The Importance Of Torture

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Recommended: Is torture ethical

In this paper I will argue that torturing a person is never a best way to bring about a much greater good except in extreme emergency situations. I will also argue that he degree of torture should vary in these extreme emergency situations and the torturer should be able to justify why did he torture the person. I will elaborate on torture and why I believe it is never the best way to bring about a greater good after a very brief description of what torture is and under what circumstances people ought to be tortured.
Torture is basically inflecting unbearable pain in a person in order to break his/her will to obtain certain information. Most commonly torture is used on people who are considered as a threat to the nation or simply who defy the patriot act that is they indulge in some form of terrorism. Law enforcement agencies torture these people so that they can get as much information as possible from them within a period of twenty four hours as that is time limitation to hold a person under custody without any evidence.
As I mentioned above that I believe torture is never a best way to bring about a much greater good, and I said so because I believe torturing a person is even worse than killing a person. By torturing an individual, irrespective of him/her being guilty of something, you are killing the human being inside them that is worse than killing the person. The victim being tortured starts to see the world through a different perspective if he/she is innocent and develops unconditional hatred for everyone around him/her. Also, the torturer believes in all the cases that the victim who is being tortured knows the answer to all his questions but what if the victim is getting framed and is actually innocent. Most victims th...

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...as equal rights in a country and no one has the right to exploit them and torture someone who is not in power. In order to obtain information in case of non-emergencies, proper protocol should be followed and the victim or the perpetrator should be convicted in the court of law with proper evidence. Torturing would just be a short cut to solve a situation for many that will lead to bad decisions and will harm many lives.
The final verdict I would live to give is that torturing should never be made permissible, as it can never be justified to bring about the greater good. Whereas, in extreme emergencies torture should be executed to a certain degree with no intention of killing the victim and the torturer should be able to justify why it was permissible to torture the victim in that situation.

Works Cited:
Henry Shue, “Torture,” in Markie and Cahn Ethics anthology.

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