Deontological Approach To Torture

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In the context of the theoretical propositions introduced in the lecture around issues of law and morality, give consideration to ONE of the following: (a) reproductive rights; (b) euthanasia’ or (c) torture, in the context of discussions in the lecture and readings about law and morality (2000 words).
This essay will attempt to approach the issues of law and morality in relation to torture. Firstly, I will discuss absolute and threshold deontology, including the contradictions they can create. Secondly, I will define consequentialism and discuss how it applies to modern-day examples of torture, specifically the United States government and the ‘war on terror’ and the reliability of confessions obtained from torture and the wider implications of the torture committed. This essay will conclude that torture is ultimately morally wrong and must never be used as an interrogation technique.
A deontological approach to Harel and Sharon (2008, p. 245) defines a deontological approach to ethics as having two types; absolute and threshold. The first holds that a moral standpoint may never be altered, irrelevant of the circumstance. If one were to take an absolutist deontological approach to torture, it would conclude that torture is never justified, regardless of the certainty of information or how many lives it would save. As …show more content…

Although a deontological approach can seem restrictive and at times paradoxical, if we allow torture even if the rarest and most unlikely of circumstances, it could be put in the wrong person’s hands or used as way to morally justify unjustifiable behavior. As Frey (1995, p. 73) puts it ‘there cannot be degrees of wrongness with intrinsically wrong

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