It recently came to my attention that a college at which I teach philosophy will soon sponsor a discussion regarding the moral standing of \u201ctorture.\u201d\u00a0 The presentation, \u201cIs Torture Ever Justified?\u201d will be presided over by another faculty member and open to the public.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs Torture<\/i> Ever Justified?\u201d\u00a0 For sure, this is a provocative title.\u00a0 Unfortunately, it is also a powerful indicator that the discussion that it invites is sure to be cooked.<\/p>\n
In other words, the moral standing of \u201ctorture\u201d is no more up for discussion than is the moral standing of murder, genocide, rape, or cruelty up for discussion. \u00a0Even among philosophers, including those utilitarian<\/i> philosophers who maintain that actions are right only insofar as they maximize pleasure for the greatest number, there has never been any debate regarding whether \u201cmurder,\u201d \u201cgenocide,\u201d \u201crape,\u201d and \u201ccruelty\u201d admit of a justification.\u00a0 There have <\/i>been arguments provided to justify proscriptions <\/i>against these things, but this fact only strengthens the point that their immorality <\/i>was already taken for granted.<\/p>\n
\u201cTorture,\u201d like \u201cmurder,\u201d \u201crape,\u201d and \u201ccruelty,\u201d is anything but an emotionally-neutral term.\u00a0 It\u2019s not even a theoretically-<\/i>neutral term. Moreover, like virtually every other word of which our moral-political vocabulary consists, \u201ctorture\u201d is rhetorically charged, a species of what Aristotle long ago identified as \u201cpersuasive utterance\u201d: its meaning is normative. <\/i><\/p>\n
In short, \u201ctorture\u201d means<\/i> \u201cunjustified.\u201d By definition<\/i>, that is, it is unjustified.<\/p>\n
Thus, the question, \u201cIs Torture Ever Justified?\u201d is question-begging: the answer is to be found in the question itself.<\/p>\n
This is what accounts for the fact that it is as difficult to identify a single<\/i> person who has ever advocated on behalf of \u201ctorture\u201d as it is difficult to identify a single person who has openly favored \u201cmass killing\u201d or \u201cthe killing of unborn human beings.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the other hand, it is not at all difficult to identify people\u2014considerable numbers of people\u2014who have argued for \u201cenhanced interrogation techniques,\u201d \u201cwar,\u201d and \u201cabortion.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before we can answer any other questions concerning \u201ctorture,\u201d we first need to inquire into what <\/i>\u201ctorture\u201d is.\u00a0\u00a0 It would seem that any such inquiry would have to address questions like the following:<\/p>\n
In spite of the singularity of the term, is it really the case that \u201ctorture\u201d can be said to refer to a single class of activities, or is \u201ctorture\u201d more on the order of a short-hand term like \u201cthe weather\u201d or \u201cthe universe,\u201d a term that refers to all manner of disparate phenomena?\u00a0 If the former, then must it be that all instances of \u201ctorture\u201d are equally objectionable?\u00a0 If the latter, then couldn\u2019t some forms of \u201ctorture\u201d be judged more or less harsh, more or less objectionable, then others? Is confining a person in a room for a lengthy period of time and a dripping faucet as \u201ctorturous\u201d as pulling out his fingernails with a pair of pliers? If not, why not?<\/p>\n
Whether there is a shared \u201cessence,\u201d a hard and fast common denominator that all instances of \u201ctorture\u201d must share, or whether there is, to quote the 20th<\/sup> century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, nothing more than a loose, open-ended \u201cfamily resemblance\u201d between them, the question remains: What criterion or criteria, however provisional, should be satisfied before an act can be judged an act of \u201ctorture?\u201d<\/p>\n The government is authorized to do all sorts of things that would be crimes if done by citizens. The government, for example, is permitted to coerce citizens into parting with their legally acquired resources so as to subsidize projects of which those same citizens may be ignorant or to which they may be opposed. That is, it can tax <\/i>them. If a private actor did such a thing, he would be guilty of extortion or robbery.\u00a0 The government has the authority to incarcerate citizens against their will.\u00a0 If an individual held another against the latter\u2019s will, he\u2019d be a kidnapper. Governments have the authority to wage war against the subjects of other governments.\u00a0 Individual agents who draw first blood against an enemy, whether this enemy is real or imagined, would be culpable of manslaughter or murder.<\/p>\n If <\/i>it\u2019s the case that of two materially identical acts each could have a radically different moral worth from that of the other depending upon whose <\/i>acts they are, then could it be that only private actors, say, could be guilty of \u201ctorture\u201d? \u00a0In other words, could it be the case that perhaps it would<\/i> be an act of \u201ctorture\u201d for Joe the kidnapper to hold his victim under water for extended periods of time simply for the pleasure of it, but it would not<\/i> be an act of \u201ctorture\u201d for government officials to \u201cwater board\u201d suspects if they had reason to believe that only via such \u201ctechniques\u201d could they prevent a terrorist attack against their country?<\/p>\n There can be no debate over the justification of \u201ctorture\u201d until these sorts of questions (and, undoubtedly, others) are raised.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It recently came to my attention that a college at which I teach philosophy will soon sponsor a discussion regarding the moral standing of \u201ctorture.\u201d\u00a0 The presentation, \u201cIs Torture Ever Justified?\u201d will be presided over by another faculty member and open to the public. \u201cIs Torture Ever Justified?\u201d\u00a0 For sure, this is a provocative title.\u00a0…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n