torture

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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.

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