Is Torture Morally Acceptable? A Deontological Analysis

Introduction

Is torture morally acceptable? In the United States, arguments have been made both for and against the use of torture in fighting terrorism. Enhanced interrogation technique is a term that has been substituted for "torture" to make practices like waterboarding seem more acceptable to the public — but in spite of the label applied, the same moral questions persist. Depending on one's ethical perspective, torture may or may not be justified. There are several practical problems with torture — namely, that confessions made under duress do not hold up in a court of law, so to assume that any information obtained under duress would be authentic is to go against the very logic that courts of law rely upon.

This paper examines the morality of torture using the deontological position. It first explains the deontological framework, then shows that on the basis of duty to prisoners of war, torture is immoral. From there it addresses the counter-argument from the utilitarian position, offers a response to that objection, and concludes with a summary. The central argument is that torture is neither morally acceptable from the deontological position nor from the utilitarian position from which one might object to the deontological argument.

Key Ethical Issues in the Torture Debate

The key ethical issues in this topic are that prisoners of war and suspects of any crime are protected by law — both national and international — and have rights as human beings that must be respected. When a nation abuses and violates those rights, it sends a message to the international community that it neither respects the law nor respects human rights. Such a message is an offense to justice and can provoke the righteous anger of many in the international and national community, which can in turn lead to blowback in the form of more aggressive and hostile behavior from those who oppose the actions of the nation committing the torture. Nations have a duty to protect and respect the rights of prisoners of war and of suspects who are detained for any reason.

The moral argument can be supported by deontology, utilitarianism, and virtue ethics. Deontology supports it because of the nationally and internationally recognized duty that states owe to prisoners of war and suspects in criminal cases. Utilitarianism supports it because the greatest good is neither served nor achievable through torture, given the likelihood of blowback and the fact that torture does not yield authentic confessions admissible in any court of law. From the virtue ethics position, torture is immoral because it stains the good character and reputation of the country that employs it. The most important argument, however, is that a nation acting with any respect for the law is duty-bound to honor that law by protecting the rights of suspects and prisoners of war — otherwise, the nation surrenders its right to command respect and honor among other nations and among its own people. A state that deliberately flouts the law promotes lawlessness. The state is as duty-bound as its citizens are to the laws of the land.

The Deontological Framework and Its Application

The deontological moral position is based on the idea that morality is determined by one's duty (Mosser, 2013). This differs from the utilitarian moral position, which is determined by the outcome of behavior — that is, whether it produces the greatest benefit for the greatest number of people. It also differs from the virtue ethics position, which examines the effect of behavior on one's character to determine its morality. Deontology looks at what one's duty is and assesses whether an action is consistent with that duty. Kant is widely credited with advancing the deontological argument, though variations of it have been put forward over the years, with some disagreement about how to determine what one's duty actually is. For example, the argument of the "white lie" — whether it is permissible to tell a white lie to protect someone one feels duty-bound to protect, or whether one is duty-bound to tell the truth in all instances — illustrates where deontologists differ (Sen, 1983).

Deontology guides and constrains moral reasoning by focusing strictly on the duty that is owed. Behavior is judged moral or immoral based on whether it aligns with the duty expected of the individual or state. If a state has a duty to respect the rights of a person under arrest, then torture cannot be considered moral, as it violates those rights. However, if a state has a duty to protect its people from terrorism and a suspect is believed to possess information that the state thinks can only be obtained through torture, one might identify the duty as protecting the people of the state — which would, in this framing, override the prisoner's rights. But this is actually a utilitarian argument, not a deontological one: it treats the protection of the many as more important than the rights of the few. It is also a faulty argument because it assumes that torture works in obtaining authentic information, when no proof exists that it does (O'Mara, 2015).

A state's duties are multiple and concurrent. It is true that the state is duty-bound to protect its own people from harm by thwarting terrorism where possible; however, it is equally duty-bound to respect national and international law and the human rights of individuals. One duty does not cancel out another. Both must be fulfilled, and neither may be satisfied at the expense of the other. The state may seek information from a prisoner, but not in a manner that violates that prisoner's human rights.

Conclusion

This paper described the moral issue at stake by asking whether torture is morally acceptable. It argued that from a deontological position, torture is not morally acceptable — and further, that torture is immoral from any ethical perspective, including utilitarianism and virtue ethics. The key ethical issues identified are: (1) torture violates the prisoner's human rights, (2) it does not reliably produce authentic information, and (3) it risks blowback against the nation that applies it. The deontological framework was explained and applied, demonstrating that a state has a moral duty to respect both national and international law and human rights. The utilitarian argument — that applying torture to stop terrorism maximizes state welfare — was shown to rest on invalid premises. Whether one applies duty-based ethics or consequence-based ethics, the conclusion is the same: torture is immoral.

References

Mosser, K. (2013). Ethics and social responsibility (2nd ed.) [Electronic version].

O'Mara, S. (2015). Why torture doesn't work. Harvard University Press.

Sandle, M. (2009). Justice: What's the right thing to do? Farrar, Straus, Giroux.

Sen, A. (1983). Evaluator relativity and consequential evaluation. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 113–132.