Torture, Utilitarianism, and Deontology in the War on Terror

Introduction

Since the rise of terrorism in the wake of 9/11, numerous tactics have been tried in order to obtain information about where terrorists are hiding and where they might strike next. One of these methods is torture. From a utilitarian perspective, torture should be viewed as an unethical approach to problem-solving. The central problem with this approach is that it simply does not work. A person who is being tortured cannot be trusted to tell the truth. Confessions made under duress are not admissible in a court of law for the straightforward reason that when someone is promised the pain will stop if they simply "confess," that confession cannot be considered unbiased or objective. There is a clear incentive to confess — that is, to end the torture.

Torture as a tool for procuring the truth is therefore a flawed approach to tackling the issue of terrorism, for which it has been re-introduced into the American counterterrorism playbook. If torture is not a useful device for obtaining information, then what is it useful for? This paper answers that question by examining the issue through the ethical framework of utilitarianism. It then identifies weaknesses in the utilitarian viewpoint and challenges this perspective from the standpoint of deontology. It concludes with a defense of utilitarianism against the deontological counter-position with respect to torture.

The Utilitarian Position on Torture

The ethical basis of utilitarianism is that it gauges the common good of society. In other words, ethical activity is predicated on whether it assists in obtaining the greatest good for the greatest number of people. While deciding what this greatest good might be — or who is to judge — may require considerable debate, the point for now is that if something is not in the interests of the common good, it should be avoided because it would be unethical from the utilitarian point of view, as Mill demonstrates. Or, as Fox puts it, actions are "right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness."

For torture to be considered ethical from a utilitarian standpoint, it would have to be shown that the torture of captives can help procure the common good of all. On the surface, one might think that torture could actually achieve this: the captive has information about a potential terrorist attack; he will not divulge what he knows; torture is threatened and applied; and finally the captive confesses. The information is acted upon and a terror attack is thwarted, saving hundreds of lives at the cost of one person's suffering. Framed this way, torture might appear entirely ethical — it helped save hundreds of people, which is certainly for the greater common good.

The problem with framing the issue in this way is that it rests on an assumption: the assumption that this is the only possible outcome of torture. In fact, it is not. There are many other consequences. The captive may not tell the truth. Countless hours could be spent investigating a false story concocted by the captive simply to halt the torture temporarily. In reality, the captive may not even know anything useful but feel compelled to give up the names of friends or family members who have no connection to terrorism whatsoever.

This style of interrogation was employed by the Soviets in the twentieth century. Kulaks were rounded up by the thousands and forced to "confess" under threat of various forms of torture — and confess they did. They gave up the names of everyone they knew because no number was ever considered high enough. The Soviets wanted everyone, and they rounded up everyone and sent them to labor camps, all on the basis of false confessions beaten out of people who felt they had no other choice. The entire nation suffered as a result. An entire generation of young men and women were poisoned by the Soviet government's assumption that if people had nothing to hide, they would withstand torture without confessing. The opposite proved true. No one wants to be tortured, and human nature being what it is, people will say almost anything to make it stop. Their confessions can ruin the lives of others, waste enormous amounts of time and resources, and run investigators in circles — all while harming the minds of those trying to sift fact from fiction. Confessions that are tortured out of a person do not correlate with honest, ethical information-gathering from a utilitarian perspective.

There is also the issue of what happens when a captive's family, friends, peers, or colleagues learn that their loved one is being tortured — this can fuel a desire for revenge. If the aim is to stop terrorism, torture may be among the worst methods available. Terrorists who fight the West do so, in part, because they perceive Western hypocrisy: the idea that whatever the West does is righteous, but the same action by another party is condemned. Terrorists may torture prisoners — and that would be wrong — but when the West does it, the implicit claim is that the West retains the moral high ground. The impression conveyed to adversaries and neutral observers alike when the West engages in torture is precisely the opposite: it signals that the West has no moral high ground, no clear sense of where to draw the line, and that it will stop at nothing to achieve its objectives.

It must be demonstrated, therefore, that from the utilitarian perspective torture does not work because it disrupts the social fabric. Nothing that people do exists in a vacuum. There is no contained space to which torture can be confined. Engaging in torture is like routing a sewage line directly into the public sphere — opening the valves of waste and letting it rain down on ordinary people going about their lives. Torture is an ugly and cruel method of interacting with human beings, and it adds a foulness to the moral atmosphere that cannot simply be dismissed. Beyond the fact that it does not actually work, torture operates as a pollutant. It corrupts the ethical foundations and moral framework of society. Everyone knows it and everyone feels it, yet people pretend it is acceptable because they believe it works — a belief resting on the assumption that torture is a simple process with a clear start and end point. The reality is that it is a complex process, like opening a can of worms or Pandora's Box. Once opened, the evil unleashed cannot be put back. It is out in the world, and people will react to it — not for the common good. It is an action that provokes reaction, in an ongoing chain. From the utilitarian perspective, torture is unethical because it generates more tension, more conflict, more hostility, and more harm. It does not lead to the good.

Conclusion

In conclusion, one must recognize, as Mill does, that people must protect themselves "against the tendency of society to impose its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them" (13–14). Protecting people from torture is precisely the kind of protection Mill has in mind. That kind of practice — coercive, unjust, and ultimately counterproductive — is what leads to the greatest unhappiness of all.

Works Cited

Fox, James. "Utilitarianism." The Catholic Encyclopedia. NY: Robert Appleton Company, 1912.

Mill, J. S. On Liberty. London: John W. Parker and Son, West Strand, 1859.

Sandel, Michael. Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do? NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009.