So apparently across the board, people find torture acceptable in some situations. I found this very interesting, so I decided to explore for myself. And after exploring, it only got more interesting. Its one thing to use the term torture as a layman, but in the international law sense, the first question I thought I needed to ask is what is torture? And according to the most widely accepted definition (irct.org/what-is-torture/defining-torture.aspx), torture is: any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions. Thats a lot of language to basically say that torture is something that includes 3 things: 1. The intentional infliction of severe mental or physical pain or suffering 2. by or with the consent of the state authorities 3. for a specific purpose That creates a rather strange definition of torture. For one, if the mob cuts off all your fingers at each joint until you only have nubs because you insulted the Boss-man, that apparently wouldnt be torture under this definition for the simple fact that theyre the mob, and not a state authority. Im sure it would be something, but I dont know what. And whether or not what ISIS is doing is torture (i.e. literally crucifying people as punishment) depends entirely upon whether or not ISIS is a state authority (which I really dont know the answer to), even though we can tell that what they are doing is terrible. Thats a strange definition of torture to me: both over- and under-inclusive. On the other hand, No. 3 of the definition begs a very important question: What is the purpose? For fun or to get a confession? Obviously bad. To stop hundreds of people from getting killed? Well, thats not clearly as bad. And its especially not easy to say its bad when you add that purpose to the fact that number 1. is both physical OR mental pain. So lets create a plausible situation: Port security finds that on this ship (shippingtribune/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/container-ship5.jpg), there is a radiation signature large enough to signal a nuclear weapon. The crew is arrested and detained by a commando team, but after discovering the documentation that the ship is required to have on their cargo, previous ports, their owners, and their crew has been destroyed, they all go silent. Are we really comfortable saying that our government (no. 2) should not inflict severe mental suffering (no. 1) to find out where that ship has been, what exactly is on it, and what kind of danger were in (no. 3)? Geez, I sure hope they would. (Especially if the port they find themselves in is new Orleans, and it is literally over 100 miles to the open ocean and safe detonation.) But doing so would CLEARLY be torture. And If we find after a few hours that several of the individuals who were arrested have fake documents, but match the descriptions of several individuals with ties to terrorist organizations, I would be happy with bumping that up to severe physical suffering, too. Its not that I think it would be morally permissible in this situation; its that I think if you have a duty to protect millions of innocent people (like our government does), it would be immoral NOT to do that in this situation. And I would be okay with that even if it doesnt work. After all, at the time, you never know if it will work. Thats a question of effectiveness, not a moral question. This is the difference between someone arguing that the ends justify the means and someone arguing that the situation justifies the means. So, that being said, I have not read the Senate torture report. But when I do, I will not be asking did it work? Because thats not something I even have the ability to weigh in on (how would I even know beyond people telling me so?). But on the moral front, we can explore this. But we cant only ask what did we do? Instead, in order to have an inquiry worth anything, you have to ask What did we do? For what purpose? And in what situation? So, those are my thoughts on the matter. washingtonpost/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/12/16/from-moderate-democrats-to-white-evangelicals-nearly-every-demographic-group-believes-torture-can-be-justified/?tid=sm_fb
Posted on: Wed, 17 Dec 2014 06:37:26 +0000
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