NB: This is a reductio ad absurdum, not serious moral advice.

I urge all married men to give into their urges to seduce that co-ed who babysits their children or that young secretary at work. It's no big deal. If your wife catches you and feels betrayed, just say, "Honey, it couldn't have been evil. After all, I've done the same thing with you and you thought that was just fine."

After all, the same hip-thrusting action is going on in both activities. It's as absurd to call one "adultery" as it is to call the waterboarding of prisoners "torture." After all, we perform the same actions on our own troops in training, right? So it can't be evil.

3rd (Tentative) Definition of Torture

Torture is any act that causes pain to another person where the agent has power over the subject and no relationship exists between the agent and the subject that would offer the subject a guaranty that the agent will not act towards harming the subject per se.

By "has power over" I mean that the subject is unable or unlikely to be able to prevent the agent from acting upon the subject.

By "harming... per se" I mean acting in such a way that the effect of the action is nothing other than harm in and of itself.

2nd (Tentative) Definition of Torture

Torture is any act that causes pain to the subject where no relationship exists between the agent and the subject that would guaranty the subject protection from grave or lasting harm.

"Harm" is to be understood as including physical, mental and spiritual harm.

"Grave harm" is to be understood as any harm that could threaten the subject's life.

"Lasting harm" is to be understood as any harm that could threaten the subject with permanent injury or disability.

On objectively evil acts

"Objectively evil" does not mean "really extra super bad." "Objectively evil" is a category distinction. The object of an action is what gives it its species, since the object defines an act as the form of a thing defines its species. Objectively evil acts are acts that can never be good because their species renders them incapable of it.

Acts that are not objectively evil can be rendered evil by the ends intended by the agent and the circumstances surrounding the action. A prudential judgment is involved in deciding whether or not particular circumstances render a particular action--one that is neither objectively evil nor done with the intention of achieving evil means--good or evil.

The point being that a person who is not in favor of some objectively evil act is not immediately morally better than a person who is in favor of some objectively evil act if they are in favor of some particular evil act or acts. It would depend upon how grave the objectively evil act was in comparison to the particular evil act or acts, as well as how prevalent the particular occurrences of the objectively evil act are.

This is not to say that one can vote for, say, a pro-abortion candidate because they are against an unjust war. But it is to say that arguing against this position is more complicated than saying, "abortion is objectively evil; war isn't." It depends on the gravity of abortion versus the gravity of the unjust war or wars. And this is without factoring in other important issues, like calling sodomy a basis for "marriage", torture &c.

The point is that "prudential judgment" is not a "get out of evil free" card. There is a prudential judgment involved in deciding whether or not executing certain criminals is necessary for the defense of the common good. This does not mean a regime can indiscriminately execute people and hide behind the idea of "prudential judgment" as a shield. The fact that a certain action is not evil in species does not render it acceptable to commit a number of particularly evil actions of this type.

A (Tentative) Definition of Torture

Torture is any act that causes pain to another person where no relationship exists between the acting person and the other that would guaranty the other protection from per se harm.

Replace "acting person" with "agent" and replace "other" with "subject" if you would prefer slightly more traditional language.