Ethics Of Torture Essay

In extreme cases, is it morally justified to use extreme measures to protect a larger group of people? For torture to be done properly there must be systems in place, such as torture warrants, to insure that the torture is being done with the knowledge of the government Thesis: In accordance with Dershowitz, torture should be acceptable when it is absolutely needed, however those inflicting the torture needs to be held accountable for their actions by the government. According to Dershowitz, the ticking time bomb terrorist should be torture based on the overwhelming effects that can be prevented when dealing with a terrorist withholding crucial information that can save the lives of civilians. Though torture causes pain to one person, it can result in saving the lives of possibly thousands of people, an example of this being the 9/11 attacks involving Moussaoui. Moussaoui was brought in for questioning due to unusual activity in his flight schooling, but he was not

On the other hand, he describes Bentham’s theories on torture using rule utilitarianism, which uses a certain set or rules to determine if an action is morally right. Both theories have the common idea that the good of the many outweigh that of the few. Bentham’s theory however is in favor of not using torture under any circumstance due to the fact that no government can be entrusted with differentiating when it is, and is not necessary to use torture. An example of this being the Stanford Prison Experiment performed by Philip Zimbardo, where due to the lack of accountability on the prison guards, the guards treated the prisoner inhumanly without instruction to do so. On contrary however, if there is accountability and visibility placed on the person in charge of the torturing, there is a less likely hood of the abuse of power by the