What is your opinion of "The Greater Good" justification for __________.

[patrice]

Lately it appears to be the justification for allowing our Troops to be tortured if/when they are captured or kidnapped, i.e. we will torture whomever we decide to torture even if it DOES cause our Troops to be tortured, because of "the greater good" that is served: this or that individual(s) suffer and even die so that others can experience the benefit of _____________ (decider fills in the blank - freedom, democracy, Salvation, free markets, "Islam", whatever . . . . ).

What do you think of this argument? I have encountered it, in the streets of K.C., from the start of our Invasion of Iraq. I have also encountered it on this board and had some thoughts about it here: http://journals.democraticunderground.com/patrice .

What do you think of "The Greater Good"? Especially what do you think of it as a justification for American Troops eventually being tortured?

[ClassWarrior]

1. Torture is evil. End of discussion.

NGU.

[patrice]

3. I totally agree!

But these haters of "moral relativism" will tell you that the evil of torture is compensated by the "greater good". Or the evil of torture is not as great as the evil of "terrorism".

I'm just trying to counter their counter-arguments to the value we state in "Torture is evil." I know they will just try to argue that fact away with "reasons" that, to **many** people, sound reasonable.

[ClassWarrior]

7. You have your answer right there. Call out their "moral relativism."

Torture is evil. Terrorism is evil. Let's not justify one evil with another. End of discussion. Again.

B-)

NGU.

[patrice]

11. I am a moral relativist myself. MR is often mis-characterized.

MR is not based on the premise that there is no good nor bad.

It is based on the premise that good and bad inher in the conditions under question and that is the INDIVIDUAL's responsibility to figure out which is which, not a group's like the church or the state's responsibility. If pursued to the furthest of one's abilities to reason, the Individual comes to the realization that Individuality itself is not absolute, i.e. it also is relative, and, because individuals ARE inherently also social, the effects of one's morally relative decisions on the Group are a necessary part of the moral reasoning process.

The problem is that MR IS absused by people who aren't really that interested in what is good or bad, but use it to justify whatever they WANT to do, without following the reasoning process to to how my individual decisions affect the Group, which is exactly what BushCo has been doing.

So yes, they should be called out for **abusing** Moral Relativism, for being self-centered evaluators of the conditions under question.

[BanzaiBonnie]

2. The greater good is an excuse

to perpetrate all manner of atrocities on those who are deemed threatening to society --- by those in power.

Hate is not an American value.

Torture is not an Amercan value

[ClintonTyree]

4. Bingo!

We have a winner!

[patrice]

5. Do you think it is ever possible to make the argument legitimately?

One of the scenarios you hear bandyed about lately is the one where you've got a terrorist who knows exactly how to stop a bomb planted in some stadium full of football fans (or something like that), where "the good" is more immediate, the context more defined, and the outcome more probable, i.e. it is more possible to demonstrate an actual concrete good resulting from torture.

What do you think of that kind of "greater good" and torture?

[okasha]

6. I think any terrorist worth his salt

will "confess" that the bomb in Peoria will go off in 25 minutes, and twiddle his thumbs while the actual bomb goes off in St. Louis in 15.

[patrice]

9. I keep forgetting how oversimplified their "reasons" are.

Of course there are all kinds of ways to create "plausible deniability" at all levels of terrorist operations, to keep everyone blind about the actual facts of the plan, so that they may in fact actually think that the attack IS in Peoria, when it isn't.

So relative to thinking about "the greater good", we now have the dwindling probability that any given terrorist, if tortured, will provide what you need for the greater good, relative to the increasing probability that our Troops will be tortured for useless information. Or am I just rationalizing what you just said?

It looks like it comes down to probabilities: what is the probability of their scenarios actually resulting in greater good compared to the probability of troops being tortured, and of course, BushCo is claiming just that: "We have stopped terrorism by torturing, ergo the torture of American Troops is justified."

The problem in dealing with that last argument is that everything is SECRET, so none of us can actually evaluate that statement.

[ClassWarrior]

8. I think hypothetical scenarios are Clintonian.

Try that one on 'em.

NGU.

[patrice]

10. So much does in fact depend upon what the definition of "is" is.

Many Americans laugh at that, but that's an awful big piece of the truth and we are just dis-empowered by not recognizing the mutability of our language. I'm reading Hubris (by Michael Isikoff and David Corn) and it perfectly illustrates how Americans were duped by their own assumptions about language and meaning in particular.

[neebob]

12. The greater good being ... what?

More terrorists to fight in perpetuity. It's a lie. It almost always is, and anyone who still believes it re Iraq or the War on Terror has something else where their brains should be. I would go as far as to include anyone who ever believed it.

[Solo_in_MD]

13. Greater Good is used as the justification for all sorts of things

restrainst on captialism
taxes
zoning laws
socialism
revolution

That is it being used here is not surprising

[patrice]

15. It is also use for the opposite of all of those things:

so-called free markets
tax cuts
re-zoning
un-strained capitalism
preserving the status quo.

So . . . is there really any such thing as the "greater good"? Or is just that there is some problem in how "we" identify the greater good?

[left is right]

18. Yes, there is a greater good

No one wants to pay taxes. But those taxes go to build roads, enforce environmental laws, and provide food to those who are unable to provide it for themselves. I don't want to pay taxes but I do so for the greater good.

[eShirl]

14. it's "the end justifies the means" rephrased. (n/t)

[patrice]

16. Good one . . .

That explains how it is used at opposite ends of the political spectrum, e.g. for un-restrained capitalism and for socialism.

[Finder]

17. Joe Biden addressed this well.

He stated torture should never be policy, period. In the hypothetical case presented, he feels a CIA officer would do what needs to be done on that particular case and justice would decide.

[patrice]

21. I think that works because he differentiates between policy

and individual decisions. That may be where the concept, Greater Good, breaks down, when you try to institutionalize it as policy you get all kinds of difficulties. But when an individual does his/her best to define and act on a particular set of factors in any and every mundane situation, perhaps it (the Greater Good) stands a better chance of succeeding.

Similar to what I was saying about Moral Relativism though, individual decisions about the GG would require honest individuals going to the fullest extent of their abilities to "calculate" just what the Greater Good would be and what would be the most probable way of achieving it. That could sometimes require individual sacrifices, and as long as that sacrifice is FREELY chosen (not imposed by others) I could live with it, but I don't think many or even most of our Troops really chose freely to become military (there are way toooooo many economic pressures in our society), so their sacrifices should NEVER be the basis of policy.

I wish Biden and All of Them would talk their thinking on matters such as this out for/with us. It could only help.

[struggle4progress]

19. What is this supposed "Higher Good"?

When you say "individual(s) suffer and even die so that others can experience the benefit of ...," what exactly does that mean?

We could kill some people and cook their corpses so that others could experience the benefit of a tasty meal. We could send soldiers to die in unnecessary wars so that others can experience the benefit of increased defense spending.

.. my guard stood hard when abstract threats too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms quite clear, no doubt, somehow ..

I personally find it quite obvious that anyone who advocates torture for some "Higher Good" is a member of a secret fascist conspiracy to turn humans in slave-bots, and I believe that they MUST be stopped by any means necessary: this unfortunately may require us to torture as a likely crypto-fascist fellow-traveler, anyone who advocates torture for some "Higher Good," since we must uncover this conspiracy into order to expose and execute its leaders.

[More Than A Feeling]

20. I'd call it grasping at straws.

There is no way Republican dead-enders would be arguing for the future torture of our troops, if they weren't desperate to avoid prosecution for torturing people who should have been presumed innocent until proven guilty. The Bush administration knows that they are going to have to answer for their crimes, sooner or later. They are going to answer for perverting the American justice system into the Spanish Inquisition.

[patrice]

23. I Hope so!

Although I worry what they will do as they go down in Desperation.

[SPKrazy]

22. I'd Call It Rationalization

since there is no evidence that I'm aware of that torture prevents acts of terror, or yields information that is reliable or accurate. (the say anything to get you to stop)

That being said, I'm sure there are other times in other situations where something is done for "the greater good" of society vs. the individual.

Now the interesting thing is that in all matters economic in the US, the idea always seems to have been, and is, that the individual is more important than society. (rugged individualist, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, too much regulation etc.)

So it is really a convenient rationalization when this government (a champion of the individual?) uses for the greater good to excuse excesses like torture, or anything.

[varkam]

24. That sounds like utilitarianism

And, IMHO, utilitarianism is a great moral system on paper, but is fundamentally flawed when it is put into practice. The tenet of utilitarianism is that you should act in a way that will maximize good and minimize bad - if you have to kill someone to save one hundred, then utilitarianism holds that killing that person would be the moral act. In fact, with utilitarianism, there are situations in which almost any "evil" deed you can think of would not only be morally justified, but morally superior.

The problem with utilitarianism (among other things) is it's practice. Utilitarianism tends toward a far too simplistic view of the world and offers us false dichotomies when no such things exist. For example, it is highly unlikely that in any situation you have considered all of the possible courses of actions that can take along with their consequences. In the previously mentioned example, you perform a great number of actions beyond simply killing and not killing.

So what ends up happening is that people use utilitarianism as a form of rationalization (i.e. torture is acceptable because the pain and suffering of one man is worth the lives of several thousand). The powers that be set up the dichotomy of either we torture and save lives or we don't and people die - to which there are clearly several hundred if not thousands of alternatives. One such example is the use of empathic interviewing wherein you identify with and gain the trust of the subject. Another is solid police work where information garnered from the interview is not critical to moving onto the next step of the investigation. I could go on, but suffice it to say that there are many, many more alternatives than the limited possibilities offered up under the guise of utilitarianism.

[greyl]

25. If it truly results in a greater good, then

it's very difficult to fault. Nothing says that everyone who uses the justification will apply flawless rational thought to the issue.
I think it's best used when the greatest good outcome is most clearly in honor of all life.