should you sacrifice your morals and values in order to more efficiently fight a percieved evil

[Luke]

the discussion title says it all but basically should you sink down to your enemy's level if it would help you win the fight. if the pull out a knife in a bar fight should you pull out yours, you would be better able to deffend yourself but at what cost. attempted murder with a deadly weapon. you can use this idea for wars. could the british have defeated americans in the revolutionary war if they had "sunk" to the level of hiding behind rocks instead of lining up like noble and honorable soldiers?

[Allie]

In my opinion, if you need to sink to your enemy's level in order to defend yourself (or another person) and/or win the fight, than you should. The end justifies the means. Also, the British may have defeated the Americans if they hadn't marched in the open when they knew the Americans were hiding behind rocks and bushes and could easily pick them off. Instead, they should have adopted the same technique. Being noble and honorable means nothing if your endangering your life and being stupid. Wearing bright red on the battlefield is also generally a bad idea.

[Samuel Se-jin Kim]

i agree with this 100% XD
and LOL on the bright red XD

[Lenore103]

They wore bright red to identify themselves as British soldiers on purpose because they didn't want innocent civilians to be shot accidentally. That was how wars were typically be fought before guerilla tactics were adopted as a standard method of warfare-- On a battlefield, out in the open, away from civilians and their homes with both sides easily identifiable. It wasn't smart or effective to wear red, but it was honorable.

Also, another reason for red-- it camoflaged blood so you couldn't tell if a soldier was bleeding or weak.

[Randi]

Because, you know, a dying soldier hobbling next to a healthy one is not a dead giveaway when wearing red.

[Pablo_the_Penguin]

Well, it all depends. It depends on the who, what when, where, and why. For the bar/knife fight example, let's say I am are skilled at defending myrself without a knife, then not pulling a knife out would be the intelligent thing to do. However, if I don't know how to defend myself wihtout a knife, then pulling out the knife would be the logical choice. My answer would be different for every different situation, so I can't give you a direct "yes or no" answer. I can only say that I don't know for certain.

[Luke]

what would you say about torture? the taliban capture and torture american troops to get information that would harm u.s. troops. should americans kidnap and torture Al-Qaeda members to get information that would help the troops. what about the 8th ammendment no cruel or unusual punishment, if it gets the job done in iraq ( and since we have been water bording and there hasnt been another attack on the u.s. the scale of 9/11 so i can asume it has (feel free to argue/ point out mistakes)) then why stop there drug dealers and crime lords dont seem to have a code of ethics.

[Elizabeth Reid]

Well, first of all, torturing anybody anywhere breaks the Geneva Convention. As a signing body of that Convention, we (the US) aren't supposed to do that.

Second, correlation does not imply causation. Basically, even though terrorist attacks on American soil have decreased since the government began waterboarding, that doesn't mean the waterboarding directly affected the terrorist attacks in anyway. Here, read this: http://xkcd.com/552/
It seems highly likely to me that the two events have little to do with each other.

Third, HAS it gotten "the job done in Iraq"?

Fourth, why stop there? Because people are people, no matter who they are or what they've done, and everyone has rights. "We hold these truths to be SELF-EVIDENT that ALL men are created EQUAL; that they are endowed by their creator certain UNALIENABLE RIGHTS...."

[Decepticon]

Actually Torture is the antithesis of information gathering.

Link A
Link B
Link C

Go ahead and find more.

Torture doesn't work.

[Luke]

while torture, the physical act, doesnt work well, the threat of it and psycological torture have proven effective

http://science.howstuffworks.com/torture-manual1.htm

but this thread is more about whether or not you should do it because your percieved evil is

[Decepticon]

Slightly more effective than physical torture, but not as effective as, you know, NOT torturing people.

And regardless of what this thread is about, the fact that torture doesn't work blows your analogy out of the water.

"Well, OK, but what about torture which has done these things, is it ok?"

Well, no, it's not, but that has nothing to do with the morality of torture itself. IF torture worked as well as actually treating inmates like human beings, then one could make a moral argument about whether it's better to beat one person to save twenty or whatever. However, as that giving that person sugar-free cookies instead of beating him gets you more information, more reliable information, and gets you that information more quickly?

Well, yeah, no, there's no point even having a moral discussion about whether torture is ever ok, as it doesn't work.

It's like having a moral discussion about whether or not using human blood instead of gas in your car is ok. The discussion never comes up, because human blood does not power your car like gasoline, so why would you want to use it?

[inkonpaperhero]

No.

[Kylie Anne]

Agreed.