When is torture morally acceptable

To require this of someone is morally very problematic. A further adverse consequence of allowing torture in some cases is the impact it would have upon the judicial system.

US government refusal to allow some of its prisoners to testify in criminal trials has led many to believe that the US is hiding the evidence of torture. Meyer, They demonstrate the implications of accepting any moral or legal justification for torture; implications which could potentially affect millions of people.

Moral Universalism and Human Choice. Following from the arguments above, it is dangerous to approve the practice of torture in any circumstances because of the consequences this could have on a wide range of people. Accompanying the moral arguments against torture, there must be legal procedures to ensure that the perpetrators of torture are brought to justice.

The inhumanity of the act, along with its questionable usefulness and wider implications, makes torture always morally wrong. However, the humanity of the situation; it will always be individual people who must make the decisions must be taken into account as a mitigating factor. In this essay, I have sought to argue that torture is always morally wrong through a critique of this scenario and through exposing the moral problems that it serves to obscure.

After explaining the problem as it is presented and outlining the main arguments for and against torture, I have shown the immediate flaws in the scenario. These include assumptions of the existence of the bomb, the guilt of the suspect, the effectiveness of torture and ineffectiveness of other methods, and the ability to prevent the disaster.

Each is extremely unlikely to be certain in reality, however straightforwardly they may be presented in the moral puzzle, and each uncertainty weakens the case that torture is necessary and, therefore, justified. In particular, the assumption that torture will produce accurate information is deeply flawed as it can provide no measure for truth and cannot distinguish the guilty from the innocent.

Having shown the weaknesses of the case for torture, I then went on to make the case that torture is always morally wrong. The evidence for this is found largely in the wider context of the situation, where we can see implications of legitimising the practice that go beyond the immediate life and death of the situation itself.

There would undoubtedly be innocent victims faced with long-term suffering as a result, and these victims would include those required to carry out torture. Further, the use of torture makes it impossible to use any evidence collected in a criminal trial and the US has already begun to see key suspects being acquitted as a result.

These arguments lead me to believe that torture is unjustifiable, even in extreme cases. However, because the immediate choice is so difficult and because the person making it is possesses human emotions and instincts, I would not absolutely condemn the decision to torture provided it was made in an emergency situation and with the correct intention. To make prior judgement that torture is justified in some circumstances is dangerous and wrong — torture must be prosecuted as a crime wherever it occurs.

However, to recognise the mitigating circumstances when it occurs is also important. Bowden, M. Cogan, C. Dershowitz, A. Erskine, T. Herman, M. Mayer, J. Then there are those who argue in the negative and stress not only the inherent immorality of torture but also contest that it ever has good effects in practice Davis ; Brecher ; Matthews For instance, they typically claim that torture does not work, since those who are tortured tell their torturers whatever they want to hear.

The classic denunciation of the legalisation of torture is that of Cesare Beccaria In the contemporary debate concerning the legalisation of torture many theorists of a liberal persuasion have stressed the incompatibility of torture with the values underpinning liberal institutions Luban ; Waldron , ; Shue Moreover, in this contemporary debate, the protagonists have tended to assume that if torture is morally justified in some extreme emergencies then it ought to be legalised.

Thus Alan Dershowitz claims that torture is morally justified in some extreme emergencies and, in the light of this claim, argues for torture warrants in these cases , Chapter 4. However, some theorists have argued that although torture can in some extreme emergencies be morally justified, nevertheless, torture ought never to be legalised or otherwise institutionalised. This position was originally advanced by Machan before being argued in more detail by Miller and , and later by McMahan Before proceeding to the question, or questions, of the moral justifiability of torture in extreme emergencies we need some understanding of what torture is.

We also need some account of what is inherently morally wrong with torture. Torture includes such practices as searing with hot irons, burning at the stake, electric shock treatment to the genitals, cutting out parts of the body, e. Most of these practices, but not all of them, involve the infliction of extreme physical pain. For example, sleep deprivation does not necessarily involve the infliction of extreme physical pain.

However, all of these practices involve the infliction of extreme physical suffering , e. Indeed, all of them involve the intentional infliction of extreme physical suffering on some non-consenting and defenceless person. If A accidentally sears B with hot irons A has not tortured B ; intention is a necessary condition for torture. Further, if A intentionally sears B with hot irons and B consented to this action, then B has not been tortured. Indeed, even if B did not consent, but B could have physically prevented A from searing him then B has not been tortured.

That is, in order for it to be an instance of torture, B has to be defenceless. Is the intentional infliction of extreme mental suffering on a non-consenting, defenceless person necessarily torture? Michael Davis thinks not Alternatively, assume that B is in a hotel room in another country and live sounds and images of the torture are intentionally transmitted to him in his room by the torturer in such a way that he cannot avoid seeing and hearing them other than by leaving the room after having already seen and heard them.

However, A is being tortured for the purpose of causing B to disclose certain information to the torturer. B is certainly undergoing extreme mental suffering. Nevertheless, B is surely not himself being tortured. To see this, reflect on the following revised version of the scenario.

In that case surely he is not torturing B either. On the other hand, it might be argued that some instances of the intentional infliction of extreme mental suffering on non-consenting, defenceless persons are cases of torture, albeit some instances such as the above one are not. Consider, for example, a mock execution or a situation in which a victim with an extreme rat phobia lies naked on the ground with his arms and legs tied to stakes while dozens of rats are placed all over his body and face.

However, such suffering at one remove is in general less palpable, and more able to be resisted and subjected to rational control; after all, it is not my body that is being electrocuted, my life that is being threatened, or my uncontrollable extreme fear of rats that is being experienced. An exception to this general rule might be cases involving the torture of persons with whom the sufferer at one remove has an extremely close relationship and a very strong felt duty of care, e.

At any rate, if as appears to be the case, there are some cases of mental torture then the above definition will need to be extended, albeit in a manner that does not admit all cases of the infliction of extreme mental suffering as being instances of torture.

In various national and international laws, e. Such a distinction needs to be made. For one thing, some treatment, e. For another thing, some inhumane treatment does not involve physical suffering to any great extent, and is therefore not torture, properly speaking albeit, the treatment in question may be as morally bad as, or even morally worse than, torture.

Some forms of the infliction of mental suffering are a case in point, as are some forms of morally degrading treatment, e. So torture is the intentional infliction of extreme physical suffering on some non-consenting, defenceless person.

Is this an adequate definition of torture? Perhaps not, albeit some theorists, such as Kamm , adhere to this kind of conception. Consider the following imaginary counter-example. A woman who is being raped but who is, nevertheless, still in control of the movement of her jaws sinks her teeth into the face of her attacker causing him excruciating pain against which he is defenceless, until finally he desists.

Surely the woman is not torturing her attacker but rather defending herself by inflicting excruciating pain on her attacker. Evidently what is missing in the account thus far is the relationship between torture and autonomy: torture substantially curtails autonomy. Is this now an adequate definition of torture? Perhaps not. The above-mentioned U. Convention identifies four reasons for torture, namely: 1 to obtain a confession; 2 to obtain information; 3 to punish; 4 to coerce the sufferer or others to act in certain ways.

Certainly, these are all possible purposes of torture, as is torture performed for sadistic pleasure. For with respect to each one of these four purposes, it is not the case that in general torture is undertaken for that purpose, e. In the case of interrogatory torture of an enemy spy, for example, in order to obtain the desired information the torturer must first break the will of the victim.

Hence torture as punishment does not consist — as do other forms of punishment — of a determinate set of specific, pre-determined and publicly known acts administered over a definite and limited time period. A second consideration is as follows. Consider the torture victim who holds out and refuses to confess or provide the information sought by the torturer.

So perhaps the following definition is adequate. See also Bernstein Such self-abnegation might be the purpose of some forms of torture, as indeed it is of some forms of slavery and brainwashing, but it is certainly not definitive of torture.

Consider victims of torture who are able to resist so that their wills are not broken. Siddy Atkinson was pretty fit then and gave him a terrible hiding…. Again, consider the famous case of Steve Biko who it seems was prepared to die rather than allow his torturers to break his will Arnold —2.

This is not to say that the boundaries between these two senses can be sharply drawn. By torturing the thief the police might break his will and, against his will, cause him to disclose the whereabouts of the stolen goods. Smith ends up willingly betraying what is dearest and most important to him, i. For example, some victims of prolonged torture in prisons in authoritarian states are so psychologically damaged that even when released they are unable to function as normal adult persons, i.

Given the above definition of torture elaborated in Miller and , we can distinguish torture from the following practices. Firstly, we need to distinguish torture from coercion.

As this example shows, coercion does not necessarily involve the infliction of physical suffering or threat thereof. So coercion does not necessarily involve torture. Nor does coercion, which does involve the infliction of physical suffering as a means, necessarily constitute torture. Consider, for example, a South African police officer in the days of apartheid who used a cattle prodder which delivers an electric shock on contact as a means of controlling an unruly crowd of South African blacks.

On the other hand, if — as also evidently took place in apartheid South Africa — a person was tied to a chair and thereby rendered defenceless, and then subjected to repeated electric shocks from a cattle prodder this would constitute torture. Does torture necessarily involve coercion? No doubt the threat of torture, and torture in its preliminary stages, simply functions as a form of coercion in this sense. However, torture proper has as its starting point the failure of coercion, or that coercion is not even going to be attempted.

As we have seen, torture proper targets autonomy itself, and seeks to overwhelm the capacity of the victims to exercise rational control over their decisions — at least in relation to certain matters for a limited period of time — by literally terrorising them into submission.

Hence there is a close affinity between terrorism and torture. Indeed, arguably torture is a terrorist tactic. However, it is one that can be used by groups other than terrorists, e. In relation to the claim that torture is not coercion, it might be responded that at least some forms or instances of torture involve coercion, namely those in which the torturer is seeking something from the victim, e.

This response is plausible. However, even if the response is accepted, there will remain instances of torture in which these above-mentioned conditions do not obtain; presumably, these will not be instances of coercion. Secondly, torture needs to be distinguished from excruciatingly painful medical procedures. These kinds of case differ from torture in a number of respects. Thirdly, there is corporal punishment.

Moreover, unlike torture, corporal punishment will normally consist of a determinate set of specific, pre-determined and publicly known acts administered during a definite and limited time period, e. Fourthly, there are ordeals involving the infliction of severe pain. Consider Gordon Liddy who reportedly held his hand over a burning candle till his flesh burnt in order to test his will. Moreover, ordeals — as the Liddy example illustrates — can be voluntary, unlike torture.

Having provided ourselves with an analytic account of torture and distinguished torture from some closely related practices, we need to turn now to the question, What is Wrong with Torture? In terms of the above definition of torture there are at least two things that are inherently morally wrong with torture.

Firstly, torture consists in part in the intentional infliction of severe physical suffering — typically, severe pain; that is, torture hurts very badly. For this reason alone, torture is an evil thing. Secondly, torture of human beings consists in part in the intentional, substantial curtailment of individual autonomy. Given the moral importance of autonomy, torture is an evil thing — even considered independently of the physical suffering it involves.

Nevertheless, there is some dispute about how great an evil torture is relative to other great evils, specifically killing and murder. Many have suggested that torture is a greater evil than killing or even murder. Certainly, torturing an innocent person to death is worse than murder, for it involves torture in addition to murder.

On the other hand, torture does not necessarily involve killing, let alone murder, and indeed torturers do not necessarily have the power of life and death over their victims. Consider police officers whose superiors turn a blind eye to their illegal use of torture, but who do not, and could not, cover-up the murder of those tortured; the infliction of pain in police cells can be kept secret, but not the existence of dead bodies.

First, torture is similar to killing in that both interrupt and render impossible the normal conduct of human life, albeit the latter — but not the former — necessarily forever. Indeed, given the extreme suffering being experienced and the consequent loss of autonomy, the victim would presumably rather be dead than alive during that period.

So, as already noted, torture is a very great evil. However, it does not follow from this that being killed is preferable to being tortured. Nor does it follow that torturing someone is morally worse than killing him.

For the same reason it does not follow that torturing a person is morally worse than killing that person. If the harm brought about by an act of torture is a lesser evil than the harm done by an act of killing then, other things being equal, the latter is morally worse than the former. A second point pertains to the powerlessness of the victims of torture. Dead people necessarily have no autonomy or power; so killing people is an infringement of their right to autonomy as well as their right to life.

The person being tortured is for the duration of the torturing process physically powerless in relation to the torturer. Perhaps the terrorist could negotiate the cessation of torture and immunity for himself, if he talks. Consider also a situation in which both a hostage and his torturer know that it is only a matter of an hour before the police arrive, free the hostage and arrest the torturer; perhaps the hostage is a defence official who is refusing to disclose the whereabouts of important military documents and who is strengthened in his resolve by this knowledge of the limited duration of the pain being inflicted upon him.

The conclusion to be drawn from these considerations is that torture is not necessarily morally worse than killing or more undesirable than death , though in many instances it may well be. Killing is an infringement of the right to life and the right to autonomy.

Torture is an infringement of the right to autonomy, but not necessarily of the right to life. Let us now turn directly to the question of the moral justification for torture in extreme emergencies. Here we must distinguish between one-off cases of torture, on the one hand, and legalised or institutionalised torture, on the other.

In this section one-off, non-institutionalised acts of torture performed by state actors in emergency situations are considered. The victim is completely subordinated, and so that even in those times when no pain is being applied, the torture victim is identified as a person who has no rights, who is in the complete control of the other.

This position of dominance, where the victim has no recourse whatsoever, is an evil central to both slavery and torture. Can such a practice be morally justified? While this was in a sense itself morally paradoxical, since retaliation after a nuclear attack has been launched only compounds the harm done through the initial attack, the threat of retaliation nonetheless brought about a morally better situation, where no initial attack was launched. Given this, to forestall devastating attacks we need information before the fact, and interrogation is one avenue to securing such information.

Second, Levinson claimed that torture can indeed be effective in providing information necessary to security.

If torture is ineffective there could be no moral rationale for engaging it, but Levinson presented two real-world cases where torture, or the threat of torture, did in fact elicit the desired information. We cannot, then, avoid the question of its permissibility by arguing that its inefficacy means it is never really needed.

Third, Levinson argued that given the costs which may be at stake, it would be extreme to argue that torture cannot be justified ever in any circumstance, though the fate of the world should be at stake. Fourth, Levinson argued that making torture illegal would put us in the situation of spelling out, perhaps arbitrarily, what methods would fall short of torture, and could thus be considered permissible, however inhumane these might be.

British Broadcasting Corporation Home. The problems of torture can be illustrated with the 'ticking bomb' scenario: is it acceptable to torture someone if it results in saving thousands of lives?

The problem that even the most virtuous people face when thinking about torture is whether there is ever a case when a good result produced by torture justifies the evil act of torturing someone. It's often illustrated by a version of the 'ticking bomb problem', which asks us to put ourselves in the position of a senior law officer facing a situation like this:.

Is it ethically acceptable for you to have him or his family tortured to find out where the bomb is and thus save thousands of lives, or is it unethical to torture him, no matter how many die as a result?

This is not, in fact, a particularly realistic scenario but arguing through this problem can illuminate many of the issues involved in torture. It's important to acknowledge, however, that the problem may not be solvable in the terms in which it's stated above.

By the way: It's important to understand that this answer does not justify the decision to torture, nor does it argue that we are justified in choosing the least bad option. Instead it should be interpreted rather differently - here are a couple of ways of doing it:.