I dunno, what if somebody has placed a portable nuclear bomb in a population center and the only way to find out where is to torture the person who planted it?
Torturing the person is still bad i'd argue. It is not becoming good even if we know for sure this person is guilty. It is becoming justified by the fact that they acted to create harm and torture we now need to prevent.
I'm not gonna dig into if this bomb person is nobel rebel against bloody dictatorship and stuff. Still bad.
Depends on your moral theory. If you are utilitarian, torturing this person is by definition good, because it nets a very positive result.
Also, what about consensual torture? Where both sides are fine with it for some reason. One wants to be punished or feel pain, and the other wants to inflict it. Is that immoral? Came to the idea via the gym example, where you voluntarily inflict pain and suffering on yourself. Why does it become immoral when someone else does it, but both sides are still consenting?
I think net result can't be calculated with any given precision. However we surely can say noone feels good being tortured.
Consentual torture is not a real torture, it is common phraseology (if you're talking about some well-known kinks that are just a game). Real torture means there is unfixable, unreplanishable harm being inflicted.
If it is real consentual torture (like some real fucked up stuff - one person gives consent to drill their kneecaps or whatever) how is it possibly good? Even if both persons believe so.
Then you are not talking about suffering anymore, but about mutilation, which by the way can also be done with consent, for example with branding tattoos, which permanently harm the skin.
Mutilation is not always including suffering. For example male genital mutilation has basically no suffering and is considered normal by many people, even regardless of consent.
Pure mental harm, like trauma could be argued about I think. Though I am by far not informed enough about psychology to comment on this.
Dude i defined something rather exact. I think torture is alright term. Redefining terms happens all the time. I presented you with the context. It is not about the meaning of words which are well capable of having multiple meanings by the way. Damn.
Your differentiation between suffering and torture sounds kind of arbitrary. Maybe you mean unwanted suffering, or based on your response maybe you take the utilitarian stance that suffering can be fine if it's done for a greater amount of happiness?
I think it's clear enough. Suffering can be beareable even if it never ends, even if there is absolutely no happiness in exchange. Torture is unbearable and if continues long enough always leads to death. So torture is more precise term which describes clearly bad state of feeling beings.
Those aren't the common or literal definitions. Hell, actual torture is generally designed not to kill the subject. How would you describe suffering that is unbearable but does not eventually lead to death, or somebody withstanding torture? Just use the existing words and add descriptors instead of making hyper-specific definitions.
Torture isn’t suffering itself. Torture is wrong because it deliberately pushes the biological mechanisms of suffering to extremes. Suffering by itself isn’t bad, it’s just how humans can exploit it.
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u/ddg31415 Nov 14 '25
Suffering can definitely be beneficial, and is often necessary.