Which only says something about the person drawing the conclusion, not about deconstructing arguments.
Torture must be both moral and strategically effective to make sense. Therefore, if either one is not the case, then you shouldn't stand for your government torturing people.
It is difficult to convince someone to adopt different values using logic alone. Perhaps ultimately the ethics behind the value of privacy can be traced to its role in constructing a society that produces the best quality of life for people.
If so then it may start with whether hurting someone can defuse a ticking bomb, then be expanded to whether hurting more people can undermine an enemy and whether it yields less accurate information than subtler interrogation methods, or perhaps whether it recruits more enemies and is a losing strategy, and some many steps later, after addressing whether it undermines the fundamental goals that make the society worth protecting, what kind of people it makes us to engage in torture.
I suppose that what I am getting at is that we wouldn't necessarily agree with the values that informed past ideas about what is moral. Therefore, if we can simply point out that torturing also isn't in our strategic interest we can short circuit nonsense arguments about necessary evil. The same goes for privacy invasions, however, I don't agree that these programs are likely to be inefficient. More likely, they will be unscientific and confirm biases, and tend to cause suffering for many innocent people, while also encouraging self-censorship.
They will also undermine the checks provided by institutions that have gone of the rails, or officials that have become corrupt having to interact with moral people. Perhaps most terrifying, I have read a couple journalists, of all professions, talk about these programs in context of TSA checks, and having to stand barefoot in front of gawkers, or be touched by strangers. Though these checks are a cause for indignity, and are varyingly effective, in comparison to universal surveillance, they are unlikely to quash any meaningful dissent or other important responsibilities of citizenship.
Torture must be both moral and strategically effective to make sense. Therefore, if either one is not the case, then you shouldn't stand for your government torturing people.
It is difficult to convince someone to adopt different values using logic alone. Perhaps ultimately the ethics behind the value of privacy can be traced to its role in constructing a society that produces the best quality of life for people.
If so then it may start with whether hurting someone can defuse a ticking bomb, then be expanded to whether hurting more people can undermine an enemy and whether it yields less accurate information than subtler interrogation methods, or perhaps whether it recruits more enemies and is a losing strategy, and some many steps later, after addressing whether it undermines the fundamental goals that make the society worth protecting, what kind of people it makes us to engage in torture.
I suppose that what I am getting at is that we wouldn't necessarily agree with the values that informed past ideas about what is moral. Therefore, if we can simply point out that torturing also isn't in our strategic interest we can short circuit nonsense arguments about necessary evil. The same goes for privacy invasions, however, I don't agree that these programs are likely to be inefficient. More likely, they will be unscientific and confirm biases, and tend to cause suffering for many innocent people, while also encouraging self-censorship.
They will also undermine the checks provided by institutions that have gone of the rails, or officials that have become corrupt having to interact with moral people. Perhaps most terrifying, I have read a couple journalists, of all professions, talk about these programs in context of TSA checks, and having to stand barefoot in front of gawkers, or be touched by strangers. Though these checks are a cause for indignity, and are varyingly effective, in comparison to universal surveillance, they are unlikely to quash any meaningful dissent or other important responsibilities of citizenship.