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The symmetry with bank robbery doesn't hold, because "jailing bank robbers is unjust" is a minority position, and opposition to any jailing at all is even more so. On the other hand, opposition to torture in general is (mercifully, in my eyes) still mainstream, as is the belief that extreme punishment for negligence is unjust. Argue for jailing bank robbers and most people will nod along and no norms will be changed. Argue for torturing scientists who oversaw major accidents, and you will only leave us with additional torture, because abstract principles like "no torture" are always softer than tribalism like "if we torture, it better be the outgroup". This will neither be torture that you want (because you and your people are in a minority (as weighted by power) disagreed with ~ despised by the majority) nor torture that I want (because I don't want there to be torture).
If many people think like you this is circular reasoning; if nobody supports it because it's a minority position, that makes it a minority position even if it wasn't already.
I'm also skeptical that you'd stop objecting to torture if it proved to be popular.
This argument could be made for other things too. It has not, for instance resulted in the death penalty, or even long sentences, being applied tribally.
I wouldn't, but I never claimed that I would. However, I'd stop being able to use this particular argument towards my interlocutor. If torture were popular, I would consider his position merely immoral, and I don't think that this is the forum for trying to shift someone's value function. Given that it is as unpopular as it is, though, I believe his position is not only immoral but also instrumentally bad for his own ends, and I am trying to use that as an argument to get him to drop it. Is there a problem with having ulterior motives (which I think I'm being pretty upfront about) in trying to stop someone from making a mistake?
edit:
Interesting point. I don't think those two quite satisfy the criteria to be a perfect model of torture, because the death penalty seems to only be applied to people who are too low-class to matter to either tribe in every country where I'm equipped to judge its tribalism and there was never an established principle against long sentences (and there are examples where they were applied tribally, e.g., famously, interbellum Germany), but you are probably right that my expectation that it will inevitably become so needed more careful thought. I still think that the circumstance that the proposed motivating use will be interpreted as blatantly tribal makes it highly likely.
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