Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Is torture ever morally acceptable? If so, under what circumstances? If not, why not
Torture advantages and disadvantages
The Case Of Torture
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Is torture ever morally permissible? Torture is “the action or practice of inflicting severe pain on someone as a punishment or to force them to do or say something, or for the pleasure of the person inflicting the pain”(Oxford dictionary). National laws condemn the use of torture techniques, but can it ever be justified? Can torture be alleged as a moral act under certain circumstances? Before continuing, the act of torture for the sake of punishment or for entertainment or for any other non-humanitarian can never be morally permissible. The only type of torture argued in this paper is the one with the goal of intelligence gathering in order to save an innocent life. All other forms of torture are not morally permissible. Utilitarianism states that if the torture of one person means that the collective good or happiness is increased, and then torture is justifiable. However from an utilitarian point of view, torture may not always be permissible, as a rule utilitarian would only act if that it follows a rule that will bring the greatest good and torture cannot be that rule however torture under extreme circumstances is an example of these rules. Also a consequentialist will see if the end justifies the mean thus if the consequence of torture is moral, like saving someone, than the good of these action outweigh its negative traits thus turning it into a moral action. So in this paper I will argue that torture is sometimes morally permissible only if the act has collective benefits and is regulated by laws. First I want to define what an extreme situation is like: a terrorist organization planted a ticked thermonuclear bomb in a crowded city where your family lives. The bomb would explode in an hour nevertheless the plot has bee... ... middle of paper ... ... torturer has a physical control over the tortured and targets his sovereignty to seek control over his decisions. However the tortured will survive and his will and autonomy is temporally broken but will eventually be restored because the torturing is limited in its humiliation however the autonomy of the victims of the terrorist act, if it happened, is damaged. Forth objection: The argument is that we are uncertain that torturing a person will result in extracting the information. This is a problem but however not insurmountable. Since the torture can only succeed or fail, its rate of success is higher than its rate of failure because every man has a weakness. Thus even if torture will fail at least we did act. Absence of perfect information is never a good reason not to act; otherwise we would never leave our houses because we might get hit by a car.
Who wouldn’t have agreed? Yes, torture is cruel but it is less cruel than the substitute in many positions. Killing Hitler wouldn’t have revived his millions of victims nor would it have ended war. But torture in this predicament is planned to bring no one back but to keep faultless people from being sent off. Of course mass murdering is far more barbaric than torture. The most influential argument against using torture as a penalty or to get an acknowledgment is that such practices ignore the rights of the particulars. Michael Levin’s “The Case for Torture” discusses both sides of being with and being against torture. This essay gets readers thinking a lot about the scenarios Levin mentioned that torture is justified. Though using pathos, he doesn’t achieve the argument as well as he should because of the absence of good judgment and reasoning. In addition to emotional appeal, the author tries to make you think twice about your take on
Once torture is accepted, it has a high chance of going down a “slippery slope” as Dershowitz puts it. He introduces case utilitarian justification, which deems torture appropriate as long as the benefits outweigh the cost. He uses a hypothetical question posed by Ivan Karamazov that creates a scenario that exhibits the absence of limitations in case utilitarian justification. As one could imagine, during torture, an absence of limitations is not ideal. Karamazov questions whether a person would be willing to sacrifice an innocent child’s life to give eternal happiness and peace to all of man. This demonstrates the concern of a person doing anything to achieve a certain objective, as long as the cost falls below the benefit. However, Dershowitz claims that the worry of a slippery slope is simply an “argument of caution” being that all settlements with a single source of absolute control could fall into a slippery
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.
If we torture just one prisoner for information on the next terrorist attack, then we could save thousands of lives. One life vs a thousand lives, more good vs less harm. We torture one terrorist to save a thousand lives, so we are doing the most good with the least amount of harm in the views of Utilitarianism. Potential consequences of this could be the possibility that we do not stop with torturing just one prisoner, but we torture that prisoner’s family or multiple other prisoners in our blind approach to getting the information we want. This would mean that we would be doing more harm and less good, and go against the views of the Utilitarian Approach.
Is the intentional pain that an individual experiences justified if there is the potential to save the lives of many? Torture is the most used weapon in the “war against terrorism” but does it work? The purpose of this essay is to identify what the motives for torturing are, the effectiveness of torture, and important issues with the whole process of torture.
“Torture Is Illegal, Immoral and Ineffective.” Common Dreams. Bonnie Block, n.d. Web. 10 Feb. 2014. .
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.
If someone asks you to think about the devices of torture you will probably imagine some insane medieval invention. And it will not even occur to you that torture is not just a relic of time. Nowadays nobody is being tortured because it is completely unacceptable, right? Apparently, this is not entirely true. Two academics at Deakin University, Mirko Bagaric and Julie Clarke, argue that it is justified to use torture when thousand of lives of the innocent are at stake.
Consider the following situation: You are an army officer who has just captured an enemy soldier who knows where a secret time bomb has been planted. Unless defused, the bomb will explode, killing thousands of people. Would it be morally permissible to torture them to get him to reveal the bomb’s location? Discuss this problem in light of both Utilitarian and Kantian moral theories and present arguments from both moral perspectives for why torture is morally wrong.
“The Case for Torture” by Michael Levin introduces the topic of torture as an acceptable measure for preventing future evil. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, torture is the act or practice of inflicting severe pain on someone as a punishment that forces them to do or say something, or for the pleasure of the person inflicting the pain. Victims may be tortured for various reasons, such as for the tormentor’s own pleasure, a motive for revenge, or the need to obtain answers. At some point in life, everyone has thoughts of torturing another individual, especially when experiencing traumatic events or simply seeking for revenge. Stanley Milgram’s Shock Experiment, the Iraqi Prisoner, and Philip
In closing, torture is not a 100% effective interrogation strategy in trying to obtain information from suspects. Torturing can have an intense negative psychology appeal. “But it is worth considering whether the use of torture is truly motivated by a desire to gain valuable information, or by a desire to overcome a sense of powerlessness and to restore control, or even by a basic desire of revenge”(Costanzo). Negatively, torture is a very controversial topic and should not be taken lightly. In the future, interrogators should consider other interrogations technique and also include torture. Torture should be used as a last resort in trying to obtain information. Finally, torture can be justified in certain situation that such as the war on terror, life or death situations and important issues involving our country.
Torture is a gruesome act, with the main goal of inflicting utmost pain on a person, usually as a punishment or to force the recipient to divulge vital information. Most people who criticize torture point out that it is a gruesome thing to do, notwithstanding who the victim is. Hence, a state or an individual do not have the right to deliberately hurt another human being. As this
Torture has been around for thousands of years, and it has always been a debate whether that it is a good or a bad thing. Most people assume that it is always an unbearable and harmful thing, when in fact that is not always the case. While many forms of torture are extremely painful and drawn out, there are others that are really quite harmless. To this day,some people believe that forms of torture that do not result in death or permanent injuries should become legal once again, while others have a very strong opinion that it should forever remain illegal.
Torture is the process of inflicting pain upon other people in order to force them to say something against their own will. The word “torture” comes from the Latin word “torquere,” which means to twist. Torture can not only be psychologically but mentally painful. Before the Enlightenment, it was perfectly legal to torture individuals but nowadays, it is illegal to torture anyone under any circumstances. In this essay, I will demonstrate why torture should never acceptable, not matter the condition.
The use of torture has become a prominent matter of dispute as we enter an age of the global war on terror. The debate on whether it has become morally permissible to torture terrorists is argued by many as the legitimacy of such actions are brought into question in a world where global terror is outstanding. With the use of the ticking time bomb scenario, some make a desirable case that in special circumstances, there is a right to torture individuals implicated is acts of mass violence. Yet many would still argue that there are an array of inconsistencies hidden within the ticking bomb scenario and there are no circumstances where torture can be morally permissible, no matter what the consequences may hold.