[Originally Published July 8th, 2018 on Wordpress]
INTRODUCTION:
In comparison to the previous administration, the Trump administration is looking to loosen restrictions on torture policies of the United States government. The president has even if gone so far to proclaim that torture is an effective form of cohesion in coping with enemy combatants [3]. I am not seeking to play America's favorite game which maligns the commander-in-chief, but would rather analyze the ethics of governments utilizing such measures against enemy combatants, those guilty of treason, and prisoners of war. Is it ethical to use torture as a form of cohesion to obtain vital information? If so, under what contingencies is it acceptable to implement and when is it not? Where do we draw the line? I see much more value in assessing the moral efficacy of state-sanctioned torture and if it is acceptable, where do we delineate the perimeter of moral acceptability. It is certainly a more engaging conversation than partisan tug-of-war with each camp in their totality representing their perspective tribe.
While I understand the arguments against torture, I feel that it is important to address the grey area. Typically, no procedure, policy, tradition, or implementation is completely moral or immoral. But rather exists in the spectrum of morality, nuanced by a myriad of contingencies. However, politically I can foresee the potential for civil rights violations and other over-extension of authority of the state. I certainly see the noble intentions of those who suggest that the state should not be able to legally do anything private citizens can do. It is difficult to claim definite statements in regards to the morality of torture, especially when the byproduct could potentially save the lives of innocent people. Rather than admittedly push the Pro-torture or Anti-torture paradigm, we should discuss and unpack the positive and negative consequences of torture and then weigh them in regards to the circumstances at hand. When addressing morally complex topics it is most advantageous to look at as a Venn diagram, rather than an absolutist dichotomy. A simple "yes" or "no" response is a little too obtuse to incorporate all the facts and possibilities.
While it is tempting to give an inclusive and resolute answer regarding a topic as visceral and divisive as torture or capital punishment, however, I would challenge most to find a more a centralist position. While we do not want to violate civil rights, basic human decency, the Constitution, nor give the government undue authority, we need to also acknowledge the other side of the proverbial coin. If the use of torture could save the lives of innocent people through the information extracted, then the levity of the byproduct is more apparent. It is no longer aggressive political rhetoric, but rather tangible life-saving results. When you have the ominous and looming threat of innocent lives at risk, the stakes on the roulette wheel become much greater. Which certainly parallels the premise of rising the anti in Poker, however, maybe the analogy of Russian Roulette may be more appropriate considering the levity of the risk.
MORAL ARGUMENTS AGAINST STATE SANCTIONED TORTURE:
Below is a list of arguments against torture from the FIACAT organization's website, presented in a 2011 article: Arguments Against Torture. FIACAT is an international organization centered on human rights, with no governmental ties. FIACAT main focus is on relinquishing capital punishment and torture.
"... Torture – why it is not fitting for us:
📷 Torture destroys the victim and the perpetrator. It breaks the latter by making him sub-human and debases those who commit it.
📷 Every human being deserves respect. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights recalls the rights and duties of all of us.
📷 Mankind, in order to survive on earth, must limit the extent of his violence and put a stop to certain types of destructive behaviour.
📷 We are responsible for each other which means we must ensure full respect of our rights and the dignity of our fellow men and women.
📷 Torture is always an evil for those involved; there is no such thing as “good” torture, nor good reasons to torture. The end does not justify the means.
📷 The consequences of torture remain with an individual throughout his life; his soul and his body will bear the marks of his suffering until the end of his days.
📷 Torture is useless and does not lead to the truth: “at best the tortured individual will tell you what you want to hear; at worst you will obtain nothing”.
📷 Torture does not make people talk; it makes them keep quiet.
Christian reasons for refusing torture:
📷 Man was created in God’s image and part of him is “sacred”. In Jesus’ name we are called upon to protest against everything that degrades man.
📷 Torture is contrary to the message of love in the Gospel: whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.
📷 Christ was tortured on the cross, but God also overcame death and raised up those who had fallen. He gives hope and strength to those who suffer and leads them to the Resurrection.
📷 In the gesture of the Good Samaritan, approaching the wounded man on the road, Jesus shows that love is at the heart of the alliance between God and mankind.
📷 We must work towards a better and more harmonious world; that means never resigning ourselves to barbarity and meanness.
📷 The Church of Christ has not always remained faithful to the word of the Gospel and has sometimes mistreated men and women and justified the use of torture. Today, however, Churches and Christians fight and pray for both victims and torturers in order to put an end to these inhuman practises.
📷 Christ calls on all men, even those who commit torture, to “change” and to convert. The love of God reaches even the hardest of hearts.
📷 The Gospel makes watchmen of us all....." [4].
I will certainly admit from a humanitarian standpoint many of these arguments against torture are very compelling. The organization even attempts to persuade the more socially conservative among us, with justification from Christian theology to prohibit torture. The points made in regards to the psychological well being such as "dehumanizing" the "victim" and how the harms can even traumatize the torturer. Which is logically congruent when you think about the prevalence of combat trauma/ PTSD among combat veterans. Even among operators of drone strikes have been found to be subjected to such psychological trauma, even though they are not directly in the line of fire. In a 2011 survey, it was found that out of 840 drone operators, 48 percent suffered from some variant of "operational stress" [5]. While not precisely the same phenomena it is merely an extrapolation of the similar principle. Unless you are a psychopath or sociopath, humans are not wired to harm other people, unless it is in self-defense. Concepts such as the theory of mind, empathy, altruism, etc. are naturally occurring social tendencies that brutal warfare and torture are at odds with. Hence why many people suffering from quite a bit of cognitive dissonance when off of the battlefield or the torture facility.
While the psychological and physical costs of torture are certainly well documented, how can this address the hard-nosed pragmatists? Even if all of the standard humanitarian arguments and even theological arguments are inconsequential in your opinion, what would be a variable of considering for you opposing torture? Results. The key arguments above hint towards the inaccuracy of the information extracted from the utilization of torture. One point being the individual being interrogated either refusing to speak or providing false information just to curtail or stifle the discomfort. In other words, they are claiming that torture either makes the individual more headstrong or makes them capitulate to the adverse stimuli and tell the integrator what they want to hear. Truth certainly not being a key competent of the answer. However, is this true? The 2017 article from Psychology Today: Does Torture Work? suggests that torture, in fact, does not in regards to extracting information. One study found that detainees were 14 times more likely to give accurate information early on in the interview if rapport-based techniques are used versus torture [6]. It was even found in a 2014 Senate Select Committee report that CIA use of "enhanced torture techniques" was found to be largely ineffective methods of collecting information [7].
MORAL ARGUMENTS IN FAVOR OF TORTURE:
While many of the arguments against torture above might be extremely compelling, you may be thinking, who could you possibly argue for torture on a moral level? Well, I have found a 2005 article from Huffington Post, written by no other than Philosopher and scientist, Sam Harris. Really ironic that the left-leaning publication let Sam publish this article, however, I do believe the political climate was a little different 13 years ago. Harris starts the article off by providing a depiction of a scenario where:
".... a known terrorist has planted a bomb in the heart of a nearby city. He now sits in your custody. Rather than conceal his guilt, he gloats about the forthcoming explosion and the magnitude of human suffering it will cause. Given this state of affairs—in particular, given that there is still time to prevent an imminent atrocity—it seems that subjecting this unpleasant fellow to torture may be justifiable...." [8].
This hypothetical scenario is probably one of the most well known moral justifications for torture, known as the "Ticking bomb" case [9.]. Harris illustrates how this scenario can be applied at the micro and personal level (someone abducts your daughter) and the macro level ( the circumstance being a nuclear bomb, greater explosion radius, fallout, etc.). [8] When you place such contingencies on the scenario it really illustrates how it makes it less of an abstraction, but puts a real face on the situation. The more distant you are from the hypothetical example, the more foreign the ethical rationale will be. I believe that most people would drastically adjust their moral norms if their lives or the lives of their loved ones are in jeopardy. It is always easy to condemn something when you have never experienced it. When you are an armchair commentator (like myself) with no skin in the game. However, does that mean that we can devolve to utilizing the callous torture tactics glamorized in American action movies? Do we need to bring to summation Quentin Tarantino's ultimate wet dream? I would say if we are going to use torture we should be reasonable about the amount of force we are going to use. I would say use the minimum necessary. Apparently, I am on the same page as Dr. Sam Harris. He condemns the transgressions of the interrogators of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay and even postulates the concept of more humane pharmacological possibilities, even an idealistic " torture pill" [8].
There is also another argument in favor of torture The Beating Case study per the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The scenario details a situation where a man steals a car from a Mother with her three-year-old son stops at the gas station to fill her gas tank. The mother finishes up filling up her gas tank and goes inside the store to pay for her gasoline and she accidentally left the keys in the car. Then a man steals the car with the mother's son in the back seat, ends up abandoning the car with the three-year-old boy still in the back seat locked in the car. It is an extremely warm summer day. The boy is facing the risk of suffering from death or brain damage due to the interior heat of the car. The car thief ends up being apprehended by the police and the interrogator well aware of the physical risk the boy is facing, starts to beat the man to obtain the location of where the car was abandoned in an effort to save the boy's life. [10] This specific scenario is similar to the "ticking bomb" case due to the fact that both are time-critical situations where the potential for loss of human life is a potential repercussion.
HOW THE TROLLEY PROBLEM RELATES TO TORTURE:
The Trolley Problem was a philosophical premise devised by Oxford moral philosopher Phillippa Foot in 1967. The scenario entails that you are a conductor on a runaway train you are approaching a split on the rail track. If you veer to the left, there are five men working on the tracks [11]. Which way do you go right or left? Now, let's say the five men are single on the left side and the one man on the right is a father. Does it make it more morally just to kill the five men merely because they do not have any children? All of the moral contingencies that can be applied to this philosophical exercise/ cognitive puzzle are so numerous, I could do a whole blog entry dedicated to the Trolley problem. However, if we know nothing more about the men and we follow the linear line of conventional wisdom, we would have to make a decision based on a harm reduction model. Which would mean minimize collateral damage by killing as few people as possible. That would mean veer right and only killing the one railroad worker. In regards to minimizing damage or losses, the same moral principle can be extrapolated to the subject of torture. While the detainee and the interrogator may be harmed in some capacity by engaging in the processes of torture, wouldn't it at a moral level outweigh the lives saved in a time critical situation?
DISCUSSION:
Ascertaining the morality of torture is certainly a convoluted labyrinth of ethical considerations. However, the biggest inquiry to the surface based on the research for this article would be is it ethical to engage in a potentially harmful practice if it is proven to be ineffective? That genuinely rises a plethora of different questions regarding the United States using torture as a technique of extracting information. Which leads me to believe that if all the research is saying that it does not work, then the proponents of torture are merely posturing. They are merely pushing torture as a practice to make the United States look tough. An image in the minds of many hawkish proponents of foreign conflicts feel has been greatly tarnished by the previous administration. In my opinion, if torture does not work and you are merely using it to maintain a certain image, it is merely pageantry. No distinction between that and a military parade, merely the peacock displaying its feathers to us.
Even if we find it to be moral here in the United States, there are many countries throughout the world that do not have the same perspective. The Geneva Convention has a plethora of depictions of how torture is prohibited under the terms of the treaty [12]. Technically, the United States has been in violation of international law in regards to torture most likely throughout the duration of the Bush administration. So regardless of the moral imperative of it, it still is illegal under international law. However, if it has the potential to save lives couldn't the prospect of violating international law be justified. If we are to use torture it should only be in dire situations where lives are at stake and should be done in the most humane manner possible. Minimum necessary force. However, we need to monitor the government's use of such tactics make sure that it is only used when it is a necessity and to never be used against U.S. Citizens.
FOOTNOTES:
[1.] (Video) https://youtu.be/3548Ac9wGN8
[2.]https://invertedlogicblog.wordpress.com/2018/07/09/political-opinions54-torture-and-the-trolley-problem
[3.] https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-38751516/donald-trump-waterboarding-absolutely-works.
[4.] http://www.fiacat.org/arguments-against-torture
[5.] https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/23/us/drone-pilots-found-to-get-stress-disorders-much-as-those-in-combat-do.html
[6.] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/slightly-blighty/201701/does-torture-work
[7.] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/we-rsquo-ve-known-for-400-years-that-torture-doesn-rsquo-t-work/
[8.]https://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/in-defense-of-torture_b_8993.html
[9.]https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/torture/#CaseStudTerrTickBomb
[10.] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/torture/#CaseStudBeat
[11.] https://philosophynow.org/issues/116/Could_There_Be_A_Solution_To_The_Trolley_Problem
[12.] http://www.un.org/en/preventgenocide/rwanda/text-images/Geneva_POW.pdf
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