"He's wearing an 'I like to make bombs and put them in Buckman' T-shirt."... The moral dilemma of the day.

There seemed to be a misunderstanding today on the side of the Kantians of the class. Doctor J prompted our discussion basically by asking whether or not the alleged terrorist should be tortured. I think it is important to note that, for Kant, there is only one answer to this question: no. Given the information we know about him at this point, that is truly the only option. And the answer is always no, because torturing someone cannot be willed as a universal law. Some Kantians were looking for some wiggle room, but, looking purely at the basics of Kantian material, there is virtually no wiggle room. Kant would answer no to that question, and that is indubitable.

With that said, the Mills of the world do have both options to weigh and debate. Initially I thought that of course Mill would say yes. The lives of thousands of people, plus the happiness of their families, is of course worth the pain of this one person. And I really think Mill would subscribe to that thought. However, it got a little more complicated when we brought in the information that torture doesn't really work. If that is true, then I personally have no idea what Mill would choose! Still at that point, the options seemed to be to torture or not to torture. However, they soon became to torture, not to torture, or... some alternative to torture meant to have the same intended effects of the torture (that is, that the man would disarm the bomb). At this point, the prompt isn't really a moral dilemma anymore, but, that aside, I think Mill would of course go for the alternative form of torture, which I think we labelled as coercion during today's symposium.

Just trying to sum up what I think about the moral dilemma of the day.