The Ethical Use Of Torture

Is it morally right or is it wrong to use torture to gain information during interrogation of suspected terrorists or detainees? It is a difficult ethical question that people in the United States are debating. Our government implemented its initial anti-terrorism measures shortly after 9/11 attacks occurred. The United States has found a way to justify the use of torture on suspected terrorists. Despite opposition of the Constitution, international treaties and Supreme Court rulings, justification for using it was hidden behind the curtain of utilitarianism. One of the landmark Supreme Court decisions was from Brown v. Mississippi and it states, “These measures outweighed many individual rights, including due-process rights and the

They have fought for years to abolish torture, but others still fight to use some forms of torture while they attempt keeping the peace. Whether you believe in using torture or not, it still is and will always be an ethical issue. Torture as defined by Jocelyn Pollock is “the deliberate infliction of violence and, through violence, severe mental and/or physical suffering upon individuals” (Pollock, 2014). Christopher Tindale is quoted by Bob Brecher in Torture and the Ticking Bomb, and his description of torture is “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from that person or a third person information or confession, punishing that person for an act committed or suspected to have been committed, or intimidation or dehumanizing that person or other persons” (Brecher,

He states that anyone who is willing to plant a bomb is also likely to have undergone training to resist torture if caught. The “suspected terrorist” can buy necessary time to accomplish his goals by making his interrogators look somewhere else, giving misleading information which points to another suspect, or by completely denying it. Brian Ross, a writer for CBS news, reported that former and current intelligence officers and their supervisors “used enhanced interrogation techniques to gather intelligence information from detainees” (Ross, 2005). Intelligence officers describe having used “enhanced interrogation techniques” in bases in Northern Europe and Asia since 2002. There are six techniques used commonly. Most of the techniques are designed not to cause any permanent harm. They instill fear and