Torture Why Our Nation Cannot

Torture

Why Our Nation Cannot Use Torture

As it is the goal of this nation to establish an example for the rest of the world to follow in the freedom and responsibility of our society, the issue of torture must be immediately and definitively laid to rest. There are many policy makers and thinkers today that suggest that torture is not only acceptable, but that in certain instances it is even required. At first, this stance seems to make a great deal of practical sense -- if the lives of many or even one of our citizens could be saved by uncovering the details of a terrorist plot through torture, it seems reasonable that torture would be permitted in this instance, if not mandatory. This, however, is an overly simplistic and hypothetical view of what are actually incredibly complex real-world situations. A careful examination of the issue of torture, even from the incredibly pragmatic perspective of utilitarianism that we are so fond of in this country, reveals that there are actually many practical issues that render torture unviable from an ethical standpoint.

John Stuart Mills is the founder, or at least the first comprehensive and coherent explicator, of the utilitarian school of ethics. This ethical system is often summed up in the short platitude, "the greatest good for the greatest number." Mills himself referred to utilitarianism as the "Greatest Happiness Principle," and asserted that "actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness" (Mills Chapter 2, par. 2). Again, at first this seems to form an ethical argument for the use of torture in situations where information obtained could save many lives. The unhappiness of the victim of torture -- i.e. The terrorist -- would be meaningless when weighed against the happiness of the potential victims of the terrorist. In a world of certainty and black and white conclusions, such an argument would indeed be correct, but our world exists in shades of gray.

First of all, this argument requires that the terrorist is identified with complete certainty as someone who has information that could prevent widespread pain and/or death. Michael Levin makes this clear in his brief essay "The Case for Torture." After acknowledging and effectively establishing that torture is not justifiable as a punishment or to secure a confession of past acts, but only to save lives from future acts of evil, Levin raises a common objection: "Ah, but how can the authorities ever be sure they have the right malefactor? Isn't there a danger of error and abuse?" (Levin). The answer to these questions is, of course, that authorities could never be sure, and that there is always the risk for abuse of any permitted power.

Levin answers his own questions, however, by saying that terrorists easily identify themselves, and that therefore torture can be practiced with certainty. His explanations, however, reek of generalizations: "when 40 million people see a group of masked gunmen seize an airplane on the evening news, there is not much question about who the perpetrators are" (Levin). This logic already shows the abuses possible once torture becomes permissible in any situation. Terrorists will be identified along general lines, and innocents will almost certainly end up being tortured. Though Levin stresses that only those whose guilt is clear should be tortured, such certainty is nearly impossible to determine in a practical time frame. It also requires the circumvention of the standard of guilt that has been a part of society for centuries. The presumption of innocence until proof of guilt has been established in a court is central to a fair justice system.

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 a punitive measure, also fits into utilitarianism. Punishment and confession to past acts does not create nearly enough happiness or good to make up for the pain caused by torture. But these two conditions for the use of torture -- that it is practiced with complete certainty of guilt and that it is solely preventative -- cannot logically coexist. In order for guilt of a terrorist to be certain, the act of evil has to have already been committed, which means any actions against the terrorist can no longer be preventative. Even if a terrorist known to have committed previous acts of terrorism were captured, it could not be shown with any certainty that they knew of imminent future attacks until they had already occurred, and even then the terrorist's foreknowledge could not actually be known. Prevention and guilt are simply not able to exist at the same time.

The argument for the justification of torture in the "ticking bomb" situation is put somewhat more compellingly by Seamus Miller: "the terrorist is forcing the police to choose between two evils, namely, torturing the terrorist or allowing thousands of lives to be lost. Were the terrorist to do what he ought to do, namely, disclose the location of the ticking bomb, the police could refrain from torturing him" (Miller, sec. 3.2). This seems to suggest that others can be responsible for the actions we choose to commit. Such logic presents a dangerous path that opens the door for other abuses. By this logic, torture could be used to extract confessions, because letting a crime go unpunished is also an evil that the criminal could prevent.