Despite the unconstitutionality of the practice, torture has had a presence throughout our nation’s history. From the Salem witch trials of 1692, in which Giles Corey was pressed to death, to the twenty-first century waterboarding of terrorist suspects, the United States has not always lived up to the ideal that torture should never be used for any purpose. The popular culture image of a man being beaten by police officers in a locked room away from public view is not just fiction but a semi-officially accepted means of ‘getting the job done.’ Alan Dershowitz refers to the specific example of “… a case decided in 1984, [in which] the Court of Appeals for the 11th circuit commended police officers who tortured a kidnapper into disclosing the location of his victim (554).” While I agree that torture was not an acceptable method for extracting a confession from Mr. Corey, or discovering terrorist information from the detainees at Guantanamo, I believe that legitimizing the use of torture in certain circumstances would lead to an improvement of our current state of affairs.
Accepting torture as a tool to save lives is not the same as accepting torture as a good thing. Instead, accepting torture is a last resort to prevent the loss of innocent life when no other options remain. Barbaric and cruel as it may be to intentionally cause pain to another human being, how much more barbaric and cruel would it be to sacrifice the lives of a city’s population? I cannot imagine that even the most outspoken critic of torture would allow their family to burn for the sake of preventing a temporary amount of pain to the person threatening to trigger the explosion. Fortunately, these scenarios largely remain the province of Hollywood...
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...ing to prevent their death because you do not wish to hurt the person about to kill them. The acceptance of torture is not an easy pill to swallow. Intentionally causing pain to others runs counter to how we define ourselves as a nation and as human beings. But allowing innocents to come to harm is as much a part of that same definition.
Works Cited
Dershowitz, Alan M. “Yes, It Should Be ‘On The Books.’” The Little, Brown Reader.
Ed. Marcia Stubbs, Sylvan Barnet, and William E. Cain. Boston: Longman,
2009. 554.
Heymann, Philip B. “Torture Should Not Be Authorized.” The Little, Brown Reader.
Ed. Marcia Stubbs, Sylvan Barnet, and William E. Cain. Boston: Longman,
2009. 552.
Levin, Michael. “The Case for Torture.” The Little, Brown Reader.
Ed. Marcia Stubbs, Sylvan Barnet, and William E. Cain. Boston: Longman,
2009. 549.
Alan Dershowitz challenges the legitimization of non-lethal torture in his essay, “Should the Ticking Bomb Terrorist be tortured?” He claims that torture should indeed be legitimized for specific scenarios that require such action. The ticking bomb terrorist gives the example of a terrorist withholding time-sensitive information that could result in the death of innocent citizens, if not shared. Not only does Dershowitz challenge the idea of torture, but he also gives a probable solution that favors the legitimization the torture. He mentions three values that would have to be complied with by all three branches of government if it were to be legitimated, which Dershowitz does endorse. The arguments of the two perspectives discussed in the
willingness to harm the lives of millions of people, why is it not justified, to inflict pain on
The notion that fear will make a human leak information is not a novel idea. Torture has widely been used throughout the world by many groups of people. After World War II, The Geneva Convention prohibited any nation from partaking in torture. The emergence of terrorist activity on American soil brought up the question whether torture should be advocated or prohibited from a moral standpoint. The US changed the definition of torture in order to forcibly attain potentially important information from captives. Even though the new clause suggested that many of the methods the US used were now legal, other countries still had an issue in terms of honoring the Geneva Convention and basic human rights. Advocates for torture promise that countless innocent lives can be saved from the information obtained from a single torture victim. Opponents to the advocates suggest that torture often results in misleading information. Morally, torture is not justified as it degrades humans and often leaves victims scarred for life and possibly dead.
Capital punishment and torture are often looked down on in today’s societies because they are viewed as cruel and unconstitutional, but perhaps they would help in more ways then we would like to admit. They can be beneficial in many ways such as encouragement to be truthful, encouragement to live by the laws, and as a source of punishment. Capital punishment and torture are thought to be too painful, and the person doing the punishment is also committing a crime.
But if we parse the definition of torture that Gonzales offers, it is clear that it does not conform to international standards of definition. The Convention Against Torture (CAT) says that “torture” “means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person” for a variety of purposes. (DRW, p. 413) While this definition is in fact vague, on its face, Gonzales’ definition of torture requires far more severity to reach the level of “torture” than what is intended in the
People may try to justify its use by claiming it can be used to gain critical information or in similar situations; this is a feeble attempt to use possible results in order to justify the terrible use of torture as a means of getting there. To deontology, torture is morally wrong, and more than that, it is always morally wrong. There is no situation in which torture should be used, period. The way torture grossly outstrips people’s human autonomy and right to be treated as ends in themselves makes it a moral evil in the eyes of deontology. In addition, torture’s maxim of allowing for one person to harm another for gain is also not universalizable, making it an even more morally corrupt action. Deontology examines the critical question of whether or not there are times humanity should allow atrocities of torture in order to achieve an end. Deontology answers with a stern and resounding disapproval of torture. This ethical system sees every person as valuable, equal, and autonomous, who should never be abused or manipulated for any reason. With this virtuous sensibility in mind, it is easy to see why deontology so firmly rejects torture as ever being
Who wouldn’t have agreed? Yes, torture is cruel but it is less cruel than the substitute in many positions. Killing Hitler wouldn’t have revived his millions of victims nor would it have ended war. But torture in this predicament is planned to bring no one back but to keep faultless people from being sent off. Of course mass murdering is far more barbaric than torture. The most influential argument against using torture as a penalty or to get an acknowledgment is that such practices ignore the rights of the particulars. Michael Levin’s “The Case for Torture” discusses both sides of being with and being against torture. This essay gets readers thinking a lot about the scenarios Levin mentioned that torture is justified. Though using pathos, he doesn’t achieve the argument as well as he should because of the absence of good judgment and reasoning. In addition to emotional appeal, the author tries to make you think twice about your take on
Ten years ago on September 11th, terrorists successfully carried out a plan to kill thousands of innocent American civilians. On that day millions of Americans watched in horror and disbelief. How could something like this happen on American soil? In quick retaliation, President George W. Bush forcefully declared a war against terrorism and specifically against those responsible for the slaughter of his people, Al Qaida. At the head of this organization and architect of “9-11” was a man by the name of Osama Bin Laden. He openly boasted of the devastation he had caused, which in turn enraged the American people. This man eluded us for the past ten years until a little over a week ago President Barack Obama announced to the world that Bin Laden’s life had been taken and his reign of terror had come to an end. After such a long time, how did we finally locate America’s greatest enemy? From critical information we gained through torture.
Until there is a credible way to determine whether or not torture is in fact effective, I pass judgment that the practice should be discontinued. The question as to if the torture policy is a human rights violation or if it holds crucial necessity, is not answered in the essay. Applebaum explores the reality that torture possesses negative implications on the inflictor. After presented with the compelling stance and evidence, Applebaum raises the interesting question as to why so much of society believes that torture is successful. I agree that the torture policy is wrong, a point emphasized by Applebaum, contrary to the popular attitude surrounding the topic.
Cesare Beccaria discusses the issue of torture in his work An Essay on Crimes and Punishments. He states that either a crime is certain or uncertain, and in either circumstance, torture is not a legitimate punishment (Beccaria 530). When a crime has certainly been committed and already has a punishment assigned to it by law, it is useless to torture because you do not need to torture the convicted person to get a confession. If the proof is insufficient to convict the person in question of committing the crime, “it is wrong to torture an innocent person, such as the law adjudges him to be, whose crimes are not yet proved” (Beccaria 530). Torture, therefore, is not acceptable in any case of punishment and should not be used.
If someone asks you to think about the devices of torture you will probably imagine some insane medieval invention. And it will not even occur to you that torture is not just a relic of time. Nowadays nobody is being tortured because it is completely unacceptable, right? Apparently, this is not entirely true. Two academics at Deakin University, Mirko Bagaric and Julie Clarke, argue that it is justified to use torture when thousand of lives of the innocent are at stake.
Eduardo Galeano once said, “The purpose of torture is not getting information. It’s spreading fear” (BrainyQuote). Torture is used when individuals are forced to answer questions through various kinds of abuse. Torture happens due to the government and the belief that torture is a benefit because it saves innocent lives. Torture is wrong and should not be legalized as a means of interrogating terrorists because it causes physical and psychological damage and it produces false information.
In his essay “The Case for Torture,” printed in The Norton Reader 13th Edition, Michael Levin argues that torture is justified and necessary under extreme circumstance. He believes that if a person accepts torture to be justified under extreme cases, then the person automatically accepts torture. Levin presents weak argument and he mostly relies on hypothetical scenarios. There is not concrete evidence that torture solves problems and stop crime but rather the contrary. Under international law, torture is illegal and all the United Nation members have to abide by those rules. The use of torture does not keep people safe, but rather the opposite. Torture has a profound effect on democracy. As the use of torture becomes normal in society, the right of the citizen will suffer greatly.
In conclusion, the convention against torture, has brought many people together, and has informed many people of the horrible tortures which go on everywhere from the US to Syria. It has tried to set fine lines which prohibit torture under all circumstances. However, since there is no governing body over countries, it remains difficult to enforce the human right standards sought after by the Convention against torture. The convention has therefore done a good job at identifying the torturers. This has in turn lessened the amount of those persecuted. It will remain a gradual process to eliminate torture from all countries, but nevertheless a necessity, in the quest for universal human rights. Torture will continue until all countries decide for themselves, and not from a third party convention that freedom from torture is a human right everyone deserves.
Torture is the process of inflicting pain upon other people in order to force them to say something against their own will. The word “torture” comes from the Latin word “torquere,” which means to twist. Torture can not only be psychologically but mentally painful. Before the Enlightenment, it was perfectly legal to torture individuals but nowadays, it is illegal to torture anyone under any circumstances. In this essay, I will demonstrate why torture should never acceptable, not matter the condition.