Michael Levin’s The Case for Torture was a very strong and well-organized essay. Levin supports very good arguments about where torture can be validated in real life situations and can help save innocent lives. His use of emotional and logical appeals flow throughout his entire essay paired with the real life situations mentioned before. My goal is to analyze The Case for Torture and to highlight key points, positive and negative, in Michael Levin’s essay.
Levin uses emotional appeal more than he uses any other type of appeal. He provided three real life scenarios and supports why he thinks torture would help gain information and save innocent lives. Levin then supports his arguments for torture saying “…millions of lives surely outweigh constitutionality”.
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(359) For example, one of the scenarios he provides is about babies being taken from a hospital. Michael Levin asked 4 mothers if they think torture would be an acceptable means of getting their children back and of course all 4 said yes, even the most liberal one, Levin added. He used this poll as evidence to pad his essay with more credibility. While most of Levin’s essay has good use of appeals, organization and word choice, he has failed to recognize the logical fallacies he has included.
Levin used a red herring and a slippery slope logical fallacy in his essay. The red herring instance was a weaker example of comparing “terrorisms” and if it had been left out, it would have strengthened the essay tremendously. The slippery slope fallacy inferred that if terrorists were not tortured, they would not get answers from them, and their evil deed would continue.
While reading his essay preparing for this analysis, I feel as if Michael Levin makes the indirect assumption that everyone is against torture. I also feel as if Levin thinks everyone needs an emotional or personal connection to make torture an okay concept in their mind. He does not acknowledge the fact that some people may not need convincing and have the same thoughts as he does.
While writing about torture most of Levin’s scenarios included torturing terrorists for answers or instruction to disarm bombs to save lives. By doing just that Michael Levin directed his essay toward the citizens of the United States of America. His essay could catch the eye of almost any American citizen and could possibly sway their opinions if torture is the only way to protect American soil. Michael Levin indirectly plays on patriotism and the love of our free country by making American citizens the audience for his
essay. The Case for Torture by Michael Levin has overall been a very convincing, well constructed and an easy to read piece of literature. His understanding of logos and pathos showed and were used appropriately throughout the entire essay. The weaker parts of his essay were including some logical fallacies, and not recognizing them. I applaud him for using several different scenarios successfully and strategically to capture the attention of a certain audience.
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
Many people believe they could never commit the crime of torture; yet, Milgram, along with many others, have discovered that the converse is true. At the beginning of his piloted experiment, Milgram predicted virtually all the participants would refuse to continue. He was proven wrong when twenty-five out of forty participants continued past the point of 150 volts (80). He surmised, as the experiment progressed from the piloted study to the regular series, the total out come of average persons response was the same as they had observed in the prior study--solidifying the thought even your "average Joe" is capable of torture (81). While Milgram supports this legitimate thought with facts, stories, and examples, news and world reporter Szegedy-Maszak simply states "...Everyman is a potential torturer"(76). In correspondence with both Milgram and
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.
Alan Dershowitz challenges the legitimization of non-lethal torture in his essay, “Should the Ticking Bomb Terrorist be tortured?” He claims that torture should indeed be legitimized for specific scenarios that require such action. The ticking bomb terrorist gives the example of a terrorist withholding time-sensitive information that could result in the death of innocent citizens, if not shared. Not only does Dershowitz challenge the idea of torture, but he also gives a probable solution that favors the legitimization the torture. He mentions three values that would have to be complied with by all three branches of government if it were to be legitimated, which Dershowitz does endorse. The arguments of the two perspectives discussed in the
When Hitler and the Nazi Party first entered power, they proposed strict and unimaginably radical policies. Their goal as the dominant political power was to create a “pure” German society. The idea of a “pure” German society stemmed from the idea that certain racial groups and ethnicities were undesirable and inferior. With that in mind, they sought to completely eliminate, through annihilation tactics, Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, biracial children, handicapped citizens, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and any other individual(s) who opposed their radical ideologies. However, the most questionable part of these tactics was how and why the Nazis chose them. Of the many ways dictators and corrupt governments had tortured their citizens in the past, why was Hitler determined that the Einsatzgruppen, ghettos, and concentration camps were going to be the methods of choice to mass murder the Jewish people. Robert Payne notes in his book The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler that Hitler was not satisfied with a gruesome murder of the Jewish race. He preferred them to die in agony and complete humiliation. Methods of mass murder such as killing squads (the Einsatzgruppen), ghettos, and concentration camps proved themselves as the perfect final solution. These tactics would exterminate Jews at an increasing rate while removing them of their respectable status.
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.
Michael Levin's article on "The Case for Torture." is an article which mainly discusess the use
Mostly, it is applied in defending an hypothetical action of torture. The belief that torture must be allowed, if it is required to get information in term of prohibiting the citizens from the death due to any form of terrorism, come along to be cross abroad spread, even to liberals democrats. In an impressive article, David Luban writes: ‘Alan Dershowitz reported in 2002 that “[d]uring numerous public appearances since September 11, 2001, I have asked audiences for a show of hands as to how many would support the use of nonlethal torture in a ticking-bomb case. Virtually every hand is raised.” American abhorrence to torture now appears to have extraordinarily shallow
In dystopian literature there are many forms of torture that make life unbearable. One of the beliefs that contribute to this torture is hierarchy system. In the novel 1984 by George Orwell and the movie Brazil directed by Terry Gilliam, there are ambitious protagonists named Winston Smith and Sam Lowry who put forth a battle against their torturous world. A third reference "The Right to Information India's Struggle Against Grass Root Corruption" written by Roy Bunker, criticizes the Indian government and their corrupt practices leading to poverty and torture of the poor to maintain control over their societies. These three texts portray government of developing countries torturing their citizens with the help of hierarchical
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.
In “The Case For Torture” an article written by Michael Levin, he attempts to justify the use of torture as a means of saving lives. Throughout the article, Levin gives the reader many hypothetical examples in which he believes torture is the only method of resolution. Though I agree with Levin, to some degree, his essay relies heavily on the fears of people and exploits them to convince people to think pain is the only way. In certain aspects, I could agree entirely with Levin, but when one reads deeper into the article, many fallacies become apparent. These fallacies detract from the article's academic standing and arguably renders the entire case futile.
Dershowitz, Alan. “ The Case for Torture Warrants.” The Student Writer, Barbara Clouse, McGraw Hill,2008, pp. 469-471. In the article by Alan Dershowitz “ The Case for Torture Warrants,”
The use of torture has always been a hot topic of moral and ethical discussion. Typically, the discussion is not about whether or not torture is good, but rather if there is ever a morally acceptable situation in which torture should be allowed to occur. Does a criminal’s deeds strip him of basic human rights and make it morally okay for him to be physically and mentally abused? Do certain situations such as war make torture acceptable? It is generally agreed upon that torture is a terrible violation of a person and their rights; the common thread among moral questions such as these is if there are any times when torture could be considered morally acceptable. In order to analyze this moral dilemma, an ethical system is commonly used as a
Torture is a tool used to gain information, for punishment, or for revenge. People think it’s okay to use torture as long as it’s for a good reason, but what excuse is there to justify torture? Violating a person’s rights and treating them like less than a human is never acceptable. Although torture is sometimes successful in getting valuable information, it’s not worth stripping someone of their rights as a person.
Torture is a very controversial topic around the world, with perhaps just as much for it as against it. However, the idea of torture in limited circumstances is one that needs to be talked about in order to save thousands of innocent lives. In “A Case for Torture”, written by Mirko Bagaric, the author comes to the conclusion that maybe torture will never be the right option, but it is an option to seriously consider when the lives of innocent people are at stake. Throughout his article, Bagaric makes several persuasive key points on why torture can, in some circumstances, be the right thing to do. Through this article we learn that although torture will never truly be the right thing to do when dealing with crime and war, sometimes it’s a necessary act that we need to accept.