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Is torture justified
Is torture justified
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Torture the Means to an End
Torture is not a method that should be used by law enforcement. The use of torture by law enforcement personnel is unethical. To prove this we will have to examine several different areas. First, one has to consider what torture is. Second, the ethical implication for the use of torture. Finally, can the information from the use of torture considered to be credible.
To begin, one has to consider what torture is. Torture is defined as “the act of causing severe physical pain as a form of punishment or as a way to force someone to do or say something” (Torture, 2014). While this definition is accurate in its description of physical torture, does mental torture fall under the same definition? To answer the question mental torture need not bring about pain but only subject a person to mental anguish, as a means of lowering a person’s resistance to questioning. First, what are some of the types of physical torture. Physical torture can take any number of different manifestations. Be it from beating a person with fists or an object, cutting off parts of the body, electrocution, branding, or dislocation of joints. Basically physical torture is anything that brings about pain to garner the desired result i.e. answers to questions. Next, what are some of the mental tortures. Like physical torture mental torture manifests in a number of different ways and does not have to be suffered by the person being tortured. Some of the mental tortures used include sensory deprivation, sexual degradation, and the threat or use of torture on a loved one (Luban & Shue, 2011). Once again the result of this type of torture is to bring about a desired result. To conclude, torture whether physical, mental, or a combination of each...
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...attacks, then their fellows will not hesitate to dispatch the informant. Hence this induces a need to generate untrustworthy information, so that they are able to reintegrate back into their society. In conclusion, the need for the suspect to lie about information is a powerful reason to not use torture as a means to garner information for anti-terror operations.
In summary, torture can be physical, mental, or a combination of both of these aspect, and must induce pain or an aguish to bring about the information being sought. Next, if you apply either utilitarianism or Kant to torture neither allows for the use of torture to be ethical. Finally, the need to end torture facilitates the need for the suspect to lie if only to have the pain or anguish to end. In closing, the use of torture by law enforcement personnel in anti-terror operations is unethical and immoral.
In his essay “The Case for Torture,” printed in The Norton Reader 13th Edition, Michael Levin argues that torture is justified and necessary under extreme circumstance. He believes that if a person accepts torture to be justified under extreme cases, then the person automatically accepts torture. Levin presents weak argument and he mostly relies on hypothetical scenarios. There is not concrete evidence that torture solves problems and stop crime but rather the contrary. Under international law, torture is illegal and all the United Nation members have to abide by those rules. The use of torture does not keep people safe, but rather the opposite. Torture has a profound effect on democracy. As the use of torture becomes normal in society, the right of the citizen will suffer greatly.
False confessions are receiving more public attention now that people are speaking out about having to serve jail time for a crime they did not commit. 2015 was a year to remember for false confessions, starting in January when a man was released after serving 21 years in prison. The protocols that interrogators are trained to follow are dangerous because they allow investigators to have complete influence on innocent people to make false confessions. Most people believe that all interrogators are trained to use mental and physical abusive tactics because it appears in the media and news so often, therefore making it believable to blame them for false confessions. “Interrogation is derived from the Latin roots inter (in the presence of) and rogre (to ask).There are no nefarious connotations, elements of torture, or illegal activities associated with the action of interrogation”(Boetig).
Interrogational torture is one of the many tough ethical questions that people debate about in the United States. Is it right or is it wrong? Many believe that the United States does not practice intense interrogational acts such as torture. Many people have fought to abolish any form of torture while many fight to keep some forms of it to help keep the peace. Whether you believe in it or not, torture is and will always be an ethical dilemma that comes up.
Torture, as defined by the Oxford dictionary is the action of forcing a person to expose something through pain and suffering (“Definition of Torture in English”, 1). It has been a very effective means of extracting information. The practice of torture was originally used on slaves to increase productivity. It later proved to be an efficient approach to force individuals to disclose information. Many civilizations have used this practice throughout history, each with their own unique way. The Greeks used a technique known as the brazen bull. This approach consisted of a victim to be placed in an iron bull and steamed alive (Blinderman, 1). A very gruesome and agonizing approach but widely accepted at the time because it delivered results. Torture, though a controversial topic today, should be acceptable, because firstly, it can lead to the gathering crucial intelligence, secondly, it is a quick approach to gain said information, and finally, it is can be sanctioned in an ethical aspect.
So even though the person is not in real physical danger, the panic caused by this method of interrogation causes both physical suffering and mental suffering. In the definition of torture it says it is torture whether it causes physical or mental suffering, and water boarding does both! The Fourth Geneva Convention states that any measure of such a character as to cause the physical suffering or extermination of protected persons in their hands.whether applied by civilian or military agents. In the “How to Do It” article, the author describes how to increase the suffering of the torture by putting plastic wrap over the mouth but not the eyes or nose to prevent water from escaping the throat and sinuses.
Torture is the intentional infliction of extreme physical suffering on some non-consenting, defenseless person. Torture in any form is used to punish, coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure.
Torture may be an inhumane way to get the information needed to keep the citizens of the United States safe from the attacks that are threatened against them, but there is rarely a course of action that will ensure the safety of a nation’s citizens that doesn’t compromise the safety of another group of people. Nevertheless, we must conserve as much humanity as possible by looking at the situation we are in and ensure that we are approaching the torture in an ethical manner. Although torture is valid on moral grounds, there are many who oppose it, such as Jamie Mayerfeld as he states in his 2009 article “In Defense of the Absolute Prohibition of Torture”.
Until there is a credible way to determine whether or not torture is in fact effective, I pass judgment that the practice should be discontinued. The question as to if the torture policy is a human rights violation or if it holds crucial necessity, is not answered in the essay. Applebaum explores the reality that torture possesses negative implications on the inflictor. After presented with the compelling stance and evidence, Applebaum raises the interesting question as to why so much of society believes that torture is successful. I agree that the torture policy is wrong, a point emphasized by Applebaum, contrary to the popular attitude surrounding the topic.
Torture can prevent the attacks resulting in terror or can go and prove no one, no one can infringe the right of Americans in the result of another attack, and therefore torture is justifiable. The similarities between ISIS and Al Qaeda is scary and torture needs to be in the back pocket of all officials to prevent similar disasters. The clock stopped ticking on 9-11, and anyone on the street can tell oneself where they were the minute they heard. The use of torture could save the lives of thousands, send the message that America is in charge, and can become more commonly accepted in the eyes of disaster. A ticking bomb could be going off at any time, it could destroy a spouse, a son, a daughter, a friend, a neighbor, or maybe the threat is to oneself, torture could get the information to destroy the bomb before it destroys one’s life. Torture is justifiable.
Though torture and enhanced interrogation are similar in that they both force information from captured individuals, they are basically different due to motives as well as extreme measures used. Enhanced interrogation is used by the United States for certain interrogation methods including “walling, facial hold, facial slap, cramped confinement, wall standing, stress positions, sleep deprivation, and water boarding” (Quigley 3). This method of interrogation is protected against international criminal prosecution. However, torture is known as the practice of inflicting “cruel, inhumane, degrading infliction of severe pain” (Beehner 1) and is “often used to punish, to obtain information or a confession, to take revenge on a person or persons or create terror and fear” (Quiroga 7). Like enhanced interrogation, torture can be used to retrieve information. However, the motive of using torture is not always to save lives. Although enhanced interrogation us...
The act of torture is something my family often has discussions about, since this is one of the controversial topics my family is passionate about. Like most people, some of my family members are against it, while others are for it. Growing up hearing about these discussions, left me feeling extremely curious, however unlike my parents and other family members, I wasn’t confident and couldn’t decide whether I was for or against torture. Therefore, after finding out that one of the options we could use as our topics for our editorial was torture, I was naturally and obviously intrigued. Therefore, I decided to take the opportunity to look at torture from both perspectives in hopes of being able to finally decide whether I am for or against this controversial topic.
In order to assess the morality of torture, one needs to define it. According to the Tokyo Declaration of 1975 torture is “the deliberate, systematic, or wanton infliction of physical or mental suffering by one or more persons acting alone or on the orders of any authority, to force another person to yield information, to make a confession or for any other reason.” This definition’s generality severely limits harmless interrogations by police. The United Nations changed the definition to include severe physical suffering, deliberate intentions, and also added that the action cannot be part of a lawful sanction. The US later revised the definition “to include only the most extreme pain” in 200...
He argues that the only way to get the information is to torture the terrorist to lure him into confession.
Ever since humankind has existed, so has torture. It is, according to Dictionary.com, the “extreme anguish of body or mind; agony.” The use of torture to punish or get information out of someone, such as waterboarding, is still used today. Fortunately, cutting people’s heads off in public is no longer a common use of torture as it was in the past. Torture is present in both pieces of literature, Alvarez’s In the Time of the Butterflies and Shakespeare’s Othello. Physical and psychological (emotional) torture are both present, but emotional torture is longer lasting and much harder to recover from.
On the opposite side, there are people very much in favor of the use of torture. To them, torture is a “morally defensible” interrogation method (8). The most widely used reason for torture is when many lives are in imminent danger. This means that any forms of causing harm are acceptable. This may seem reasonable, as you sacrifice one life to save way more, but it’s demoralizing. The arguments that justify torture usually are way too extreme to happen in the real world. The golden rule also plays a big rol...