Posted on 03/10/2003 1:57:33 AM PST by kattracks
Can torture -- the infliction of intolerable, even excruciating, pain to extract information from war criminals -- ever be justified?
Civilized society has answered in the negative. No, never. And torture is everywhere outlawed. Regimes that resort to it deny it, lest they be judged barbarous. Routine torture marks the regime that uses it as unworthy of rule or even respect. And rightly so.
But that does not address the moral question, a question that has arisen with the capture of Khalid Shaikh Muhammad. Among the crimes to which this monster has been linked are the plot to blow up a dozen airliners over the Pacific, the truck-bomb massacre at the U.S. embassies in Africa, 9/11 and slashing the throat of Daniel Pearl.
When Muhammad was seized in Pakistan, found with him was a treasure trove for CIA and FBI investigators: a computer, disks, tapes and cell phones with data pointing to planned new atrocities.
Muhammad is not talking. Yet, if he can be forced to talk, the information could save thousands. It was said to be two weeks of torture that broke the Al Qaeda conspirator who betrayed the plot to blow up those airliners. And if ever there was a case for torture, this excuse for a human being, Khalid Shaikh Muhammad, is it.
Thus, the question: Would it be moral to inflict pain on this beast to force him to reveal what he knows? Positive law prohibits it. However, the higher law, the moral law, the Natural Law permits it in extraordinary circumstances such as these.
Here is the reasoning. The morality of any act depends not only on its character, but on the circumstances and motive. Stealing is wrong and illegal, but stealing food for one's starving family is a moral act. Even killing is not always wrong. If a U.S. soldier had shot Muhammad to save 50 hostages, he would be an American hero.
But if it is permissible to take Muhammad's life to save lives, why is it impermissible to inflict pain on him to save lives?
Is the deliberate infliction of pain always immoral? Of course not. Twisting another kid's arm to make him tell where he hid your stolen bicycle is not wrong. Parents spank children to punish them and drive home the lessons of living good lives. Even the caning of that American kid in Singapore that caused a firestorm was not immoral.
Civil War doctors who amputated limbs without anesthesia on battlefields inflicted horrible pain. Why? For a higher good: to save the soldier's life, lest he die of gangrene.
But if doctors can cut off limbs and open up hearts to save lives, and cops may shoot criminals to save lives, and the state may execute criminals, why cannot we commit a lesser evil -- squeezing the truth out of Muhammad -- for a far greater good: preventing the murder of innocents.
Before America had its vast prison system, petty criminals were locked in stocks in the town square as humiliation. Others were flogged. Barbaric, we now say. But was flogging immoral?
Today, many believe that public caning of young criminals, and their return to society for a second chance, would be far better for them and us. It might be a superior deterrent to crime than dumping them into the animal cages that are too many of American prisons, where young offenders face sexual abuse and are exposed to the daily example of how incorrigible criminals succeed and fail.
Who would not prefer a thrashing that might even put one in a hospital for a week to spending years in such a prison?
In short, while the instant recoiling that decent people exhibit to the idea of torturing Muhammad may mark them as progressive, it may also be a sign of fuzzy liberal thinking.
Many of these same folks are all for war on Iraq. Why? To rid the Middle East of a tyrant and his weapons of mass destruction. When John Paul II argues that, with inspections underway, such a war does not seem necessary, or thus moral, Ari Fleischer instructed the Holy Father that this war has to be fought to keep Saddam from giving horrible weapons to terrorists.
But if it is moral to go to war and kill thousands to prevent potential acts of terror on U.S. soil, why cannot we inflict pain on one man, if that would stop imminent acts of terror on U.S. soil? There is no evidence Saddam has murdered Americans, but there is a computer full that Muhammad has and has hatched plots to slaughter more.
What will history say about people who hold Harry Truman to be a moral hero for dropping atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but recoil in horror from painfully extracting the truth out of one mass murderer to stop the almost certain slaughter of their own people?
©2003 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
Is Pat veering into Situational Ethics here? How do you judge these things except with absolutes? My family is starving. Your family is starving. We each have only a tiny bit of food. If I steal your food, leaving you with absolutely nothing for your children, but I do this to help my own children, is this Moral??
It's all in the eye of the beholder, and this invalidates Situational Ethics. Another example: Is it moral for a President to lie to the public, lie under oath and bomb foreign countries to hide his extramarital affairs? Why, of course! Because, if that President were to step down, it would increase the political power of those eeeeeeevil Republicans! In such a situation, the President can do anything at all to hold on to power. It's the moral thing to do.
What I truly do not understand is why it is considered unethical to use sodium pentothal. It does no lasting harm, so surely the Amnesty International types shouldn't protest too much against its use.
There are several problems with US participating in torture.
(1) We are supposed to be the good guys. We give up the moral position if we do it.
(2) It doesn't work well anyway. People consistently tell lies under torture to get it to stop. The Inquisition demonstrated that. Sleep deprivation and "truth" drugs work way better.
(3) If we do it, we will have little grounds later for complaint if any of our forces, anywhere in the world, are themselves tortured after capture.
(4) Since we are signatories to agreements to not do it, it means our word is no good. Meaning we cannot be trusted.
(5), (6), (7) etcetera...
No. How do you judge these things except with absolutes?
You can't, but just because you judge things based on absolutes does not preclude the possibility that an act may be right in one circumstance and wrong in another. In the case of stealing food, there are two absolutes at work: 1) your duty to feed your starving family and 2) your duty to respect your neighbor's property. When two absolutes are in conflict, the one with higher priority trumps. In this case, your duty to feed your family trumps your duty to respect your neighbor's property.
Torture is moral in certain circumstances.
(2) It doesn't work well anyway. People consistently tell lies under torture to get it to stop. The Inquisition demonstrated that. Sleep deprivation and "truth" drugs work way better.
Sometimes it does work.
(3) If we do it, we will have little grounds later for complaint if any of our forces, anywhere in the world, are themselves tortured after capture.
We do have grounds if we refrain from torturing POWs covered under the Geneva Convention. Terrorists are not soldiers of a internationally recognized government, and hence are not covered by the Geneva Convention.
(4) Since we are signatories to agreements to not do it, it means our word is no good. Meaning we cannot be trusted.
The agreements cover only soldiers in the army of recognized governments captured in war. Terrorists, spies, pirates, and sabateurs are not covered.
Why?
Look at the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII. It was wrong, but not the epitome of evil (especially compared with what the Germans and Japanese were doing at the time). However, our enemies within the US are STILL trying to slam us with the fact that "we're no better than the nazis".
Look at Okinawa and the Japanese apprach to war in 1944-1945. Massive suicide attacks with kamikazi planes, and civilians with grenades strapped to their bodies. But the US is slammed for using atomic bombs to end the war and stop the slaughter.
The US wants to have the high moral ground. Now, it doesn't always pay off (witness the French defending Saddam and believing that they have the high moral ground). But I think we should make every effort to fight as clean as we can -- until such a time when we have our backs to the wall and have to do what is necessary. I do not think we are at that point.
I do not want to use torture against our opponents. It will be thrown in our face for 100 years and it will make all future actions more difficult. I do not want to "cross the line" even if our opponents behead journalists in front of the cameras. They are wrong. We don't have to be wrong too.
And I do believe in moral absolutes. If I had to steal food to save my family, I might do so. BUT I would know that I was doing a bad thing. A wrong thing. I would not tell someone that I was doing the MORAL thing. I would be doing the necessary thing. Pat Buchanan is saying quite explicitly that things like theft can be the Moral thing. I say he's wrong.
So does Pat Buchanan, and so do I. No one is calling into question the existence of moral absolutes.
If I had to steal food to save my family, I might do so. BUT I would know that I was doing a bad thing. A wrong thing. I would not tell someone that I was doing the MORAL thing. I would be doing the necessary thing.
How can something necessary be morally wrong?
Pat Buchanan is saying quite explicitly that things like theft can be the Moral thing. I say he's wrong.
You fail to grasp that there is a hierarchy of moral principals. In circumstances where they conflict, one must go with the higher principal. This has been the consensus of Judeo-Christian ethics for thousands of years. This has nothing to do with pernicious doctrines like situation ethics.
Steeling food for survival is not the only example. For instance, lying is in principal wrong, but you also have a moral obligation to defend your country from attack. Therefore if you must lie to defend your country, by say giving a spy false information, it is the moral thing to lie.
Regarding America keeping the high ground, those who hate America will always try demonize her no matter what we do.
I am not aware of any document that lays out all the details that would be required to make such fine distinctions within the hierarchy of moral principals.
Look at Germany in the 1930's and 1940's. At that time, and in that place, it was patently obvious that the Aryan Race was the best on the planet. The dirty Jewish Race, of course, was polluting humanity. The great task before the German people was the struggle to purify the Human Race. What could be more important? More moral? Sure, some eggs were broken, but it was all for the highest moral cause that anyone could imagine.
Now, I don't believe that. I'm sure you don't believe that. But who am I (and who are you) to say that the pinnacle of the moral hierarchy as envisioned by the Germans was wrong, but that the pinnacle of the moral hierarchy as envisioned by Pat Buchanan (or anyone else) is right?
You have stated that situation ethics is pernicious. But I think your efforts at defining a moral hierarchy is PRECISELY where situation ethics was born.
Forget hierarchies. Who are you, and who am I, to contradict anyone who says female genital mutalation is morally right? Or to contradict Peter Singer when he says infanticide is morally right? If you have no way of distinguishing between different moral hierarchies, you have no way distinguishing between different sets of morals.
On the other hand, if you can distinugish between different sets of morals, then you can distinguish between different moral hierarchies; a moral hierarchy is just a set of moral principles.
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/201810.htm
One can hardly argue that denying Khalid some shut-eye should prick our consciences.
Regards, Ivan
Now, genital mutilation doesn't fly in America, but it does in some African countries. Different moral systems. I think they are wrong, but I recognize that I might be considered arrogant for saying that they are clearly wrong, and I am clearly right.
But America has a history and traditions that go with that history. I won't say that we have one moral system, since our motto is "e pluribus unum". I accept the diversity of thought that makes America what it is. However, torture is something that this country has never officially condoned. I would say that within the traditional moral world-view that makes America what it is, torture cannot be accepted.
I think great evil has been done in the world by people who acted against what they themselves perceived as a moral principal, but which they also viewed as a moral principal worth breaking. That's Utilitarianism. It's the Greatest Good for the Greatest Number (and screw the minority). I can't call that stuff Moral. Maybe it seems acceptable to some people, maybe it seems necessary to some people, but in the context of traditional American morality, I think torture is beyond the pale.
Regards, Ivan
So you're a moral relativist? Do you really believe that the African societies' moral systems are just as legitimate as your own? This kind of thinking is worse than situation ethics.
However, torture is something that this country has never officially condoned. I would say that within the traditional moral world-view that makes America what it is, torture cannot be accepted.
The fact of whether an act is moral or not is not determined whether a given society accepts it as being moral or not.
Furthermore, your claim that the traditional American moral world view rejects torture is just plain untrue. The founding fathers never adopted any prohibition against torturing foriegn spies and subversives in order to extract information. Various states allowed their police to torture mobesters and others well into the late 19th century.
Let me ask you this question. If it is morally acceptable for the state to kill the guilty in order to protect the innocent, why is it morally unacceptable for the state to torture the guilty for the same end?
BTW, I agree with you that Utilitarianism is pernicious. I am not a Utilitarian.
I say draw and quarter him, British style.
Unfortunately, I have to go, so I can't continue this enjoyable chat. I will have one more round and then I shall quit the field and leave you unchallenged. My view on the death penalty is that it is a punishment, just as prisons are really about punishment. There is unquestionably a side-benefit that the innocent are protected if the guilty are either locked up or killed -- I appreciate that side-benefit, but I think the primary goal of the death penalty is punishment.
So, I would say we do not kill criminals to protect the innocent and we should not torture criminals to protect the innocent either. But these topics are so vast and overlapping it is difficult to do them justice. In the end, your arguments may be better than mine (though frankly I remain unconvinced), We now proceed to the legalistic side of things:
Foriegn subversives captured and held outside the territory of the United States do not fall under the jurisdiction of the Constitution, so it would seem that the prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment cannot be invoked.
Again, this is something I take issue with. On the one hand, if a terrorist were held by Pakistan and we looked the other way, then the US might have clean hands and this might be acceptable to me (though honestly I hate that sort of game-playing and pretending to have it both ways). Certainly if a terrorist is held by the US Military, in any part of the world, then the Military should be constrained by our Constitution. I don't think the army can engage in cruel and unusual practices (against recruits or foreign nationals) whenever the army unit is stationed overseas. Again, it seems like a bad road to go down.
But that's all from me. Have a great day.
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