shokwave comments on Rational Repentance - Less Wrong

36 Post author: Mass_Driver 14 January 2011 09:37AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (150)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: shokwave 16 January 2011 03:33:12PM 0 points [-]

one should oppose the use of torture.

It would be trivial for me to construct a hypothetical where torture is unambiguously a good idea. It wouldn't even be hard to make it seem a realistic situation; I might even be able to use a historical example. To call something generally irrational, or to claim that rationality is opposed to a thing, you have to make the argument that in principle it's not possible for this to be either a terminal goal or the only available instrumental goal.

Comment author: scav 17 January 2011 09:35:26AM 0 points [-]

I think the original claim was that political opposition to torture was rational, assuming we are talking about the use of torture by the state to investigate crimes or coerce the population, domestic or abroad. That's a less strong claim, and fairly reasonable as long as you allow for the unstated assumptions.

It would be trivial for me to construct a hypothetical where torture is unambiguously a good idea.

A much stronger claim, IMO