, what is to prevent extending this absolution to all other matters commonly thought to be church sins (based on mistakes).
The norms of Catholic moral theology, of course. You act as if no distinctions can be made at all. But yours is a circular argument: you assume all coercion whatsoever is absolutely wrong and proceed on your merry way, building a fallacious argument on a mistaken premise. If you want to dissent from Scripture, Aquinas, and Augustine, feel free. I'm much more reluctant to do so.
DA: "Even what I condone, is in the sense of "not intrinsically immoral." That doesn't mean that many of these coercive techniques could not have become sinful on other grounds: bad motives, excess, revenge, lust for power, etc."
In short, you hold that the torture of suspected heretics was morally ok?
I think it may be in cases where the Church sanctioned it, in the context of the medieval understanding of heresy as "soul-murder." It would not be intrinsically evil in those instances. But the line is very fine and I certainly don't advocate such practices in cases of heresy today, as I am a strong advocate of complete religious tolerance. For terrorists, mass murderers, and tyrants and despots, I do allow such a possibility, within strict control, guided by proper moral theology.
(cont.)
DA: "This is why I have always thought very little of the Inquisition and the Crusades, while recognizing that neither was immoral per se, and that both had legitimate justification in the framework of the medieval worldview."
The Inquisition is incompatible with current church teaching on freedom of religion.
Correct, but that is a different proposition from calling it intrinsically evil.
The use of torture by the Inquisition is incompatible with current church teaching on the rights of prisoners and the evilness of torture.
I don't believe that applies all down the line, from what I've seen. It would be extremely interesting to see, e.g., if the Church has pronounced any guidelines for interrogation of prisoners of war by the military or of suspected criminals by police. If anyone knows of such statements, please let me know.
Your hermeneutics of forcing Catholic morality into the dimensions set by the past could lead to a rehabilitation of slavery, persecution of Protestants and Jews, etc.
Not at all, as stated. Nothing could be further from the truth. I'm as committed to religius liberty and tolerance as anyone on earth, including you. My goal is simply to understand the Inquisition within its historic context, and to understand the reasoning behind it, not to extol its virtues, or bring it back today. Furthermore, I live out my view on tolerance by trying to treat anyone I dialogue with, with respect (including atheists and anti-Catholics who despise me as an apostate, etc.).
I may vigorously argue my point, and utilize sarcasm and satire if it is appropriate (as Cardinal Newman did, and also St. Paul and Jesus), but I don't accuse opponents of nefarious motives sinply because they take a different view than I do. This all flows from my intense commitment to ecumenism and mutually-respectful dialogue, which in turn is a result of a certain approach to religious tolerance.
Torture is wrong, in current Catholic understanding, not because of its purpose or the subjective intent but in itself.
One needs to carefully define what is and what is not intended in the condemnation. Not all coercion is "torture" nor intrinsically immoral.
Many torturers have claimed a noble purpose -- perhaps most.
If you say the Church only condemns torture for its purpose or intent you are robbing its teaching of all application, because every party will call its torture "just torture" on the analogy of "just war".
I think there is room for that analogy and practice, yes. Whatever the Church is truly condemning as instrinsically evil can never be performed; I wholeheartedly agree. But what exactly are we talking about? That is my concern.
Americans will say it is ok if Americans are doing the torturing, bad if Americans are being tortured.
That's simply partisan politics of the worst sort. It has no relation to an intelligent discussion of Church teaching. I am on record as saying that America is the wickedest nation in history, based on biblical understandings, especially, "to whom much is given, much is required." So you can't nail me on this "America right or wrong" nonsense.
I've also taken extreme flak from some conservative types for my strong stand against Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as immoral acts, contrary to Catholic just war tradition. I argue whatever I want and speak my mind, if I am convinced of something, no matter who may object to it and loudly protest.
Your complaints that I have misrepresented your arguments are obfuscatory.
Hopefully, my clarifications have properly disposed of this objection.
"When news of the St Bartholomew's day Massacre... reached Rome, [Gregory XIII] celebrated it with a Te Deum and thanksgiving services as a victory for the church over infidelity as well as the defeat of political treachery; and he actively subsidized the Catholic League against the Huguenots... When his dreams of an Irish invasion of England collapsed (1578 and 1579), he gave his personal support to plots to have the queen assassinated." Kelly, Oxford Dictionary of Popes.
I don't know if all this is true or not. I cited a Catholic historian who was candid about Catholic failings. This is a Protestant work by a pretty good Anglican historian (J.N.D. Kelly) but one, it should be noted, with a pronounced bias against the papacy. It should be understood accordingly.
Thanks for your replies.
He's discussing whether there's ever any justification today for the kind of penalties mandated in Scripture and the Rule of St. Benedict — but termed "torture" by Amnesty International.
No, not in the parts I quoted and to which Richard was responding.
Fr. Harrison's second tentative theological conclusion deals with "the direct infliction of severe physical pain, as a punishment for duly convicted delinquents carried out by public authority in accord with a norm of law," which would cover the Rule of St. Benedict.
Richard quoted me quoting from Fr. Harrison's first and third conclusions.
Josiah is right that Fr. Harrison is looking at the question of morality, not efficacy -- although I think there has to be an underlying presumption of efficacy, else why give it its own conclusion?
I'm not sure what Amnesty International has to do with anything.
What constitutes the object of an act often depends at least in part on the intent of the actor.
The word intent though is being used to refer to two different things here: both the object of the act (what we choose to do) and the intent of the act (what we hope to accomplish by doing it). An act which is evil by nature of the former - an intrinsically evil act - cannot be made licit through any appeal to the goodness of the latter.
...which would cover the Rule of St. Benedict.
I should say, it would most certainly and most generously cover it. I don't mean to insist that the corporal punishment prescribed by the Rule necessarily amounts to the "severe physical pain" Fr. Harrison has in mind.
"Josiah is right that Fr. Harrison is looking at the question of morality, not efficacy -- although I think there has to be an underlying presumption of efficacy, else why give it its own conclusion?"
Not necessarily. I don't think we can presume, for example, that if a person argues against the intrinsic immorality of the death penalty that means he favors the death penalty in any particular case.
Father Harrison's concerns are clearly theoretical rather than practical. He's interested in trying to systhesize and harmonize 2000 years of Catholic teaching on the matter - not trying to determine what government policy on the matter should be.
Exactly, Josiah; precisely as my own. One works through moral principles in the abstract (let's call this thought-process A) and then applies them to concrete, real-life situations (which are, after all, what moral theology is supposed to deal with (real life). The second thing I shall call B.
But to do abstract, theoretical reflection (A) does not necessarily require real life application (B) in order for it to be justifiable in and of itself.
I haven't applied the principles and scheme of harmonization of past and present that I am working on, to any political agenda or even any particular form of torture (i.e., I've been solely engaged in A, not B).
I don't know about those things. I don't claim to know. I would love to know. But those on the other side of the debate seem to be providing few specifics, so they have not helped me in my quest to determine if there is such a thing as moral coercion, and if so, what?
What is, then, preferable?:
1. A position that dogmatically proclaims a principle ("all torture -- implied: all coercion or even psychological "pressure" whatsoever -- is intrinsically evil!!!!") ad nauseum, yet refuses to clarify how the key word is to be defined and its parameters.
or:
2. A position that proclaims that, yes, torture is wrong in the sense that John Paul II would define and condemn it, but wonders aloud exactly how he would do so, and retains a certain agnosticism until further informed on that score.
#1 (if indeed it is of the nature portrayed above) is dogmatic without providing the crucial information which would allow it to be so dogmatic and derisive of contrary opinion, whereas #2 is agnostic on partioculars, while allowing the possibility that there may be some flexibility here in John Paul II's own definition, and seeks to know the parameters of that.
Or, in other words, I maintain that the position of #1 is irrationally dogmatic, whereas #2 is cautiously and sensibly agnostic.
I also say both positions are equally concerned with upholding Church teaching. The difference lies in the nature of the teaching itself and how it is to be applied.
Josiah:
Thank you for your correction
You posted in part: "The considerations you mention are certainly relevant to the question of whether it is ever a good idea to use torture, but they lie outside the scope of his article."
OK. I do not understand what properly lies inside or outside or on top of the scope of his article; but this is a Catholic priest making a case for torture - at a time when other Catholic priests are being tortured in China and Vietnam.
The whole article strikes me as disloyal to persecuted Catholics. Did you notice how he cited certain ancient and medieval authorities who purportedly argued in favor of torture; but when you read what said authorities actually wrote it can be taken in more than one way?
If a Roman Catholic priest with all sort of letters after his name is going to come out and even hint that it might be, under certain condition, ok to torture than he had better cite clear, black and white, up or down sources to substantiate his claim. Otherwise he is turning loose monsters that will in the end destroy us all.
God bless
Richard W. Comerford.
all torture -- implied: all coercion or even psychological "pressure" whatsoever -- is intrinsically evil!!!!
Terrific straw man you have there, Dave. The "implied" bit exists entirely in the minds of the "torture can't possibly be intrinsically evil" side of this debate.
(FYI, some of us have spent quite a few words arguing that torture and coercion are not the same category of act, differing only in degree, at all. It seems right bloody obvious, in fact, because one can torture for the sheer sadistic thrill of it without any intention whatsoever to coerce, and it would still be torture.)
Not necessarily.
Not necessarily, no. However, if Fr. Harrison were merely arguing against the intrinsic immorality of the direct infliction of severe physical pain, he would have stopped at two tentative theological conclusions.
His concerns are clearly practical: "there remains the question – nowadays a very practical and much-discussed one...."
What he does not do, that I noticed, was explain why what he joined as instances of "coercing the will" he later sundered as matters for distinct theological conclusions.
#1 (if indeed it is of the nature portrayed above) is dogmatic without providing the crucial information which would allow it to be so dogmatic and derisive of contrary opinion,...
Well, yes, what exactly are pornography and rape anyway? I mean, there are circumstances where the government can licitly remove the clothes of prisoners, right? So without an explicit textual definition which provides a mechanical means to answer every question which might be raised by every positivist on the issue of rape, how can we be expected to avoid raping prisoners?
Seriously, the bafflement over "gee, what is torture" has been going on for more than a year now. Since torture is intrinsically evil, if someone has been pondering torture for a year or longer and is still afraid of slipping on a banana peel and accidentally torturing a prisoner (either in his theorizing or his actual practice), that person probably ought to carefully avoid both prisoners and banana peels. (Both theoretically and actually, of course).
Hi Zippy,
If you could be so kind, please list two things for me: examples (the more the merrier) of "coercion" and examples of "torture" as you define it? Thanks.
I should say (just to be precise),
"morally acceptable coercion, according to Church teaching"
and:
"immoral torture, according to Church teaching"
I'd much appreciate any clarification from anyone (particularly those aligned with Mark's general position) on this. Thanks beforehand.
Dave: I've written many thousands of words on the topic at my blog (and also at Enchiridion Militis), and in comboxes galore here and elsewhere over the last year, even though I detest the topic and find the fact that it even needs to be discussed at all a terrible black mark against us. Dig in, enjoy, comment away.
Notice that, like abortion and adultery (for example), you cannot describe torture as a strictly physical act. To abort is to choose to kill the unborn child. Many different physical descriptions can apply without making an abortion not an abortion; similar physical descriptions can apply (e.g. salpingotomy/salpingectomy) wherein one is definitely an abortion and the other is not (necessarily, though it may be depending on what the acting agent understands himself to be choosing). The moral/theological conundrum around how to avoid doing the intrinsically evil act - abortion or torture - is an almost perfect parallel -- though I go into where it doesn't parallel on my blog too.
As for "lists", waterboarding and "walking the dog" of captured combatants is torture; handcuffing a perp and putting him in the slammer are coercion. With the caveats from the previous paragraph: a physical description isn't the act (moral object) chosen.
Hey, I'm the first guy to admit that there are interesting theoretical discussions to be had around salpingotomy, salpingectomy, and abortion as an intrinsically evil act. But I'm not even slightly sympathetic to a generalized, foggy, forever suspended judgement, never-to-be-settled "gee, what is abortion?" and "gee, how can abortion be intrinsically evil?" bafflement.
So are there morally acceptable coercive acts besides handcuffs and jail cells? What can, e.g., police do in interrogating a suspect with the hopes of confession, so that many man hours and funds can be spared to catch other potential or known criminals and prevent further crimes?
Richard,
You say, "this is a Catholic priest making a case for torture - at a time when other Catholic priests are being tortured in China and Vietnam." This is just inaccurate. First, at no point does Father Harrison say that torture is ever appropriate in present circumstances. He says that harsh punishments (such as flogging) are not intrinsically immoral, but that "the exclusion of torture (flogging, etc.) as legal punishment can be seen as an appropriate practical implication of the Law of Christ, especially under modern circumstances."
Second, the types of tortures going on in Vietnam and China he explicitly condemns as intrinsically immoral.
Third, the most he says about the use of torture for intelligence gathering purposes is that "while certainly not affirmed by the magisterium, [it] remains open at present to legitimate discussion by Catholic theologians."
A large part of the discussions here seem to be premised on the idea that various people are operating according to some ulterior and wicked motivations. No doubt in some cases they are. But we ought to be very wary of ascribing bad motives to other people, not only because the Gospel tells us to do so, but for the entirely secular reason that we generally aren't very good at it. I've seen people here make assumptions about other commenters that are 180 degrees away from the truth. I've also seen different commenters treated very differently for saying much the same sorts of things, simply because someone's assumptions about that commenter and their motivations were different.
There's not much I can do about what goes on in Gitmo other than pray. But I can control how I treat people on this blog (even the misguided ones).
So are there morally acceptable coercive acts besides handcuffs and jail cells?
Sure. Like I said, Dave, I've written many thousands of words on the topic. If you are interested in more of what I think, this is as good a place to start as any. And again, I think coercion is a side-track.
Dave:
You are rehashing a discussion we've had numerous times (and getting away from the topic of the thread).
The topic of the thread is "Is torture immoral?" not "What is torture?" As I said, the issue under discussion, when it comes to the Coalition for Fog and their pals is this "Assuming X is torture, is it intrinsically immoral (and therefore always wrong) or not?" The Coalition wants us to believe X is *not* always immoral and that we can safely ignore appeals to Veritatis Splendor which says it is.
"What is torture?" is a separate issue. I have proposed various answers, all rejected by Foggers who seem singularly uninterested in progressing toward some sort of action that would concretely *obey* the Church's teaching. To their repeated pleas for clarity on just what "torture" means I have propose the dictionary (hopelessly unclear), the guidelines for prisoner treatment used by the military for the past 50 years (dittos), and the Interrogator's Golden Rule which says "If you'd consider it torture if done to you or a buddy by the enemy, it's torture." All of these have been rejected by the Foggers and nothing proposed in their place. Why? Because (as their name makes clear) they are making the case for fog, not acting like Catholic disciples who want to implement the Church's teaching in any meaningful way. So, as long as they can pretend to be hopelessly confused about what "torture" means, they can continue to make excuses for the actual concrete acts of this Administration, which in fact has practiced torture such as (but not limited to) waterboarding, cold cells, and Palestinian hanging.
These things are all, unequivocally, torture. These things are all, unequivocally, condemned therefore as intrinsically immoral. And these things are what the Bush Administration has done and continues to do.
Quibbling about how to tiptoe up to the line of torture is pointless. We have already crossed that line. The Church's teaching is clear: prisoners are to treated humanely. Fine-tuned arguments about whether it constitutes torture if you attach wires to a man's testicle but don't turn on the electricity are simply legalism and in no way concerned with the obvious spirit of the law.
A large part of the discussions here seem to be premised on the idea that various people are operating according to some ulterior and wicked motivations.
I don't see that at all. I no more assume wicked interior motivations on the part of torture apologists than I do on the part of Francis Kissling or Gloria Steinem.
Josiah:
Thank you for your kind reply.
You posted in part:
"Third, the most he says about the use of torture for intelligence gathering purposes is that "while certainly not affirmed by the magisterium, [it] remains open at present to legitimate discussion by Catholic theologians."
Does not the Catechism say that the 5th Commandment prohibits torture? However Father on the other hand is saying the matter "remains open".
Who am I supposed to believe: Father or the Catechism: Father or JP II?
In the meantime if my boss tells me to wrap a pair of pliers around a subject's testicles what do I do? Can I say to myself: "Well Father says the matter remains open" and then go ahead and squeeze? When I stand before Almighty God with my hands red with the blood of my interrogation subjects do I saw to my Savior: “But Father said the matter remains open”? I say this to my Savior who underwent unbelievable torture for my sake?
Are you going to stand beside me and second my “Father said” defense?
And you describe me as “misguided”.
In my opinion Father is an over educated egg head sitting in an ivory tower and opening the door to torture while his co-religionists are suffering torture for their Faith all over the world. In this day and age of mass murder a Roman Catholic priest should be clearly saying on the subject of torture “Love thy Enemy”. He should not be mumbling into his academic beard that the matter of torture “remains open”.
Shame on Father. He should volunteer to be transferred to Hanoi.
God bless
Richard W. Comerford
Hi Mark,
You are rehashing a discussion we've had numerous times
I understand. I don't come here too much, and I am even late to the torture discussions.
(and getting away from the topic of the thread).
The topic of the thread is "Is torture immoral?" not "What is torture?"
If it has already been established what it is, and both parties agree, then this would apply. But I don't think many of your opponents agree on the definition. Without fundamental agreement on foundational definitions, it is impossible to discuss an issue. I can't discuss whether "torture" is immoral without knowing exactly how one is defining that term (it being a fine line in many cases).
Abortion or rape or murder or theft do not involve fine lines. They are what they are, and it is clear-cut. Lust or torture / coercion have fine lines that must be discussed.
I'm still working through the issue on a more elementary level, so definition is crucial for me. If it's already been dealt with, I can simply follow links. Zippy did that, so I'll take a look at what he has.
As I said, the issue under discussion, when it comes to the Coalition for Fog and their pals is this "Assuming X is torture, is it intrinsically immoral (and therefore always wrong) or not?" The Coalition wants us to believe X is *not* always immoral and that we can safely ignore appeals to Veritatis Splendor which says it is.
I've asked you now twice to document some of them saying this (and other of your criticisms). Is that forthcoming?
"What is torture?" is a separate issue. I have proposed various answers, all rejected by Foggers who seem singularly uninterested in progressing toward some sort of action that would concretely *obey* the Church's teaching. To their repeated pleas for clarity on just what "torture" means I have propose the dictionary (hopelessly unclear), the guidelines for prisoner treatment used by the military for the past 50 years (dittos), and the Interrogator's Golden Rule which says "If you'd consider it torture if done to you or a buddy by the enemy, it's torture." All of these have been rejected by the Foggers and nothing proposed in their place.
Fair enough, but do we have any solid information as to what the pope means by the term?
Why? Because (as their name makes clear) they are making the case for fog, not acting like Catholic disciples who want to implement the Church's teaching in any meaningful way. So, as long as they can pretend to be hopelessly confused about what "torture" means, they can continue to make excuses for the actual concrete acts of this Administration, which in fact has practiced torture such as (but not limited to) waterboarding, cold cells, and Palestinian hanging.
These things are all, unequivocally, torture. These things are all, unequivocally, condemned therefore as intrinsically immoral. And these things are what the Bush Administration has done and continues to do.
Quibbling about how to tiptoe up to the line of torture is pointless. We have already crossed that line. The Church's teaching is clear: prisoners are to treated humanely.
Sure. Now what does this humane treatment include? Zippy acknowledged that there are legitimate forms of coercion besides handcuffs and incarceration. I'll be going to his blog right after I finish this.
Fine-tuned arguments about whether it constitutes torture if you attach wires to a man's testicle but don't turn on the electricity are simply legalism and in no way concerned with the obvious spirit of the law.
I agree, but nevertheless it is perfectly normal to want to know what is permissible. You can also get bogged down in your own legalistic discussion about what is legalistic. At some point there needs to be clear guidelines. That's why we have things like catechisms, for heaven's sake: sometimes folks just want a concise, clear answer on some topic without having to go through all the abstract theorizing.
Moreover, there are many questions in moral theology, where we better discuss fine lines (minus the accusation of Pharisaism), or we will be in big trouble.
Lust immediately comes to mind. If a husband can be lustful towards his own wife (as the Church has taught at times), that is a fine line. I could have sexual desire for my wife which is immoral or one which is in accord with mutual self-giving, etc. Are we not to discuss how to distinguish the two?
That's not legalism; it is practical application of agreed moral principles. I don't see that this is different. At "best," you could accuse people of having a nefarious motive and being disingenuous in asking such questions, in trying to find ways out of being obedient to the Church. If that can be established, it's another important issue such a person would need to face up to and rectify, since it is a "cafeteria Catholic" mentality. Thus far, you don't, however, seem to be making that charge against me.
So I'm simply asking about what is and what is not permissible, in concrete terms. Whatever the "Fog" does is their business. I keep asking for documentation. But speaking for myself, I'm more or less at a beginning level of inquiry on this question (I can't help that; I've been busy with many other things); hence I am asking simple questions.
I can't discuss whether "torture" is immoral without knowing exactly how one is defining that term (it being a fine line in many cases).
Of course you can. You can, as I have pointed out, say, "Assuming that X is torture, then X is intrinsically immoral because Holy Church teaches that torture is intrinsically immoral." The Coalition is saying essentially, "Even *if* X is torture, it's okay sometimes." This is to reject the teaching of Holy Church.
The question "What is torture?" is a separate question, as I have already pointed out.
But more than that, it is the *wrong* question because it leads down dumb ratholes about just how much prisoner abuse you can commit before it's technically torture.
The real solution to the discussion is to pay attention to the Church's positive command and not just focus on legalistic quibbles about her negative prohbitions. The positive command, as I have repeated numerous times, is "Treat prisoners humanely and respect their human dignity." If you are trying to do this, you will not accidently torture them.
Dear Richard Comerford,
I seem not to have made myself clear in the post you discuss - I was assuming that it was obvious that torture, in the sense of inflicting pain that it is morally impossible to endure, is intrinsically wrong and forbidden (hence my congratulations to Mark on his stand). You are of course right about the character of most of the people upon whom torture is used; they aren't like the hardened terrorists I describe. I suppose I should have said that if the people being interrogated actually have the knowledge that is supposed to justify the infliction of torture upon them, then they will be like the hardened terrorists I describe, and hence the only way that torture will extract information from them is through inflicting pain that it is morally impossible for them to endure - which I took to be obviously wrong (following St. Alphonsus). You are of course more expert than I am but I have a history-related question concerning the limited effectiveness of the use of torture. Most accounts of the French colonial war in Algeria (the subject of the film 'The Battle of Algiers'), in which the French used torture extensively, claim that their use of torture in fact produced a lot of actionable intelligence that enabled them to suppress uprisings and terrorist activity. So torture does in fact seem to have some effectiveness as an intelligence gathering tool. However of course this use of torture vastly extended the hatred of the French in Algeria and the armed resistance to them, leading to their eventual defeat, so it backfired; just as any fool can see will happen with U.S. use of torture - illustrating Mark's point about the bad consequences that result from pursuing consequentialism. (The people who support torture are worse than fools.)
Hi Zippy,
I read the article you sent me to:
http://zippycatholic.blogspot.co...just-is-
is.html
I found it far more abstract and nitpicky than I found Fr. Harrison. I must say that it hasn't helped me much to determine what exactly you guys are talking about, in cases where the line is fine (police interrogation with bright lights, etc.)
If your big point is to reiterate that sin starts in the heart and will before it proceeds to action, that's great. No one disagrees (or no one should; that's a given, biblically).
Yet this doesn't resolve how to determine:
1) What the lines of torture are and when acts are coercive and hence, not "intrinsically immoral."
2) What exactly the pope had in mind when he used the word "torture."
I agree that the more obvious examples that have been discussed, are very likely condemned (e.g., waterboarding). If others disagree with that, then I disagree with them. (what else is new? I'm always disagreeing with people! Comes with my job). But I'm trying to determine what legitimately coercive techniques are permissible.
So to that end, what do you provide me with?
I submit that whenever a helpless captive is treated as an object and made to suffer as a means to some end unrelated to his own personal good, he has been treated inhumanely. The person who does this has committed an immoral act, no matter what good end he hopes to serve by so doing.
Wonderfully self-evident, but also vague. Forgive me, if I don't think this goes far to resolve my quest for objective, concrete standards in this area.
I know there are military and police guides and international law guidelines that I'll probably have to consult at some point. But then, who's to say that these will coincide with Church teaching? It seems obvious that in many places they will not. Many international efforts promote abortion and contraception, too.
In the next paragraph you write:
"The position has some weaknesses for an anti-torture absolutist such as myself, or at least it may seem to in the abstract. Most particularly there remains the possibility that some will claim that we are torturing captives for their own ultimate good. Someone who is particularly gullible might even actually believe it, and advocate policy rooted in that belief. Also this leaves open the possibility that beating the crap out of a prisoner because he just threw feces at a guard would not, under this understanding, be necessarily considered torture or inhumane treatment. I think that is right, actually. Such an act would have to fall under prudential judgement in enforcing discipline. It could be evil in virtue of being disproportionate, of course, but it wouldn't be evil per se the way that strapping a prisoner to a table and waterboarding him to get him to cough up the names of his co-conspirators would be."
So, great. Now I know you accept the moral permissibility of handcuffs, going to jail, and "beating the crap out of a prisoner because he just threw feces at a guard." This is supposed to help me know the mortal limits of interrogation? This very example is strewn with difficulties. How does one consider what sort of "beating" is proportionate? Is a punch to the stomach okay but not to the face? Is a puinch to the face permitted, but not a second one, or one after a bloody nose, or after the detainee yells for you to stop?
I'm sorry. This seems to me to make things more confusing, not less. You'll probably charge that I'm being legalistic again. I don't think so. I would call it, rather, "asking quite relevant, necessary questions in order to better understand the principle in its application."
You yourself wrote in comments:
" I do agree that the terms in this blog entry need work."
Perhaps I am (just maybe) helping you to do some of that needed work?
There is nothing wrong with probing the logic and coherence of a position by questioning. It doesn't follow that because a guy uses his head to better understand a somewhat complex teaching, that he therefore has no heart, or is doing so strictly to "see what he can get away with."
The charge of legalism can itself be quite legalistic (and judgmental).
So this post isn't of much assistance to me (with all due respect). But it was a thoughtful exercise of a robust Catholic conscience.
I then looked at another linked on the side: "Torture definitions."
http://zippycatholic.blogspot.co...-
confusion.html
You wrote:
An intrinsically evil act is evil because of the nature of its object. Intent and circumstances are completely irrelevant to the conclusion that the act is morally evil.
Yes, absolutely.
--- continued ---
So suppose someone says "I know the Church says that act X is an intrinsically evil act, but I don't have a good definition of act X. Therefore it is possible that act X might be morally licit under circumstance A, but not morally licit under circumstance B." Does this make any sense when we are talking about acts which the Church has authoritatively taught to be intrinsically evil?
No. Again, I agree. But I am not asking that question. Mine is, rather:
"So suppose someone says 'I know the Church says that act X is an intrinsically evil act, but I don't have a good definition of act X. Therefore it is possible that act Y may not be a species of X; hence not evil; hence permissible."
You can't simply thumb your nose at the necessity of definition. It's a backwards, wrongheaded methodology to do so. You assume the very thing that you need to prove to have a solid premise.
It's not "objective" but subjective to have a mentality of "everything I define as torture is torture [therefore, intrinsically evil] because I say so and it is self-evident, and the fine lines don't matter at all because that is legalism and attempts to escape the Catholic moral imperative."
This won't do! It's viciously circular reasoning.
If we know that act X is intrinsically evil, then we know it is evil because of the nature of its object, and we know that no circumstance or intent can make it morally licit.
Yes, we do (YAAAAAAAWWWWNNNN). I completely agree. Mark Shea claims that some folks are arguing in this fashion, yet he won't document it. I asked him twice to do so with no results. I've now asked him a third time.
The notion of an intrinsically evil act that is defined as the kind of act it is by its intent or circumstances is self-contradictory.
Quite true. You need not say the same thing five times (in the article) for it to be understood. But it is also self-contradictory to say:
"This act that we refuse to specify is an intrinsically evil act."
You don't see the contradiction yet? Let me try to explain it with more straightforward logic:
1. Act X ("torture") is intrinsically evil.
2. But we don't know exactly what Act X is because it has not been specified.
3. So we know not what is intrinsically immoral.
4. Furthermore, to say that Act X is immoral without even knowing what it is, is logical and linguistic nonsense.
5. One cannot assert the following two propositions simultaneously:
A) Act X is a thing Y.
B) Act X is no thing.
It has to be one or the other. If it is a thing, then it can be further defined and specified, and has some specific content we can identify. But if it is no thing then we are talking nonsense, which never accomplishes anything.
--- continued ---
It's like saying (to use the lust analogy again):
"Lust is intrinsically immoral."
Someone asks: "what is included in lustfulness?"
You reply: "whenever a woman is treated as an object and made to suffer as a means to some selfish end related to some male's personal sex drive, she has been treated lustfully."
He asks again about particulars and you refuse. So this person (say he is a former agnostic but highly interested in Catholicism, yet without a clue about Catholic morality) goes out and uses a condom and has sex with his girlfriend, on the grounds that this is being considerate of her needs. She doesn't have to worry about getting pregnant; she doesn't even have to take birth control pills.
They are in love, so he doesn't feel that he is using her as an object; in fact, she wanted to make love to him. So all the subjective factors are there.
But there are also objective considerations. In actuality (assuming for the sake of argument that lustfulness is absent), two objectively mortal sins have occurred: fornication and contraception.
But these two were truly ignorant of Catholic teaching. They needed particulars to have a fuller understanding. And that is exactly what you would refuse to give them, because you seem to want to rely on highly abstract moral theorizing.
This gets back to the dichotomy between the two broad approaches to our present subject.
1) Fr. Harrison and Cardinal Dulles are trying to work through both the moral principles and historic application of them, in order to sensibly ascertain present-day particularistic application.
2) But you seem to want to argue that analysis of moral principles in the avstract is all that is necessary and that both particular definition and concrete application are irrelevancies that need not be discussed. And if anyone tries to do so, you and Mark have your ready-made accusation that they are probably doing so out of a pharisaical motivation and mentality.
This won't do. We need more thoughtful guidelines for permissible coercion besides your admitted handcuffs, jail, and "beating the crap out of a prisoner because he threw a piece of poop at the guard."
Dave:
I've given definitions of torture repeatedly. None seem to satisfy.
If you want to know what legitimate coercion is, why not ask people who do interrogation rather than people who have absolutely not specialized technical knowledge?
Again, the subject here is not "What is torture?" The subject is "When the Church says torture is intrinsically immoral can we ignore her or not?" The question "What is torture?" follow that one. As far as I can tell you are agreeing that when the Church says torture is intrinsically immoral she is to be obeyed. At least, that's what this exchange seems to suggest:
Zippy: An intrinsically evil act is evil because of the nature of its object. Intent and circumstances are completely irrelevant to the conclusion that the act is morally evil.
Dave: Yes, absolutely.
That marks you off from the Coalition for Fog's endless attempts to neuter the meaning of "intrinsically immoral".
John Lamont:
Thank you for your kind reply.
Boy you brought up a hot topic.
You posted in part: “Most accounts of the French colonial war in Algeria (the subject of the film 'The Battle of Algiers'), in which the French used torture extensively, claim that their use of torture in fact produced a lot of actionable intelligence that enabled them to suppress uprisings and terrorist activity. So torture does in fact seem to have some effectiveness as an intelligence gathering tool.”
Paul Aussaresses, an 83-year-old retired French general, went on trial recently, after he published a book titled “Special Service” in which admitted and of condoned the torture and executions of thousands by he and his troops during the war.
One of the most interesting things about his book is that although he admits being responsible for the torture of thousands he could not cite a single, verifiable case in which torture produced truthful information which was processed into actionable intelligence. The French executed thousands without due process based on information obtained by torture. Undoubtedly they killed some real bad guys. However they killed a lot of innocents in the process. This cost them the war.
By relying on torture they missed the big picture. The French expended enormous resources in secret arrests, secret torture sessions, secret executions and secret graveyards. These were resources that could have been better used actually fighting the enemy.
Most fatally they corrupted their own Army and Intelligence services. This corruption led to a series of coups and assassinations by former and serving members of the French Army and Intelligence Services (remember “Day of the Jackal”?). The divisions in the French Armed Forces and Intelligence Services linger to this day. (Back in the dark ages I attended a French Commando School run by paras and Legionaries who had fought in Algeria. These veterans did not believe torture produced good intelligence.)
The French police without torture and using the classic catalogue system had already independently identified all of the bad guys in Algiers. When the 10th Parachute Division took over the city the paras seized the police files and rounded up the named suspects and tortured and executed them. The good intelligence did not come from the paras torturing suspects but from the police files which the paras had seized.
God bless
Richard W. Comerford
Dave: I have no problem personally understanding what torture is, or abortion is, or pornography is, or adultery is. I understand those things just fine. I understand the difference between punishing someone and torturing him just fine. Like Mark I've provided reams of definitions, discussion, and analysis of what they are, and of what necessarily follows from the fact that they are intrinsic evils.
Lots of people are claiming not to understand them: claiming that we might just slip on a banana peel and torture a prisoner on accident, or have an abortion on accident, or commit adultery on accident, or contracept on accident if we don't answer questions like "how much sleep deprivation amounts to torture?" or "how much flirtation can I engage in with women who aren't my spouse without it being adulterous?"
The problem is, questions like "how much skin has to be exposed for it to be pornography?" are inherently flawed: they obscure the very subject they pretend to attempt to clarify. The whole "Mark and Zippy are saying it is wrong to have a definition" thing is a really bad straw man. What I've said is that the kind of definition people are insisting upon (e.g. "how much skin..."), and their incessant whining and complaining that existing definitions are too vague for our poor little minds to understand, is under the most charitable possible interpretation an intellectual dead-end, and it materially contributes to a wicked project.
Now, the reason I've been talking about the nature of torture in discussion that you apparently find too abstract for your taste is because that is what I've been asked to do, again and again, for over a year, by people apparently befuddled about the nature of torture. If all you are looking for is concrete guidelines (like telling that hypothetical couple "don't engage in sex out of wedlock and don't use contraception once you are married"), I don't personally know of anything wrong with the Geneva Conventions and the Army Field Manual which incorporates them. The Church certainly seems to support them as concrete guidelines. These rules should also apply to the CIA, though the CIA has in fact been rendering and directly torturing prisoners under its own rules. The GC's have been around a long time, and until the Bush administration adopted an explicit policy of rejecting them in the WOT they enjoyed near universal support among civilized men. They may have flaws, but "we're fighting a different kind of war" and "terrorists aren't criminals and they aren't POW's, they are "illegal combatants", so they aren't entitled to the protections traditionally provided to either criminals or POW's" don't fly.
I know there are military and police guides and international law guidelines that I'll probably have to consult at some point. But then, who's to say that these will coincide with Church teaching? It seems obvious that in many places they will not.
CCC:
2313 Non-combatants, wounded soldiers, and prisoners must be respected and treated humanely.
Actions deliberately contrary to the law of nations and to its universal principles are crimes, as are the orders that command such actions. Blind obedience does not suffice to excuse those who carry them out. Thus the extermination of a people, nation, or ethnic minority must be condemned as a mortal sin. One is morally bound to resist orders that command genocide.
2328 The Church and human reason assert the permanent validity of the moral law during armed conflicts. Practices deliberately contrary to the law of nations and to its universal principles are crimes.
Okay: Fr. O'Leary and Chris Sullivan have provided this definition (please forgive my ignorance, all those who have been through these discussions before):
"The U.N. Convention Against Torture (which the US ratified) definition provides that torture is
“any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.
"It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to, lawful sanctions.”
My questions, of course, will deal with the bolded portions. What constitutes "severe pain and suffering" in this context, and what does not? This merely proves my point. Clearly, not all coercion is ruled out. So we are still left to make the subjective (but crucial) judgment of what is "severe" pain or coercion and what isn't.
Obviously, if all coercion whatsoever for these purposes had been ruled out in this definition and criterion, there would be no need for the qualifier "severe." It's very straightforward logic and grammar. But there it is.
What are some examples of "pain or suffering arising only from . . . lawful sanctions"?
And "pain or suffering . . . inherent in . . . lawful sanctions"?
And "pain or suffering . . . incidental to, lawful sanctions"?
And for that mnatter, what are "lawful [presumably moral] sanctions" and what are not?
NOW we're getting somewhere. Finally, some sort of objective definition is proposed that we can actually talk about; something to grab onto and have an intelligent, constructive, educational discussion about.
If anyone can show me some solid answers to these (I think) extremely relevant questions, and, moreover, show that this is exactly what the Church means (by solid documentation, not just speculation) then this discussion (at least to my satisfaction) can be over tonight.
If not, I think it is actually prolonged, because it looks like you guys have fired your best shot and it may just turn out to be a blank and cause you more problems than you had remotely suspected.
Hi Mark,
I've given definitions of torture repeatedly. None seem to satisfy.
1. It is of little consequence what definition you provide on your own "authority" (if that is what you did). You have none in the first place. All you can do is #2:
2. You need to tie your proposed definition in with the Church in some substantial fashion, since that is what we're talking about.
3. When Chris Sullivan and Fr. O'Leary attempted to do so, you see what happened. I easily found five ways in which there is considerable wiggling room for coercion of some sort. Since that is my major concern, this almost constituted an argument for my present agnostic state with regard to what is being prohibited as "inherently evil."
If you want to know what legitimate coercion is, why not ask people who do interrogation rather than people who have absolutely no specialized technical knowledge?
1. I could do so, sure, but you are also required to back up your own claims with objective evidence and documentation, particularly since you have been making excessively strong and judgmental remarks about those who disagree. You're making the case; the burden of evidence and proof is on you.
2. If you have no "specialized knowledge," then why are you talking so dogmatically and at the same time attempting to minimize definitional criteria which are absolutely fundamental in this discussion and most discussions concerning the relation of theory to fact and concrete particulars?
3. I possess no "specialized knowledge" in this area, either, but that is precisely why I come at it from a standpoint of relative ignorance and inquiry, hoping to get a handle on definitions and parameters (I've been doing that literally all day today). But you are dogmatic. When pressed, frankly, you haven't produced much of consequence or import.
Again, the subject here is not "What is torture?" The subject is "When the Church says torture is intrinsically immoral can we ignore her or not?"
I've already dealt with this objection. You need not state it twice to me. For myself (and perhaps for others), nailing down this definition is absolutely crucial. Thus far, two people have referred me to the UN document that seems to produce more confusion than clarification (in terms of differentiating coercion from torture. "Zippy" sent me to his papers which provided scarcely little assistance, either.
Now you want to refrain from producing anything. This is not impressive, my friend. With your brain power and (often) tremendous insight, I think you (and your allies in this cause, as well) can do WAY better than this.
The question "What is torture?" follow that one. As far as I can tell you are agreeing that when the Church says torture is intrinsically immoral she is to be obeyed.
Of course. But what IS it? How can I opbey an injunction unless I know exactly what is being "injuncted" about? 
At least, that's what this exchange seems to suggest:
Zippy: An intrinsically evil act is evil because of the nature of its object. Intent and circumstances are completely irrelevant to the conclusion that the act is morally evil.
Dave: Yes, absolutely.
That marks you off from the Coalition for Fog's endless attempts to neuter the meaning of "intrinsically immoral".
Maybe so; maybe not. How can I know that, either, unless you document it? This is now the fourth time I've asked you to please do so. Where have these people made such remarks? They (well, several of "them" (this "grouptalk" strikes me as downright conspiratorial) repeatedly, insistently, angrily claim
that you have been misrepresenting them.
Something's going on here. People are usually the world's best expert on their own opinions (as Jimmy Akin delightfully says). I'm standing in the middle, trying to decide if your characterization of their position is accurate or not. They're mad about something, are they not? Having often had my own positions misrepresented, I know how that feels, and it ain't pleasant.
So it seems to me that it is your intellectual and ethical duty to prove your strong accusations. Just send me somewhere if you don't want to cut-and-paste. Why is that so difficult if all these past discussions are sitting there in your archives?
If you can't do so, I think you need to make a mass apology to those who have disagreed with you and retract your numerous charges. If you can do so, on the other hand, I'd have no hesitation to condemn, just as vigorously as you do, those who believe that the Church teaches a certain thing, and deliberately try to deny it or squirm out of it or rationalize it away. These are very serious charges indeed. That would constitute an illegitimate private judgment or "cafeteria Catholicism," which I believe to be almost equally manifest among both liberals and "traditionalists."
Prima facie, your continuing reluctance to document this stuff suggests that it is quite possible that you ain't got nuthin' to show and have been guilty of gross misrepresentation and caricature of your opponents, whom you continually want to put into some "group."
C'mon, Mark. I urge you as a fellow apologist and friend. You have often criticized other apologists (one in particular that I can think of) for being overly-dogmatic and judgmental of others without sufficient cause (or any at all).
Don't go down that road yourself. The Church needs your prodigious talents too much for you to go that route. And I mean that quite sincerely. People are watching you. You have one of the most popular blogs among Catholics. I think you can do a lot better than this.
So can your opponents, ethics-wise. So can I. We all can. But if they don't hold what you claim they hold, that is something else again, and has become an ethical dispute in addition to the "torture" debate.
Hi Zippy,
Dave: I have no problem personally understanding what torture is, or abortion is, or pornography is, or adultery is. I understand those things just fine.
Abortion and adultery are quite easy to understand and define. Pornography (like lust) and torture are not quite so simple. Not all of us are blessed with your remarkable abilities of discernment and intuition, I'm afraid.
Pornography is the classic example. There are more ways than one to portray nudity. The greatest art has tons of it and pornography also has it (I'm just talking about nudity per se, not depictions of sex which are clearly pornographic and wrong). There are fine lines there. When one is at the edge of the line between pornography and innocent nude art, reasonable people of good faith can differ. I regard this present debate similarly.
I understand the difference between punishing someone and torturing him just fine.
Then you can give those of us not so blessed with this easy, casual knowledge clear guidelines. What stops you? Yet you sent me to a paper of yours that did no such thing. A second I read didn't do any better. You can hide behind proclaimed self-evident "knowledge" and platitudes and maxims and slogans only so long. You have to come down to the decadent world of objectivity and factual, practical matters at some point. What are you, a hyper-Platonist or something?
Like Mark I've provided reams of definitions, discussion, and analysis of what they are, and of what necessarily follows from the fact that they are intrinsic evils.
Great. Wonderful, in fact! You're the guy I'm looking for, then. Please send me to more of these articles of yours. I hope they're more meaty than the first two.
Lots of people are claiming not to understand them: claiming that we might just slip on a banana peel and torture a prisoner on accident, or have an abortion on accident, or commit adultery on accident,
Really? How odd. An accidential abortion? Who said these things? When, where? You claim it is "lots of people." Excellent; then you'll have no trouble directing me to them.
or contracept on accident
What, confuse the birth control pill with a Tylenol?
if we don't answer questions like "how much sleep deprivation amounts to torture?" or "how much flirtation can I engage in with women who aren't my spouse without it being adulterous?"
I'm sorry to inform you that thinking and disputation involve questions like these quite often. Definition and application. I hope you're not in the legal field. Is that useless, too, since it is, after all, so "legalistic"?
The problem is, questions like "how much skin has to be exposed for it to be pornography?" are inherently flawed: they obscure the very subject they pretend to attempt to clarify.
Just let everyone decide on their own, subjectively, huh? It's not that simple. To give just one example, how a culture views nudity is widely variable over time. This holds even for Christian cultures. Thus, great paintings from the Renaissance were routinely covered over with veils over genitals. That's not how they were painted, but later cultural norms dictated that this total nudity (previously simply considered beautiful and Eden-like innocent) was
now improper and vulgar. This is real stuff; not subjective mush. We're influenced by our culture. We can hardly not be.
The whole "Mark and Zippy are saying it is wrong to have a definition" thing is a really bad straw man.
Then why did you provide me one? You should have refused on principle.
What I've said is that the kind of definition people are insisting upon (e.g. "how much skin..."), and their incessant whining and complaining that existing definitions are too vague for our poor little minds to understand, is under the most charitable possible interpretation an intellectual dead-end, and it materially contributes to a wicked project.
Really now? I would say yopur reluctance to provide the most basic foundation of any sensible discussion of fact, or relation of fact to theory, or application of same to real life ethical situations, is the intellectual dead-end. We are at least thinking. You seem to say that thinking is useless in such matters and intuition is all. I'm all for intution, but never at the expense of thinking.
Now, the reason I've been talking about the nature of torture in discussion that you apparently find too abstract for your taste is because that is what I've been asked to do, again and again, for over a year, by people apparently befuddled about the nature of torture.
Whether they asked or not, it is still fundamental, and your responsibility. You've has strong words of your own about your opponents.
If all you are looking for is concrete guidelines (like telling that hypothetical couple "don't engage in sex out of wedlock and don't use contraception once you are married"), I don't personally know of anything wrong with the Geneva Conventions and the Army Field Manual which incorporates them. The Church certainly seems to support them as concrete guidelines.
How do you know that? If you can't support it, then secular guidelines would be of only limited relevance to Church guidelines. WQe would have to judge where they crossed the line into immorality. It's not exactly like secular society is soaked in Christian ethics.
On the other hand, if you cite something like the UN resolution, you see how nebulous that was to resolve the issue at hand.
In answer to your question, if you are denying the teaching of the Church that torture is intrinsically immoral, then yes, whether you know it or not, you are an apologist for Satan. All depends on that "if".
Well then, Mr. Mark P. Shea, last moral man, I will have to conclude that I am, as we say, yet another evil traditionalist. Of course, only "IF" evil means questioning scandalously shallow, false and non-traditional readings of contradictory texts.
Iacobus:
You posted in part: "questioning scandalously shallow, false and non-traditional readings of contradictory texts."
I am very confued. I thought that the Catechism taught that torture is a violation of the 5th Commandment.
Is there a text, document or letter that contradicts the Catechism and teaches that torture is not a violation of the 5th Commandment?
Thank you.
God bless
Richard W. Comerford
Dave, just a couple of points, because I think you are suffering from having come to the party way, way late:
First, Mark and I have referred people (including you) to things like the UN Convention on Torture and the Geneva Conventions. Repeatedly, ad nauseum.
Just let everyone decide on their own, subjectively, huh?
For a guy who is always insisting on documentation of other's assertions you have a bad habit of attributing things to other people that they didn't say. Saying "pornography cannot be defined by how much skin is exposed" isn't the same thing as saying "just let everyone decide on their own, subjectively". If you continue to assert straw men I am going to lose interest in discussing this with you.
Me:
The whole "Mark and Zippy are saying it is wrong to have a definition" thing is a really bad straw man.
Dave:
Then why did you provide me one? You should have refused on principle.
If it is a straw man, Dave, that means it is not a position I have actually adopted but rather is a caracature of my position asserted by others.
Have you read Fr. Harrison's article, which everyone is discussing, especially the second part?
I think that would give you enough texts to understand where those who disagree with Mark are coming from. When you ignore tradition in your interpretation of the Catechism - which is not Church teaching itself - or encyclicals and councils, it is not a good thing. When you go further and call everyone else who isn't comfortable with your interpretation an apologist for Satan, when you are on rather shaky ground yourself, then it is even worse. I don't have any problem with an ordinary Catholic thinking that torture is intrinsically immoral - not such a bad thing in itself. But I do have a problem with a widely read apologist who styles himself moral theologian defaming his ancestral Church by accusing it of enforced intrinsic immorality, and calling people like, say, St. Alphonsus Ligouri (the only Doctor of Moral Theology in the history Church) apologists for Satan.
Though it is a different definition of torture than Mark is wont to show us (the pure pain kind, rather than the coercion - especially immodest - kind), the Papal Bull Exurge Domine is a good one. That's a hard one to contradict.
Otherwise, have a Good Day and God Bless!
Richard,
The Catechism says that "torture which uses physical or moral violence to extract confessions, punish the guilty, frighten oppoents, or satisfy hatred is contrary to respect for the person and for human dignity." Father Harrison's point is that using physical or moral violence to extract life-saving information is not condemned, and since the use of physical or moral violence is not intrinsically evil, you can't definitively say that the Catechism condemns the use of physical or moral violence for that purpose. Father Harrison also thinks that the condemnation of torture by John Paul II should be read in light of the Catehcism's statement. So it isn't a question of choosing between Father Harrison and the Catechism, or Father Harrison and JP II, because Father Harrison bases his opinion on his reading of the Catechism and JP II.
The Church has long held that theft is not intrinsically immoral. It is not wrong, for example, for a starving man to steal a loaf of bread. Now suppose your boss comes in and tells you to rob a bank. Are you going to say to yourself, "gosh, stealing isn't intrinsically immoral, so I should do it"? Of course not. Just because a given action isn't intrinsically evil doesn't mean it's not evil.
I understand that this is an emotional issue, but I really wish you would cut out the insults and go actually read what Father Harrison wrote.
The Church has long held that theft is not intrinsically immoral.
No, it hasn't.
and calling people like, say, St. Alphonsus Ligouri (the only Doctor of Moral Theology in the history Church) apologists for Satan.
Didn't Jesus once call Peter the same thing? Didn't St. Paul warn us against preachers of different gospels, even if they be angels? Impressive as he was, even St. Thomas was wrong on some things (no offense to angels, Sts. Peter, Thomas, and Alphonsus).
I still don't see how Fr. Harrison's definition (we only torture for good reasons) avoids consequentialism, by simply redefining torture as "those acts of inflicting severe pain when done for the wrong reasons".
Father Harrison also thinks that the condemnation of torture by John Paul II should be read in light of the Catehcism's statement.
So. The Catechism doesn't have the standing of an encyclical, but when an encyclical categorically condemns torture as intrinsically evil we are to interpret the Catechism as falsifying that to mean that torture isn't actually intrinsically evil, just evil when employed for certain remote purposes? And we are to interpret the Catechism in that way even though - because the actual words underdetermine possible concepts - it isn't at all necessary to interpret the Catechism in that way?
Looks like question begging to me.
Zippy and Mark,
Why do you insist on NOT forthrightly addressing the issues raised by Dave Armstrong?
You have a lot of people watching in the wings who usually do not contribte to the discussion ... and we are waiting to learn.
John
This is getting tedious.
Zippy, have you read the articles by Father Harrison in question? If not, please do so, then we'll talk.
Tom, it's true that St. Thomas defined theft and stealing such that it isn't stealing to take another person's property in cases of extreme need. This isn't the way the word is ordinarily used, however, and I think it was clear from what I said that I was using the word "theft" in its ordinary sense, not in any specialized scholastic sense.
Zippy, have you read the articles by Father Harrison in question?
Yes.
Josiah:
Thank you for your kind reply.
You posted in part: "understand that this is an emotional issue, but I really wish you would cut out the insults and go actually read what Father Harrison wrote".
I reply: I did read it. It hurt my head; but I read it. I thought it was horse manure. Any idiot, including this idiot, could have done a better job.
Why would a Catholic Priest even hint that torture may be OK after the Pope has condemned it and the Catechism says it is a violation of the 5th Commandment? Right now Christians are being tortured all over the world for being Christians; and Father, from the safety of his academic ivory tower, is making excuses for torture.
Also, American service men who are Catholic are being told by their own government that torture is OK. Their immortal souls are being placed in danger by the temptation to treat prisoners inhumanely.
We need at this time for our priests to be publishing documents calling for us to love our enemies, not opening the door for more torture.
Shame on Father. He has a big brain. He should know better.
God bless
Richard W. Comerford
Zippy,
Okay, then. Point me to where Father Harrison says that "The Catechism doesn't have the standing of an encyclical, but when an encyclical categorically condemns torture as intrinsically evil we are to interpret the Catechism as falsifying that to mean that torture isn't actually intrinsically evil."
I sympathize with you Richard. The problem is that when the Church's teaching is not clarified fully, or is presented in a way that makes it seem like the modern Church is breaking with the past, things are much easier for the enemies of the Church. When the truth is obscured, everyone loses!
Imagine, for example, there are certain forms of "torture" within some broad spectrum of actions that were entirely legitimate. Or, to take a different issue, Natural Family Planning. NFP (used to prevent conception), if not used with just cause, can be mortally sinful. We could just say that since trying to separate procreation from the sexual act is an evil thing, and could lead many souls to destruction (as it probably has), we ought not to even discuss the exact requirements which make NFP licit. I know this is tangential, but it is helpful because it is an issue in which modern sensibilities run the opposite way. Most people these days - and I am being very general here - accept implicitly the right to plan a family. That's not how it used to be at all. Similarly, Christians used to have an entirely different notion of what human dignity meant, and had no problems with the torture employed by the Church, so long as it was done according to strict rules. Times and cultures have certainly changed since then, but we can't let our modern sensibilities influence our understanding of the truth.
Even though it is a painful enterprise with possibly harmful consequences, it is better to flesh out more clearly what the Church teaches about torture than to leave truth, by contradictory statements, obscured. Even if we realize that a lot of the things which moderns "feel" are sinful aren't and have to argue against them in other ways - pragmatically, perhaps - it is better to have explained all the exceptions and understood the matter, than to persist in confusion. There is absolutely no shame in what Fr. Harrison is doing. It is his purpose as a theologian, to calmly and objectively understand everything that may seem contradictory in the light of tradition, and we need a lot more priests like him.
Iacobus:
Thank you for your kind reply.
You posted in part: "It is his purpose as a theologian, to calmly and objectively understand everything that may seem contradictory in the light of tradition, and we need a lot more priests like him".
When I plowed through his documents what struck me was that the authorities in favor of torture could be taken in more than one way. On the other hand the authorities against torture could only be taken in one way.
He is a priest before he is a theologian. Immortal souls are at stake. When the Vicar of Christ says a loud and clear and resounding "no" to torture the good Father should be explaining to us we should love our enemies rather than explaining that torture may be OK in some cases.
We need holy priests with guts.
God bless
Richard W. Comerford
Thanks, Richard, for being so pleasant. Still, I kind of think that if we had a "loud and clear and resounding "no" to torture" we wouldn't still be arguing. I'm bowing out, though.
Okay, then. Point me to where Father Harrison says that ...
Josiah: I wasn't criticizing Father Harrison in that post, I was criticizing you. What you said was:
Father Harrison also thinks that the condemnation of torture by John Paul II should be read in light of the Catehcism's statement.
If Father Harrison (or you) think that the categorical condemnation of torture as an intrinsic evil in VS should be narrowed to understanding it as a conditional evil based on remote intention because of the wording in the Catechism, well, I think that is obvious hooey. If that isn't what you mean, then just what do you mean?
Veritatis Splendor says that torture is intrinsically immoral. However, Veritatis Splendor does not define what is meant by the word "torture" as used in the condemnation. One suggestion would be to look to the Catechism's statement on the matter, which appears to define torture as "us[ing] physical or moral violence to extract confessions, punish the guilty, frighten opponents, or satisfy hatred." Since using physical or moral violence to extract life-saving information isn't listed in the Catechism, we should therefore conclude that Veritatis Splendor's condemnation of torture does not include the use of physical or moral violence for that purpose.
That's the argument. As I said at the beginning, it's not an argument I agree with. But I don't think making the argument renders one the equivalent of Charles Curran or Francis Kissling, or makes one an apologist for Satan, or an idiot, nor do I think that such characterizations are helpful to the discussion (if nothing else, the fact that I'm willing to spend so much time defending from such attacks a position I don't even agree with shows how counter-productive the tactic is).
And with that, I'm done with this subject for a while.
One suggestion would be to look to the Catechism's statement on the matter, which appears to define torture as ...
No, it doesn't. Treating the bit in the Catechism that you misquote as a definition makes no sense, as I've pointed out numerous times before. You've changed the wording in the Catechism to make it look like a definition. The actual wording is "Torture which uses...to..." not "Torture means using...to...".
The central point to Veritatis Splendour is that there are intrinsically evil acts which cannot be made licit by appealing to remote intentions, and it specifies torture as one of those kinds of acts. Twisting what the Catechism says to imply that torture is the sort of act which can be made licit (or made "not torture") by remote intentions isn't "interpreting VS in the light of the Catechism". It is twisting both the wording and the plain meaning in the Catechism in order to attempt to set it in direct opposition to what VS expressly states about torture.
define torture as "us[ing] physical or moral violence to extract confessions, punish the guilty, frighten opponents, or satisfy hatred." Since using physical or moral violence to extract life-saving information isn't listed in the Catechism, we should therefore conclude that Veritatis Splendor's condemnation of torture does not include the use of physical or moral violence for that purpose.
And I think this is a perfect example of why the demand for a infinitesimally precise definition of just what is and isn't torture is neither helpful nor forthcoming (i.e., from the Church). Because, the human heart being the way it is, any such definition would be very quickly circumvented by finding new and improved methods of "non-torture" (i.e., things that do not meet the strict definition). When one is dealing with positive statements, however, such as "treat prisoners humanely and with respect", though it requires a little work of the conscience to determine if our actions are in line with that commandment, it nevertheless is much more difficult to circumvent. It applies even to the new and improved methods.
And by the way, I think people object to my characterizing torture apologists as the intellectual bedfellows of Kissling and Curran because they are probably judging Kissling and Curran in ways that they should not. In both cases, the intellectual arguments are a load of obvious crap. In neither case does anyone have any business judging the condition of the soul of the person making the argument.
Zippy wrote:
If you continue to assert straw men I am going to lose interest in discussing this with you.
That's alright; I beat you to the punch, and have already lost interest in discussion on this matter with you, based on your latest response.
I'm moving on to other things now. No sense spinning wheels if those I am critiquing aren't interested in defending their positions or working through various necessary issues. One can only try, and I put a lot of effort and time into it. But I don't have unlimited energy or patience.
Perhaps someone here could kindly let me know (by e-mail or on my blog) if there is a serious (i.e., detailed) response to my arguments offered here (particularly by Mark). Thanks!
Note: my e-mail address may be changing soon. I list it on the lower right of my blog, in the sidebar.
Thanks to Mark for allowing me to freely express my opinion.
Here is my blog post on the subject:
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2...as-
related.html
Anyone who wishes can comment there to let me know if someone has commented on my rendered opinions and arguments. I'd appreciate it.
No sense spinning wheels if those I am critiquing aren't interested in defending their positions or working through various necessary issues.
Sorry Dave, but you've attributed things to me I simply did not say (e.g. "Just let everyone decide on their own, subjectively"). That isn't criticism, it is just talking to straw men.
Zippy: Sorry Dave, but you've attributed things to me I simply did not say (e.g. "Just let everyone decide on their own, subjectively"). That isn't criticism, it is just talking to straw men.
There is a distinction between straw men and pointing out the logical consequences or reduction of one's position that one may not even realize. Oftentimes, people don't see that certain things straightforwardly follow from what they are saying. In other words, we don't -- every one of us to more or less degrees -- always think logically, or, I should say, in a logically consistent fashion.
I was, of course, attempting to do the analysis of logical reduction of your viewpoint (as I often do, being a big fan of logical consistency and coherence). Granted, one can always be mistaken in such judgments (and I very well may have been here, as I don't know you very well), but in any event, you (like Mark) decided to not seriously interact with my critiques. It is a deliberate decision to simply ignore most or all of an opposing position and a person who is asking some hard questions and seeking solid answers.
The reason is patently obvious. You think the arguments of your opponents are "a load of obvious crap." That makes dialogue impossible, because you have no respect whatsoever and only disdain for these opposing positions.
Therefore, you aren't willing to engage in a serious dialogue on this. I can see that clearly, so it is futile for me to pursue it further.
Some folks like to dialogue and learn in the process, others like to lecture; still others like to listen. The lecturers can find a ready audience in at least some of the listeners. Sometimes other lecturers will also listen if they agree with the lecturer doing the lecturing. Or they can both lecture each other and do mutual monologue. They don't want to truly interact, or at least not for any appreciable length of time, so they just talk past each other.
But the one who seeks dialogue has the frustration of not being able to do it with either the lecturers or the listeners. The lecturers only desire to lecture and (for the most part: all of this is a broad generalization) not listen and discuss and interact. And of course the listeners don't dialogue because they don't respond. They just listen to the other two parties.
So what can I do? If my probing, inquiring, (I think) constructively critical questions are systematically ignored, then why hang around? I can't even learn very much, by my Socratic method of dialogue, because if I simply read your lectures, they raise many questions in my mind that I seek answers to, but y'all aren't willing to entertain them. So I get no further ahead in my understanding.
Therefore, it's a methodological catch-22. But for better or worse, that is how I go about things. The two methods are quite incompatible.
But you keep right on lecturing to whomever wants to listen to you and I'll keep on asking questions, inquiring where I don't possess a solidly-held view, and seek those like-minded individuals who desire to do dialogue. I can't help what I am in that respect. Perhaps you can't either.
I'm not even saying that my method is "better" than yours. It's just a profound clash of methodology, any way you look at it. It's a frustration I often go through; somewhat like a lover of loud rock music being married to a soft jazz or classical devotee (where both don't care for the other style at all).
The problem, Dave, is that your "probing", "inquiring", "constructive", "critical", "serious", "logical", "straighforward", "consistent" "dialogue" is coming at the end of 8 months of solid debate. People around here aren't interested in digging up the past 8 months of material for your "documentation". It's around here if you want it, though.
There is a distinction between straw men and pointing out the logical consequences or reduction of one's position that one may not even realize.
Sure. But "just let everyone decide for himself" pretty obviously isn't a logical consequence of "pornography cannot be defined by how much skin is exposed". Maybe I'm guilty of being too dismissive, after nearly a year of these discussions, when the same tired and obviously fallacious objections come up over and over again. But like John Henry said, it is all in the archives if you want it.
You think the arguments of your opponents are "a load of obvious crap." That makes dialogue impossible, because you have no respect whatsoever and only disdain for these opposing positions.
That is exactly right. For example, it is obvious crap to say that "how much skin is exposed cannot define pornography" implies "everyone subjectively makes up his mind for himself". When an interlocutor makes statements like that I can point out to him that he is asserting a straw man, but, until he acknowledges that, there isn't much possibility of further constructive discussion. Going point-by-point over a criticism of a position that isn't mine is not "dialogue" either.
Hi John Henry,
". . . the end of 8 months of solid debate. People around here aren't interested in digging up the past 8 months of material for your "documentation". It's around here if you want it, though."
That's fascinating. It's like chiding someone for being born in 1971 instead of 1973. Sorry I wasn't here for the past eight months! Judging by the tedious, frustrating nature of the "dialogue" (at least at present), I thank the Lord that I wasn't.
As for the inability of folks to give someone a link when they are sincerely seeking information, that is pathetic also. What's so damned hard about that? I'm expected to search through eight months of this blog, where there are about 10,000 words a day posted?
For heaven's sake: nothing is simpler than links technology. All you gotta do is give me a link to something you know about that I don't (in the old days we referred each other to books and magazine articles instead).
But heaven forbid that I put someone out to trouble themselves to such an extreme degree.
But seeing how y'all really don't want to dialogue on this (you're tired, blah blah blah; I know all that), there is little point in digging up old stuff anyway, insofar as no one seems to want to discuss it after I look it over (and that is how one can learn even more; at least how I learn when I am working through a complex issue).
Case in point: Zippy. He referred me to a paper of his and I read another one, asked some questions and then he blew it off.
But I apologize profusely for being the "new kid on the block." I'll try to arrive earlier than I get here, next time.
Case in point: Zippy. He referred me to a paper of his and I read another one, asked some questions and then he blew it off.
No, I didn't. You seem to think that the point I am drilling on - the point where you are engaging with a straw man rather than with my actual position - is academic, abstract, and/or unimportant. It isn't. It is a crucial point, without which all the rest of the discussion is utterly irrelevant and a complete waste of time.
When the government is involved in pushing pornography even indirectly (e.g. through NEA grants), I don't consider it excusable via the "what exactly is pornography anyway?" gambit. Likewise with torture. It isn't even slightly ambiguous, no matter what terminological gambits are made with definitions, that our government shouldn't be funding "Piss Christ" or waterboarding captives.
And yeah, if someone isn't on board with that point then there is little point in any further "dialogue", because it won't be dialogue. Maybe you are on board with that. But when I say "the amount of skin showing doesn't define pornography" and you reply to the effect that I am asserting hopeless moral relativism, where I'm at is that you have a tune to change before discussion with you is even possible. Sorry.
I'm not an apologist, don't pretend to be one. I'm a self-made multimillionaire, former high tech CEO, current investor/advisor, terribly lapsed indifferent wicked person and now relapsed cradle Catholic. I have a very low tolerance threshold for bullshit; I'm the first to admit it. Some people find discussion with me productive, some don't. If you don't find it productive then you are under no obligation to engage in it.
One of my lines above was backwards:
"It's like chiding someone for being born in 1971 instead of 1973."
should be:
"It's like chiding someone for being born in 1973 instead of 1971."
Zippy wrote,
you reply to the effect that I am asserting hopeless moral relativism,
I did???!!!! That's news to me. Who's creating straw men now?
I have a very low tolerance threshold for bullshit
We do have that characteristic very much in common.
Some people find discussion with me productive, some don't.
Mark me in the latter category, if this pathetic performance is typical of your efforts. I think it's a shame.
If you don't find it productive then you are under no obligation to engage in it.
Thank you. Be well.
I did???!!!!
Yes. That is what "Just let everyone decide on their own, subjectively [what pornography is]", which you attributed to me, means. Maybe you didn't mean to say it, but you in fact said it.
Hi Zippy,
That is what "Just let everyone decide on their own, subjectively [what pornography is]", which you attributed to me, means. Maybe you didn't mean to say it, but you in fact said it.
You won't let this die, will you? You take one remark of mine, out of context, and blow it all out of proportion, then you illogically distort what I meant, and what the words that I used mean.
Here is at least some context:
ZIPPY: The problem is, questions like "how much skin has to be exposed for it to be pornography?" are inherently flawed: they obscure the very subject they pretend to attempt to clarify.
DAVE: Just let everyone decide on their own, subjectively, huh? It's not that simple. To give just one example, how a culture views nudity is widely variable over time. This holds even for Christian cultures. Thus, great paintings from the Renaissance were routinely covered over with veils over genitals. That's not how they were painted, but later cultural norms dictated that this total nudity (previously simply considered beautiful and Eden-like innocent) was
now improper and vulgar. This is real stuff; not subjective mush. We're influenced by our culture. We can hardly not be.
See entire reply, for extensive context:
http://www.haloscan.com/comments...?
a=24354#821249
Later, you characterized my reply as:
But when I say "the amount of skin showing doesn't define pornography" and you reply to the effect that I am asserting hopeless moral relativism, where I'm at is that you have a tune to change before discussion with you is even possible. Sorry.
The whole backdrop of my analogy was, of course, whether we need to carefully define parameters of certain things. I used pornography and lust as two examples in seeking to show that some ethical issues have very fine lines, where reasonable people can differ. You said you knew what pornography was. I replied that it wasn't so simple and that we need some objective criteria precisely because people do differ on where the line is drawn. The analogy applies to the torture issue very closely because there we have the same sort of line:
(cont.)
1. Lust beautiful self-giving and mutual expression of love.
[commonality: both can occur during the same objective love-making act, and the line can subjectively be very fine]
2. Nude art by the great masters pornographic (not including depictions of the sexual act) nude art.
[commonality: both involve nudity, but one is morally acceptable and the other, wicked, and using women as objects for nefarious ends, intended to stir up lust, and the line can subjectively be very fine]
3. Permissible coercive techniques in the course of war or police work coercive techniques that cross the line into torture.
[commonality: both involve coercion (mentally or physically), in the effort to persuade or compel someone against their will, but one is morally acceptable and the other, wicked, and the line can subjectively be very fine]
I love analogies. I use them all the time in my argumentation. They are one of my favorite types of argument (I get a lot of that from my love of Newman). And I think this is a very close analogy (many are not this close, and quite imperfect). I know a good analogy when I see one, and In know a fair or poor one. This one is, I think, very close, and this aids in deciding issues such as this one.
You not only fail to interpret my words in their proper context, but you don't seem to understand that any single sentence of mine may also be responding tom your overall remarks in their context. You can't see the forest for the trees, in other words.
So when I wrote, "Just let everyone decide on their own, subjectively, huh?" I wasn't necessarily referring to only the previous sentence (though that was included). I had in mind, also, other related remarks of yours, because I (and anyone who wants to argue effectively and constructively) respond to overall arguments, not just isolated sentences.
But to provide the backdrop of the backdrop, we also had this silly little exchange:
ZIPPY: The whole "Mark and Zippy are saying it is wrong to have a definition" thing is a really bad straw man.
DAVE: Then why did you provide me one? You should have refused on principle.
ZIPPY: If it is a straw man, Dave, that means it is not a position I have actually adopted but rather is a caracature of my position asserted by others.
Then you made the remark:
What I've said is that the kind of definition people are insisting upon (e.g. "how much skin..."), and their incessant whining and complaining that existing definitions are too vague for our poor little minds to understand, is under the most charitable possible interpretation an intellectual dead-end, and it materially contributes to a wicked project.
This is obviously itself a caricature of your opponents, and that is what I was responding to. You immediately collapse the following proposition:
1. Insistence upon definition (crucial to any sensible, coherent, constructive discussion of a difficult issue.
to your caricature:
1b. "the kind of definition people are insisting upon (e.g. "how much skin...") . . ."
(cont.)
In other words, you lump all such endeavors into an unsavory, Pharisaical, legalistic, nitpicky exercise. It's the broad brush, the caricature, the stereotypical response to serious questions. Mark has been notoriously dong this for a long time now, with many different sorts of folks who disagree with him.
This is what I am objecting to. We must argue with individuals, not immediately put them into a box on subjective grounds without even hearing what they have to say. Because then all the anger and frustration we may have towards people who truly do fall into an undesirable category, gets unfairly spilled over onto those who do not fit in the box.
This is both uncharitable and illogical, and it destroys constructive discussion. It's essentially a form of prejudice. It is highly-charged, knee-jerk polemics, not rational discussion.
You do the same in other areas with regard to necessary, inquisitive questioning (such as my own):
2. Necessary, inquisitive questioning (such as my own) about existing definitions as too vague to resolve all reasonable difficulties of others, held in good faith.
to:
2b. "incessant whining and complaining that existing definitions are too vague for our poor little minds to understand,"
Not only that; you also characterize the entire motive for dissent from yours and Mark's views as follows:
"an intellectual dead-end, and it materially contributes to a wicked project."
Right. You and Mark are the ones who have been engaging in systematic cynical characterization of opposing views. This is what destroys charitable, rational discussion.
Yet if we dare to make the slightest critique of your reasoning, you throw a hissy-fit.
The fact remains that you didn't want to provide a definition. You wanted to let individuals decide that, and thought precise definition was unnecessary with regard to torture and that everyone instinctively knows what it is, because you have no problem doing so. Yet when someone asks you to simply tell them what acts would be classified as what, under your own criteria, all you can provide as morally permissible "non-torturous coercion" is handcuffs, jailing, and "beating the crap" out of a prisoner (your words). Mark has been acting similarly.
Then I come in and make the outrageous, insufferable, wicked, deliberately distorting comment: "Just let everyone decide on their own, subjectively, huh?"
And you characterize that as my supposedly believing that you are "asserting hopeless moral relativism."
This, of course, doesn't follow, either. And that is because you have fundamentally confused two different concepts: subjectivism and relativism. It's true that in some contexts they are roughly synonymous (e.g., there is a C.S. Lewis essay, "The Poison of Subjectivism" where he decries moral relativism), but not by any means always.
You simply didn't have enough information from me to determine that I was accusing you of "hopeless moral relativism." I was not. I was protesting against excessive individualist subjectivism when objective definition and criteria and parameters are needed.
An individual could subjectively decide something (i.e., for himself), using his own ascertained objective grounds.
I could subjectively assert, e.g., that in my opinion, Mark Shea provided a better argument than you did, for the "case" you two are both trying to make. Then when asked to explain why, I could produce objective criteria including logical factors and factuality and lack of their contraries.
Subjectivism per se doesn't entail relativism. There are plenty of instances where subjectivism is entirely proper. Romantic love is one clear example. What's "objective" about that? It is almost entirely subjective. No one would have it otherwise.
I am protesting, in your case, that you are approaching an issue subjectively that also necessarily includes objective factors, such as definition. You are making recourse to subjectivism when it is improper to do so excusively. I agree that there are subjective elements in the issue of torture, too, but not to the exclusion of objective definitions and criteria.
Now, it's true that you did eventually refer me to some documents, but then, if you agreed that definition is necessary, why did you make the statement that you know pornography (and torture) when you see it, as if it is self-evident that all reasonable, moral men would agree with you? They do not. This is the whole point. So you only begrudgingly give in to my terrible demands for objective definition of some sort, and you must characterize such similar efforts as:
"their incessant whining and complaining that existing definitions are too vague for our poor little minds to understand, is under the most charitable possible interpretation an intellectual dead-end, and it materially contributes to a wicked project."
In other words, I must be part of this wicked conspiracy to even ask the question, and so here we are because you approached me with this extreme cynicism in the first place. I have just shown, I think, how this is thoroughly uncharitable as well as illogical. And I'm apparently only one of a long line of folks who have felt similarly mistreated (many of them banned from this blog). I've now experienced it myself, and so can empathize with them. Their complaints ring true to me because now I have experienced something quite like what they have been describing.
In any event, I did not accuse you of "hopeless moral relativism." That was your illogical reduction of my use of the concept of "subjectivism" where it was not warranted to do so.
You THOUGHT I had that in mind. I'm here telling you that was NOT what I had in mind (rather, it was what I have taken pains to explain above).
Others have idiotically argued that they knew better about what was in my mind than I knew myself. Do you wish to add yourself to that list of fools or will you drop this silly complaint about my alleged straw men targets?
If a word to the wise is sufficient, many words (about one small exchange) to the wise (even the cynical wise, if that is not an oxymoron) ought to be very sufficient, I would imagine.
END
The whole backdrop of my analogy was, of course, whether we need to carefully define parameters of certain things.
Yeah. I get that. We don't. We won't slip on a banana peel and accidentally fund porn or torture prisoners unless we are already doing something wrong. We already have servicable definitions when it comes to torture and the treatment of prisoners in general, standards which we've had for a long time, and which were uncontroversial until the Bush administration said that they don't apply in the War on Terror. We already know that torture is intrinsically immoral like abortion and pornography. There may be subtleties and nuances and conundra to discuss (as with abortion, pornography, just war, and probably an infinite number of other topics), and indeed I've discussed those extensively (though you found at least some of my discussion of them too abstract for your taste, apparently, which is fine). But we don't have to talk about definitions extensively first in order to be committed to not torturing prisoners. We just have to be committed to not torturing prisoners.
This is obviously itself a caricature of your opponents.
No, it isn't. I've been asked countless times in the last year how long we can sleep deprive someone before it becomes torture, how cold we can make his cell before it becomes torture, etc. And been repeatedly accused of being a ninny for pointing out that the questions themselves are morally incoherent.
In other words, I must be part of this wicked conspiracy to even ask the question, and so here we are because you approached me with this extreme cynicism in the first place.
I've constructed more of those subtle and abstract arguments you don't like about why, as a matter of fact, asking certain kinds of questions is evil. That doesn't mean that the people who ask those kinds of questions are personally culpable; in general I don't give a shit what people are and are not personally culpable for -- that is between them and God. But nevertheless, pursuing certain kinds of questions is evil, in my view; and "how much can we sleep-deprive a prisoner without technically torturing him" falls into that category.
A lot of people don't want that sort of question to be evil. A lot of people want that question to be morally coherent, and they want an answer to it. Too bad.
That was your illogical reduction of my use of the concept of "subjectivism" where it was not warranted to do so.
Look, whether you were accusing me of subjectivism or relativism is irrelevant. In either case it is a straw man. Saying that certain kinds of positive definition are literally not possible isn't the same thing as either relativism or subjectivism.
In case I still haven't made it clear, this:
Permissible coercive techniques in the course of war or police work coercive techniques that cross the line into torture.
is exactly the sort of concept I am saying is incoherent. We don't have "permissable techniqies" which then move up to and cross some line to become torture. Permissable techniques and torture are categorically different. We know this because we know that torture is intrinsically evil.
Maybe that is all too abstract and unhelpful for you. That is fine. It isn't everyone's cup of tea. As long as we unequivocally agree (1) not to torture prisoners, and that (2) we have enough of a working understanding to fulfill that commitment (based on Mark's three stages of definition), its all good. The rest is just academic discussion. Some people are into it, some are into it in different and incompatible ways, and some people just aren't into it at all. It's cool.
But the two points of unequivocal agreement are necessary, to my mind, for any additional discussion to be worthwhile. If they aren't there then there really isn't enough common ground for productive discussion.
Zippy,
I know I said I was done with this discussion, but old habits die hard. If I may, let me suggest what may be a problem with your approach here.
When asked to provide a definition for torture, Mark has (among other things) suggested recourse to the dictionary. Now, most dictionaries (as well as U.S. Law and the UN Convention Against Torture) define torture as something along the lines of "the intentional infliction of severe mental or physical pain or suffering." These definitions all indicate that an act cannot constitute torture unless it involves a certain quantity of inflicted pain or suffering. And it is logical to ask, given these definitions, exactly what quantity is required for an act to be considered torture.
Your position, as I understand it, is that it is a mistake to conceive of torture in this way. Why? Because torture is intrinsically evil, and it cannot be the case that inflicting X+1 quantity of pain is intrinsically evil, while inflicting X quantity is not. So focusing on the quantity of pain inflicted as a defining element of torture is, on this view, confused. It is not the amount of pain inflicted, but some other factor, that determines whether a given act constitutes torture or not.
If torture is conceived of in this way, then of course it will make no sense to try and pin down the exact quantity of pain or suffering required for an act to constitute torture. And if someone insists on trying to determine such an exact point, you might well conclude is that what they really want is to torture someone while maintaining a plausible deniability about doing so.
The problem is that not everyone conceives of torture in the way that you do. A lot of people, especially initially, are inclined to think of torture as requiring a certain quantity of inflicted pain, or, if not, they are inclined to think of "torture" as referring to any amount of inflicted pain, so that it's reasonable to ask which kinds of torture are permissible and which aren't.
When confronted with people who think this way, it is counter-productive to accuse them of asking wicked questions, as if everything about your view is perfectly obvious (people often make the mistake of assuming that because something is obvious to them, it must be obvious to everyone else as well; sadly it tain't always so). It could be that they are confused or that they don't understand your arguments. It could be that they understand your arguments, but disagree with them for one reason or another (I'm inclined to agree with you about why torture can't be defined in terms of a quantity, but it isn't as nearly as open and shut as you seem to think). The thing to do in such a case is to patiently explain your position and the reasons for it, without resorting to invective or insulting statements.
One other thing, I've never been a particular fan of the whole "I never judge a person's subjective culpability but only their objective character" line or argument that you seem to be relying on. I don't think it makes much sense conceptually, and in practice all it seems to mean is that people think it's fine to say all sorts of nasty things about people so long as they put the word "objectively" or some such qualifier in front of it.
Mark probably would never call people on this blog who disagreed with him flat out apologists for Satan, and if he did he'd at least have the decency to feel bad about it. But he apparently considers it perfectly fine to say that they are objectively apologists for Satan, even though saying someone is objectively an apologist for Satan is not appreciably less offensive as simply saying they are an apologist for Satan.
Be advised, therefore, that including the word "objectively" or some other equivalent qualifier in your statements isn't going to make them any less objectionable or insulting to me (and I suspect I'm not the only one).
Maybe that is all too abstract and unhelpful for you.
No; rather it's viciously circular, but it is clearly futile for me to explain why it is anymore.
And self-defeating at points . . .
Tom, it's true that St. Thomas defined theft and stealing such that it isn't stealing to take another person's property in cases of extreme need. This isn't the way the word is ordinarily used, however, and I think it was clear from what I said that I was using the word "theft" in its ordinary sense, not in any specialized scholastic sense.
It's not a "specialized scholastic sense." It's the Catholic sense.
It's false to say the Church doesn't say all theft is immoral.
Those who want to argue that the Church doesn't say all torture is immoral don't help their case by bringing up what the Church says about theft.
Tom,
Whether it's called the "Catholic" sense or the "scholastic" sense, the point is it ain't the ordinary sense of the word, i.e. the sense in which I was clearly using it.
Josiah:
You wrote, "The Church has long held that theft is not intrinsically immoral," immediately following a paragraph on the precise wording of the Catechism's treatment of torture.
When you shift the frame of reference like that -- from what the Church means by certain terms to the "ordinary sense" of certain terms -- you produce a bad argument.
In this case, if what the Church teaches about theft parallels what the Church teaches about torture, then Fr. Harrison is sunk. And I'm pretty sure that isn't what you meant to be arguing.
Tom,
This is what I said: "The Church has long held that theft is not intrinsically immoral. It is not wrong, for example, for a starving man to steal a loaf of bread. Now suppose your boss comes in and tells you to rob a bank. Are you going to say to yourself, 'gosh, stealing isn't intrinsically immoral, so I should do it'? Of course not. Just because a given action isn't intrinsically evil doesn't mean it's not evil."
If my use of the word 'theft' here troubles you, simply replace it with 'taking property that doesn't belong to you'. Notice that my point remains unaffected by this change.
The point of mentioning the Church's teaching regarding theft was not to argue that there was some sort of analogy between that teaching and the Church's teaching on torture. Rather, it was to make the more pedestrian point that an act needed be intrinsically immoral in order to be immoral.
By the by, if the Church's teaching on torture does parallel her teaching on theft, then Father Harrison is far from sunk, for if the Church's condemnation of theft does not mean that all actions we would commonly regard as theft are immoral, why must her condemnation of torture mean that all actions we would commonly regard as torture are condemned.
As I am not a torture apologist, however, I don't think the cases are parallel.
Rather, it was to make the more pedestrian point that an act need [not] be intrinsically immoral in order to be immoral.
True enough. Did someone say otherwise?
...if the Church's condemnation of theft does not mean that all actions we would commonly regard as theft are immoral, why must her condemnation of torture mean that all actions we would commonly regard as torture are condemned.
Fr. Harrison wrote that the question of the morality of torture -- he wrote "torture," not "actions we would commonly regard as torture," -- to extract life-saving information is open. The idea that he was using the term "torture" in an "ordinary sense" is untenable.
Well, yes, actually. Richard Comerford wrote:
"if my boss tells me to wrap a pair of pliers around a subject's testicles what do I do? Can I say to myself: 'Well Father says the matter remains open' and then go ahead and squeeze?"
It was in my response to him (oh so many days ago now) that I said the bit about theft.
Also, when Father Harrison use the word "torture" in his articles, he typically means "the intentional infliction of severe pain or suffering" which is a commonly used sense of the word. In that sense torture hasn't been condemned by the Church as intrinsically immoral, any more than theft has been condemned as intrinsically immoral in the ordinary sense of the word.
If Father Harrison were here and were faced with your stubborness on matters of diction, he could easily rephrase everything he says without altering its meaning, just as I was able to rephrase what I said about theft without altering its meaning.
If Father Harrison were here and were faced with your stubborness on matters of diction, he could easily rephrase everything he says without altering its meaning,...
If Father Harrison didn't really mean what he actually said, he is welcome to do just that.
Can I say to myself: 'Well Father says the matter remains open' and then go ahead and squeeze?"
This question does not imply that an act is either intrinsically immoral or categorically moral. Instead, it goes to the question of whether an unsure law is binding. The traditional answer would be, "If Father speaks with sufficient authority, then yes, you can go ahead and squeeze."
...just as I was able to rephrase what I said about theft without altering its meaning.
Not that it much matters, but I think you did alter its meaning. The act of a starving man taking a loaf of bread and the act of robbing a bank do not belong to the same moral species of act, as would be apparent if you'd used "theft" as the Church uses it.
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