Reply #56: The point being lost with your moral posturing

[trotsky]

is that there are very few moral absolutes. Now unlike virtually every real-world torture scenarios, this one is set up so that you know the torture will work, and you know that getting the information will prevent the deaths of thousands. Knowing these things, what can you do? I realize that your difficulty in letting an evil atheist have a point is getting in the way here, too, but just take a step back and think about the suffering of one (which might not even be suffering - just the administering of a truth serum) versus the death and suffering of thousands.

Especially if my kids were among those thousands - there is no question I would do whatever it takes. But I'm sure that in every situation you've ever encountered, you have always acted with the "appropriate" moral action, right? I do get that impression from you.

I don't support the Bush and Gonzalez torture program. But I don't think one needs to, in order to see that in some limited cases, torture becomes less of a moral prohibition and more of a moral dilemma.