I read a science fiction story where in the near future a terrorist group hides a nuclear device in a large city. Those responsible are captured, but refuse to tell where the bomb is hidden. The government hires professional torturers to extract the information from the terrorists. In the story the reasons behind the use of the torturers become less and less justifiable over time until eventually they are used to prevent hung juries, but the initial situation seemed like a good enough reason to do this. Lately I’ve been thinking about the use of torture as a deterrant on terrorist attacks, and was wondering what the popular opinion of the boards would be.
What situations could you see the deliberate infliction of severe pain on a person as justifiable? I’d have no problem using it if it could prevent the loss of large numbers of innocent lives, and lately have been considering using it on zealots who don’t fear death as a deterrant, but realize that once we start it could lead us down a slippery slope. What do you think? Would your view be changed if you could be assured that it would only be used once and never again? And yes, I’m aware that torture is not always effective at extracting information from a prisoner and there are other methods that could be more effective - I’m thinking that it should be used if there were serious time limitations and other methods such as drugging were already tried unsuccessfully.
As I am sympathetic to Utilitarianism, I would say that an individual act of torture is justified when it will clearly produce more good than harm. Weigh the suffering of the victim against the odds of either deterring great amounts of crime (i.e. an equal amount of suffering) or obtaining information vital to the avoidance of large amounts of suffering. Or something like that. To the extent that the “value” of various types of suffering is completely subjective, this may not be very helpful.
Of course, a more practical concern is that it sets a bad precedent. I’m not sure I trust anyone in a position of authority (or anyone else, for that matter) to judiciously hand out state-sanctioned torture. I mean, if they can rip off a terrorist’s testicles and and tape them to his now empty eye sockets, then they might be able to rip off my testicles someday!
I was pondering this myself, I would have a hard time arguing that torture shouldn’t be used in extreme situations where thousands of lives are at stake, but the idea still terrifies me; what if the subject that we had in custody wasn’t the right man? What would it do to us as a society to condone such activities?
Perhaps there are certain situations (to date, hypothetical) in which torture can be justified. I imagine that some schools of thought hold that anything can be justified, given the right situations.
However, that doesn’t mean it has to be viewed positively.
Damn…Where was Amnesty International when I was working in a cowboy bar. Johnny B. Goode on steele Guitars…I still wake up screaming in the middle of the night.
A friend of mine was a Green Beret during the Grenada conflict. He said that the prefered form of interogation that they were taught was sleep depravation. He said that you keep someone awake, tied to a chair for several days on end, with out ever letting them sleep, they will eventually tell you anything you want to know. You dont have to beat them or inflict pain or anything. If, say it was an extreme circumstance, I wouldnt have a problem with this.
Yes, you could keep them awake by applying hot irons to the soles of their feet, or bamboo splinters under the fingernails, or just plain old electrodes on the testicles, no need for torture of cruel and inhuman treatment, just keep them awake…
Torture should ALWAYS be illegal. If someone does torture another person, then they should be willing to stand on their actions as an individual and face a jury.
I certainly wouldn’t convict a person who saved millions by locating the nuclear bomb or their own child.
That torture sets a bad precedent shows that it goes against something called “rule utilitarianism” which states that a rule is bad if it does not provide the greatest good for the most people. Do we want to make it a rule that torture is to be used if the greater good will result? I think not. So under “act” utilitarianism, torture in this particular case would be justified, but “rule utilitarianism” would say that we cannot make torture a method of interrogation because that would demean our society. I ceratinly think that utilitarianism has a role in deciding proper and improper behaviors, but we must caution that it does not lead to ridiculous conclusions: If we intentionally convict the wrong individual for a crime to create a scape-goat (and keep the fact of innocence from the public) have we served the greater good in easing people’s fears about a criminal on the loose, and also detering crime due to a swift prosecution?
Torture would surely get out of hand if you ever condoned its use on anyone. Yes if you say it is ok to tear off the terrorists testicles someday they may find a reason to tear yours off. Jesus said do unto others as you would have them do to you, you don’t have to believe he was a king amoung us to know that he told the truth.
I find it hard to believe that you wouldn’t have to use ever-more-violent shaking, then progress on to slapping, poking with a stick, then when that stops working, start poking them with a pin etc. you can see where I’m going.
One way to look at it, however, is as an extension upon act utilitarianism. If we torture someone with superficially good utilitarian reason, we still have to take into consideration the likely consequences of the particular act as regards future legislation and torture. If we believe a given action to have dangerous long-term consequences, even if it has good short-term consequences, we can still condemn it without leaving the vicinity of act utilitarianism.
Torture tends to be unreliable. The problem (one of the problems) with it is that the tortured person tends to tell the torturer what he or she thinks they want to hear
Well, obviously I have no personal experiance with performig this procedure, but as was related to me by my friend, one advantages of this method is that it left no marks or physical damage. I could see that maybe throwing water on them, shaking them etc, could keep most people from getting any sort of meaningful sleep. They might doze off for a second or two before being woken up again, but I believe that it would work.
Because sleep depravation has a really strong psychological effect. Deprive someone of REM sleep for several days, they start to really go psychotic. They may not even know they told you.
Yes, I agree, its still torture, but if were a “where did you hide the suitcase nuke that will go off next week” kind of situation, I could see this as being more humane than cutting thier feet off.