"I will briefly state that my own concept of such rules derives mostly from empathy - from being able to imagine the agony of being tortured and killed."

I think I see a standard commission/ommission bias here. To a degree building such biases into policy formation can increase instances of suffering and death in the world, relative to policy denuded from such biases. Do you consider yourself morally responsible if suffering and death is increased as a result of promoting these biases? Although personally, this matters to me more in terms of how it affects my personal persistence odds. Still, I think I'd be helped somewhat by more rational policy than that which leans so heavily on eww bias rather than on trying to more rationally minimize total instances of suffering and death in the human population (rather than trying to do so in a way that conforms with popular biases and aesthetics).