Signs

Yesterday morning I set off for work and glanced at the empty flat/ cannabis factory and saw a light on in the hall. I decided not to investigate and instead phoned the police when I got to work. They said they’d “look into it”. I have no idea what that means and if they did, but the light was not on last night. I’m not sure what of that scenario is a good sign…

I was on a course about ethics yesterday. It seems I have a different view to many of the others on the course in that we were discussing the hypothetical example of the “ticking time bomb” and if in such circumstances you can justify torture i.e. the only way to locate and/ or defuse it is to torture someone for the details. Many could die if it is allowed to explode. I was of the stance that if the State sticks to the absolute principle of torture never being permissible that you therefore cannot justify it on an individual level – and if you do carry out torture then in the circumstance you have to accept that the state will try you and have to find you guilty because it has an absolutist policy on torture and therefore it cannot ever be justified. However, the others were fine with the State not allowing torture and thought that should be maintained but if they were presented with a (rather hypothetical and unlikely) scenario of being the person who had to perpetrate torture to deal with a great(er) evil then they were there at the front of the queue with the pliers and weapons of torture. I couldn’t quite reconcile in my mind how they could then maintain a policy of the State maintaining an absolutist position. I shall have to ponder this further – and also make sure that I don’t get on the bad side of those who were on the course. Who knows what they might do?