Then why wouldn't you accept that it's okay to trade of issues of life and death against other values such as having no torture?
I'm sorry for the time I've taken to respond to this one. You have asked a very difficult question. Please don't think I've been evading it; it's a question nobody should afford to evade.
Prevention of torture is almost as important to me as prevention of death. I would not torture a suspect to obtain information that might save lives; I support a legal system that grants detainees and convicts full legal rights like everyone else has. I include neither torture nor death penalty in my definition of a civilized society.
So I wouldn't trade pain for a life. Having been suicidal in the past, I now know not to trade life for pain, either.
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.
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