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First, torture is likely to elicit false confessions. This is true; torture is likely to illicit false confessions and false information. Apply enough physical pain to a person and one is likely to get false information. The Inquisition established that people will admit to things that are impossible (being werewolves or witches) in order to put a stop to physical pain. Therefore, while torture should be used to gain information, information elicited by torture should not be used in prosecutions. In the United States, the Fifth Amendment protects people from involuntary self-incrimination, a protection that has been construed as a means of preventing police brutality to elicit false confessions. There is nothing incompatible with the idea of allowing the state to use torture to elicit emergency information but not allowing the state to use that information in a criminal trial. The impetus behind the use of torture is to prevent imminent harm, not promote the other interests of the criminal justice system.
The second reason that...
On some level, this is true. Some people can be trained to withstand some torture. However, pain avoidance is a very basic human drive. At some point, for the vast majority of subjects, torture will provide an effective incentive to tell the truth. Even if it does not, torture is not likely to decrease the chance of having someone tell the truth. Torture is largely effective.
For the above reasons, one should find that torture is acceptable under certain circumstances. That does not mean that torture is to be used in all scenarios or that torture is the preferred means of attaining information. On the contrary, the use of torture should be confined to those scenarios where failing to use torture would likely result in the imminent loss of life. Furthermore, information attained by torture should not be used in trial against those who were tortured. However, with those limitations, the use of torture is morally acceptable.
Torture and the Ticking Time-Bomb The Definition of Torture In 1984, the United Nations General Assembly produced an advisory measure known as the United Nations Convention Against Torture. This document specifically addressed torture from the perspective of governments and states, while it also focuses on the use of torture by any individual acting in an official capacity for said state or government. The document also addressed other forms of 'cruel and inhumane
These logistical problems are only one source of error in Levin's argument, however. The idea of establishing guilt with certainty before using torture fits the utilitarian ethic; it ensures that any reduction in happiness or good to the terrorist is more than compensated for by the increased happiness in the terrorist's would-be victims. The other part of Levin's argument, that torture should only be used as a preventative and not
These responsibilities notwithstanding, the American public was already being conditioned to view the war in Iraq as a battle against extremists, that is, against the Islamist radicals who had threatened the "American" way" of life on September 11, 2001. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson had already inflamed America's own Christian fundamentalists with talk that the terrible events of that day were to blame in part on "the gays and
" The point of bringing this up is, this is an age of violence in the world and throughout the entertainment industry, and so it is not surprising to hear Washington politicians rationalize, backtrack, dip into semantics and find euphemisms that work well when it comes to issues of torture. A very well-known philosopher - the late Elizabeth Anscombe - stood up and was counted when it came to ethics and
196). While the reader does not want to admit this could happen in the United States, after reading this book it does not seem so far-fetched, and that is a frightening, even unspeakable conclusion. The fact that the government condones these torture techniques is bad enough. The situation at Guantanamo Bay underscores how deeply the government has delved into torture and other forms of detention that fly in the
Torture: Often Morally Justifiable Given the events of the last ten-year, most notably U.S. Military techniques in Abu Graib, the subject of torture is ever a popular one and ever controversial. For the purposes of this paper, torture will be defined as "the intentional infliction of extreme physical suffering on some non-consenting, defenseless, other person for the purpose of breaking their will. I note that a person might have been tortured,