[justin66]

> "torture is sometimes permissible" is not an evil opinion held exclusively by evil people

I took air to mean that support of torture eliminates a person from the top strata of the category of "good person" - by itself a handwavy categorization - that should be held up as some kind of exemplar of virtue, as pg has done.

It's a point I happen to agree with, and regardless of whether or not you think Dante would create a special place in hell for rich guys who provide political cover for torturers, it does undermine to some extent the premise of of pg's article.

Writing an article like this about someone you actually like is dangerous. As Pappy Boyington said, "Show me a hero and I'll show you a bum."

[simon_]

I really appreciate your response, but I think there is a problem with our mental model of a moral paragon.

Is it really smart to believe that childlike simplicity of purpose is morally admirable? That never being seen to take a side in an ugly situation with horrible tradeoffs on all sides is a prerequisite for being a top quality "good person"?

My sense is that rather than courageous, it is extremely easy to take sides like opposing torture in all forms at all times. Such positions receive automatic praise and require little complex thinking. That does not necessarily make them wrong, but we should subject them to an extra shade of rational skepticism.

Relatedly, it is obvious to me that when Ronco takes a pro-torture position, it is not out of personal weakness or malice, as people seem to imagine, but could only be the result of serious careful thought. A sociopath, for example, would never ever take a position so likely to garner knee-jerk criticism for no personal gain. I suppose a troll might, but he is extremely obviously not a troll.

[justin66]

> Is it really smart to believe that childlike simplicity of purpose is morally admirable?

I don't have any idea what you're talking about but I'm guessing we like "smart" rather than "childlike simplicity."

> That never being seen to take a side in an ugly situation with horrible tradeoffs on all sides is a prerequisite for being a top quality "good person"?

On the contrary, regardless of how you define "good person," I suspect having taken a side would be a necessary factor. The more relevant factor would be having chosen the correct side.

> My sense is that rather than courageous, it is extremely easy to take sides like opposing torture in all forms at all times. Such positions receive automatic praise and require little complex thinking. That does not necessarily make them wrong, but we should subject them to an extra shade of rational skepticism.

I don't think the amount of effort or risk involved in reaching a moral decision can be considered an indicator of that decision's correctness. We would not consider someone who took one second to decide to help an old lady across the street to have acted more morally than someone who had to take a little more thought to make the decision based on the same reasoning, after all. And plenty of decisions to choose ethical conduct over unethical conduct are quite easy for most of us to make - you can think of your own examples. Effort isn't any sort of reliable indicator.

[SilasX]

Good people can't ever support anything with (moral) downsides?

[blazespin]

It's not the moral downsides so much as torture is a race to the bottom. It's like, which side can be more awful.

[TillE]

By most definitions, a good person cannot support evil actions ("moral downsides", really?), no.

[SilasX]

Considering that most choices -- and all hard ones -- have such downsides, then no such people exist and the term as you've used it is not useful.

[justin66]

Did you even read the first sentence I wrote?

[SilasX]

Indeed I did; it's precisely what I was replying to. No matter how good a person is, they will encounter moral dilemmas (or at least, there exist moral dilemmas that could be posed to them) with no good option. For any one of these situations you can say "OMG! I'm so indignant that they chose A" ... And the same for B.

By that standard, there cannot exist good people.

[justin66]

> No matter how good a person is, they will encounter moral dilemmas (or at least, there exist moral dilemmas that could be posed to them) with no good option. For any one of these situations you can say "OMG! I'm so indignant that they chose A" ... And the same for B.

It's as if you believe every moral choice, including the choice to support or oppose torture, is a choice of equal moral consequence such that a person deserves praise whichever way they choose. I don't intend to sign on to this new ethical theory of yours.

[SilasX]

I do not see a similarity between the critique I gave and the position you attributed to me. Could you reply more directly to the point I made?

[justin66]

Okay, let's start over. I'll pick things apart as well as I can.

> Good people can't ever support anything with (moral) downsides?

"Moral downsides" is not, as far as I know, a term of art in ethics or religion so it is hard to know what you mean, but I'm pretty sure you've been downvoted for underplaying the importance of a decision to support something many of us believe to be intrinsically evil.

> Indeed I did; it's precisely what I was replying to.

You were replying to post where I indicated that having chosen to support torture removed Ronco from the category of person so admirable we should hold him up as an example for the rest of us to follow. This is - usefully, I think - a lot more specific than dividing the world into "good people" and "bad people."

> No matter how good a person is, they will encounter moral dilemmas

That is part of the human condition, yes.

> (or at least, there exist moral dilemmas that could be posed to them)

There also exist math problems that could be posed to them. I wonder why you've gone all hypothetical here.

> with no good option. For any one of these situations you can say "OMG! I'm so indignant that they chose A" ... And the same for B.

There are, hypothetically, moral dilemmas such that every outcome is equally bad.

The decision to support torture is not one of them. I do not believe even a supporter of torture would characterize the decision to engage in torture or not to engage in torture as a decision such that deciding one way or the other will result in equally bad outcomes.

> By that standard, there cannot exist good people.

Whatever.