Michael Levin The Case For Torture Summary

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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”. …show more content…

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

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