War on Terror:
Can Torture be Ethical?
Torture involves intentionally causing mental, physical agony, or even both, on an individual without legitimate reason. This includes threats to family members and loved ones. Torture has been used as a punishment, to threaten or control people, to furnish information or just to satisfy brutal impulses. Governments have been instrumental in using torture to keep power in their very own hands, to enforce their own political viewpoint, to remove antagonism and to device specific policies.
Before scrutinizing the legal validity of torture and inflicting pain, it should be considered that pain occurs even in medical treatments, causalities in war, or contenders in a boxing or wrestling match. Since the mid of the nineteenth century generally torture has been regarded as immoral, and so immoral at the argument in fact that the United Nations Convention Against Torture (UNCAT) has allowed no exceptions no matter what the circumstances may be, either war or while fighting terrorism. Torture and other such inhumane acts that cause severe agony or distress, or serious damage to body, to mental or physical health are forbidden under international criminal law too, and following practices of torture can amount to crimes against humanity. Evidence acquired by way of torture is not permissible in many courts round the world. In contrast however, it is still acceptable for security forces or the police to react upon information furnished from torture, furthering the problem of eradication of this practice.
Torture is still a widespread practise followed in many parts of the world. For example, in 1996 it was said that torture was used either formally or informally, in one out of every three countries. Amnesty International states reports of torture by state officials in over 150 countries in the years 1997 to mid-2000.
Ethical Problems
In the previous decades the complete wrongness of torture has begun to be a part of debate and speculation, as an after math of repeated terrorist attacks and the widespread terror that terrorists have possessions of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). There are two approaches to torture, deontological versus utilitarian ethics. Utilitarianism makes people put an argument that torture, though however wrong it may be it is lesser of the two evils and should be allowed if it turns out to be the only option to prevent something worse. For example, they say, it may be considered alright to torture an individual to acquire information that would help enable authorities to recover a kidnapping or prevent a bombing. Others, the ones who would follow deontological approach argue that it morally that torture is always wrong always, and hence is never justifiable by any form of analysis ethically.
History
For much of history, torture was used quite frequently, and without a lot of uproar. Civilisations like the Persians, Egyptians, the Greeks and the Romans used torture. Even the Church observed torture as an important part of its arsenal. Torture was part and parcel of a sound number of the legal systems in the West until the early 19th century. The United Kingdom, one of the signatories to the UNCAT and British law bans torture. Foreign Officer Minister Jeremy Browne on the web site says
"Torture is one of the most abhorrent violations of human rights and human dignity,"
The UK Government claims to have always taken a stand against torture in the same article very clearly and absolutely condemn its use as a violation of fundamental principle. The article further talks of commitment to combat torture on a global scale, and claim to have continuously implemented an active campaign for eradication of torture. This, if not evidence enough to prove UK’s stand against torture, a poll conducted in 2006 by BBC revealed that 72% of Britons opposed torture in any conditions, even if it would save lives.
Putting Into Scenario: The classic 'ticking bomb' problem
A problem that many worthy individuals face when contemplating about torture is if there ever occurs a case when torture results in a good situation produced, justifies the act of torturing an individual (Posner, 2002). It is very often illustrated in a situation of the 'ticking bomb' (Allhoff, 2005), which demands to put an individual in the place of law enforcing officer interrogating a situation as follows:
A terrorist clutch declares to have concealed an atomic bomb in Manhattan. The specialists have apprehended the leader of the clutch, who says that he has the knowledge about the whereabouts of the bomb. He rejects the proposition of revealing this location. Torture is assumed to be guaranteed to furnish the information required to confirm the specialists to find and defuse the bomb. However, torture is not guaranteed to produce accurate result, but only assuming that this statement is correct just to focus on the principle. The question that arises is that is it ethically adequate for the officer to have the leader or his family tortured for the purpose of finding out the whereabouts of the bomb and hence save several thousands of lives, or is it unethical altogether, no matter what the number of deaths are?
This however is not, a narrowly realistic case but establishing the argument through this scenario may be able to illuminate many issues involved in the act of torture. It is very important to admit, that this situation may not have a solution in terms of what has been stated previously. Answers that focus on the certainty of the ethical condition may supportively say that it is not ethical to torture the terrorist; it also is unethical to let your morality condemn lives of a thousand of others to face an otherwise avoidable death. So, there is no ethically suitable discourse of action that is whatever you may do, will be morally wrong, it is understood but still wrong for interrogators to use torture on the terrorist in order to save lives. Exceptionally an unethical act may be forgiven especially in this scenario as it is impeccably a choice of the intelligence of the human who makes it (The Economist, 2007).
Although, it is crucial to comprehend that the answer above does not validate the decision to inflict torture, neither does it put an argument that one is justified to choose the lesser of the two bad options. In its place it should be understood rather differently which are; putting the terrorist under torture is unethical and cannot be justifiable, but it can be implicit, and it may be excused. Torturing is unethical, but in such circumstances it may be the 'right decision is not intellectually acceptable but it does recognize that difficult cases cannot always be solved in a tidy manner (Slackman, 2013).
Testing the argument
A great majority of individuals all over the world are opposed to the act of torture even if the purpose of it is to produce evidence that could help save innocent lives.
It is agreed that strong rules in opposition to torture in jails should be maintained because it is decadent and its application would deteriorate human rights values. To establish this more than 27,000 people were questioned in 25 countries in poll conducted by BBC in 2006, all of which were retained up to Geneva Conventions. All of these prohibited the practise of torture and it was accepted that it would lead to cruelty and degradation of behaviour.
Reasons as to why torture is wrong may be subdivided into collection of unadulterated principles and reasons based on unacceptable consequences of the torture. Both these reasons are valid.
Some of the points of argument are:
- Torture treats victims as means to a purpose and not a purpose in themselves
- It sees the victims as an object, not as an individual with values that may be associated with individuality. Often it is explicitly dehumanizing to the victims.
- It uses corporeality of the victim not as the constituent part of an individual with some values, but as an instrument to attain its aims
- It dehumanizes individuals by treating them as pawns that may be manipulated as per the wishes of the torturer.
- It is used sometimes to rescind the independence of a victim
Some cultures have employed torture to overpower independence of thought and transform people to a have a hypothetical 'right-thinking'. The individual is put to torture till they give up their personal opinions and beliefs and accept those of the one inflicting torture. The victim of torture ends to be an individual and becomes another support to the command of their torturer. Torture is in defilement rights and human dignity of the victimised, including the legal right to remain silent upon questioning
Torture is a form of a fallacy known as slippery slope. This means that every act of torture makes it more acceptable to use torture in the future. Torture is essentially an ineffective questioning method. It may be deigned to produce falsified information as an individual under torture will inevitably tell any random story to discontinue the pain inflicted regardless that it is true or not. In lieu of this the interrogator may never be certain of the truth and may never realize the point of time when they should stop. Torture is wrong especially when better methods of interrogation, that do not have the involvement of torture, are available (Rumney, 2006). Also, if a detainee is tortured it is impossible to rightly prosecute them as their rights have been violated and for a rightly stood argument, the evidence produced may not be verifiable at all (Bagaric & Clarke, 2005).
Furthermore torture damages the human values of the torturer (Lee, 2005). The individuals who torture may become brutal by their acts, and become insensitive to human values. The more torture a person will carry out, the more is the probability that they will carry out torture. Torture mutilates the institution that uses it and damages the status and morality of the authority of that institution. Use of torture may produce inner disagreement and hence damage the veracity of the organization (Robbins, 2013).
Use of torture provides the opposition with a subject that can be exploited for propaganda. It makes the state seem like an autocracy where no individual can be completely ensured their rights. It may be said that state-approved torture is bad for the reputation of the state and is dishonourable. Torture corrupts and reduces the state that employs it and the legal framework that consents to it. When the state beats and wrests, it may no longer be said to be remaining on foundations of morality and justice, but rather on force (Kremnitzer, 2004).
Conclusion
Torture is and will be regarded as wrong for many piled up reasons. These reasons are that it is downright cruel and inhuman; it treats individuals as assets rather than people; and most importantly it is not an effective way of obtaining information as there is no means to ascertain that the information furnished is true or not.
Torture has and always will demean the veracity of any and every government that will employ such means to impose its policies, be it for the safety of its people or of any individual that may or may not belong to their jurisdiction. It may be mentioned here that torture damages the torturer as well, making a human lesser than the human state and lead to agonizing results.
It may be concluded that torture is unethical in each and every way, legally or morally and should be completely rejected for use in any situation, especially when there exist other means of furnishing information or imposing laws and regulations. There should be mandatory laws that may counter torture and torturers strongly, so that the world may take another step towards humanity.
Bibliography
Allhoff, Fritz (2005) "A Defense of Torture: Separation of Cases, Ticking Time-bombs and Moral Justification" International Journal of Applied Philosophy [online] http://www.pdcnet.org/pdf/ijap192-Allhoff.pdf; Accessed 27 July, 2013
Bagaric, Mirko & Clarke, Julie (2005), "Not Enough Official Torture in the World? The Circumstances in Which Torture Is Morally Justifiable", University of San Francisco Law Review 39 (3): 581–616.
BBC (2013) Torture; Ethics Guide; [online] http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/torture/ Accessed 27 July, 2013
Browne, Jeremy (1 February, 2012); Promoting human rights internationally: Torture Violates Human Rights and Human Dignity; Foreign & Commonwealth Office; [online] GOV.UK Available at <https://www.gov.uk/government/news/jeremy-browne-torture-violates-human-rights-and-human-dignity> Accessed 27 July, 2013.
The Economist (Sep 20th 2007) “Is Torture Ever Justified?” in print [online] http://www.economist.com/node/9832909; accessed 27 July, 2013
Kremnitzer, Mordecai (2004) quoted in Marcy Strauss, Torture; New York Law School Law Review
Lee, Burton J. (2005) The Stain of Torture, The Washington Post; [online] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/30/AR2005063001680.html Accessed 27 July, 2013
Posner, Richard (September 2, 2002). "The Best Offense". The New Republic [online] http://www.tnr.com/article/the-best-offense; Accessed 27 July, 2013
Robbins, Martin (4 November 2010). Does torture work? ; The Guardian [online] http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/the-lay-scientist/2010/nov/04/2; accessed 27 July, 2013
Rumney, Phil (4 October 2006); The Current Legal Debate Surrounding Coercive Interrogation: Could or should torture be legalised? Beating the Terrorists? Sheffield Hallam University Law Matters: [online] http://www.shu.ac.uk/law/law_matters_4_0ct06.pdf accessed 26 July, 2013
Slackman, Michael (16 May 2004), "What's Wrong With Torturing a Qaeda Higher-Up?” New York Times. [online] http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/16/weekinreview/16slac.html accessed 27 July, 2013
