Michael Levin's Essay: The Case For Torture

Michael Levin’s essay “The Case for Torture” is trying to express many things but one of the most important is to show that sometimes torture is necessary. During the story, Levin resorts to lots of arguments, with the speculation that torture is only reasonable when saving lives, he demonstrates three situations in which torture may be okay. The author is basically saying that he agrees with torture if it means saving innocent lives. But we can’t always be too sure about that. Levin’s argument states many of theoretical cases like an atomic bomb, a terrorist on a plane and a newborn baby being kidnapped. He gives three scenarios for the reader to think about.
The audience would be the people in America since he begins talking about the

United States in the introduction. He subtly mentions “freedom” and “embassy”. And he shows this by mentioning the 4th of July. Levin also states that the audience might find torture brutal or disgraceful. Levin begins by expressing that there is a predicament becoming in this statement. The author is relying more so on influencing the audience’s emotions rather than influencing them by reason. The statement also claims to set the boundary for well-founded torture. The writer uses pathos or emotional appeal in this essay when he starts talking about terrorism and also when he says “Here are the results of an informal poll about a third, hypothetical, case. Suppose a terrorist group kidnapped a newborn baby from a hospital. I asked four mothers if they would approve of torturing kidnappers if that were necessary to get their own newborns back. All said yes, the most "liberal" adding that she would like to administer it herself.” He also uses this baby scenario to his advantage by asking MOTHERS about their newborn babies. Of course, what mother of father wouldn’t want to save their child? Basically implying that if these four mothers agree with him then he must be right. This seemed to be the only scenario he did the poll for, which was an obvious answer. He also expressed that torture is never permissible but morally mandatory.
Secondly, he mentions an atomic bomb in Manhattan, basically trying to put the reader in their shoes. He chooses the specific day (July 4) because normally lots of people will be travelling with their families and terrorist knows that lots of people will be celebrating the day The United States took independence. Levin asks, when “Can we tell 300, or 100, or 10 people who never asked to be put in danger, ‘I’m sorry you’ll have to die in agony, we just couldn’t bring ourselves to…’” He basically tries put the guilt trip on the reader and making them rethink their decision if they disagree with torture. Levin foreshadows other terrorist events and decides that torture will be the only way to save lives. If you were one of the people on the plane that could’ve stopped the terrorist, could you sleep with yourself knowing that you let millions of people die because you let your beliefs get in the way? After showing how he feels, he also starts to give more information and evidence to support his thought. “Probably. But millions of lives surely outweigh constitutionality.” He mentions “constitutionality” which means in the condition of acting in accordance with an applicable constitution.
Lastly, he talks about Hitler stating “Americans would be angered to learn that Roosevelt could have had Hitler killed in 1943, thereby shortening the war and saving millions of lives, but refused on moral grounds.”, implying that if Hitler was dead earlier it would’ve saved more lives.

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

torture.
When the author concludes, he expresses “…little danger that the Western democracies will lose their way if they choose to inflict pain as one way of preserving order.” Meaning the use of torture and its repercussions has been reported around the world over an extensive amount of time and for a lot of reasons. Levin’s article causes a stern and compulsive question that has become mainly applicable in the recent years with the appearance of the United States. He concludes the essay by expressing what torture could have an effect on in the future. He does not agree with torture as a punishment but for necessary cases (examples he mentioned in the essay). This essay gives lots of rhetorical questions for the reader to think about while also understanding. There will be no specific choice of rather torture is right or wrong. Suggesting he wants a law for torture only being for the obviously guilty once again, the author would only agree to torture if it meant saving innocent lives and believes that torture would be the only way to save them.