Ethics Of Torture

Torture is inherently evil and there is not place for torture or torture like techniques in this day and age amongst common people. No police force, military, or government entity should invoke torture as a method of interrogation or for any other common reason. Torture should not to be promoted. Yet, the survival of free innocent people must be protected. Information is crucial to this survival. When there is a hostile threat to a nation and millions of innocent civilians lives hang in the balance, and only one individual has the power to save such lives, but refuses to do so, every single method in a nations arsenal should be used to extract such information. Including the method of torture. By analyzing and comparing ethical theories

The first group are known as deontologists and the second consequentialists. Deontologism seeks to establish a set of common rules for the morality of human decisions or actions. A Deontologists desires, “Actions that are undertaken to be guided as though such actions could potentially become a universal law of nature” (Alexander, 2015). On the opposite spectrum, consequentialists believe no action is really a negative action. Rather, “What’s more important are the consequences of one’s actions” (Alexander, 2015). Deontologists argue the action of torture is morally unjustifiable whereas consequentialists argue that if the consequence of such torture is beneficial to society then it is permissible. Here, the consequentialist may play the role of a utilitarian because it would “max a utility” (Lecture, C). Whereas the deontologist would resemble an absolutist in declaring, “torture is always wrong, no matter what” (Lecture, C). Philosopher Kenneth Roth and some colleagues would support the absolutist as can be observed in their book Torture: A Human Rights Perspective. Roth and his colleagues believe that in no circumstance can torture be used at all, “Torture is morally unjustified, because it “dehumanizes people by treating them as pawns to be manipulated through their pain” (Roth, Worden & Bernstein, 2005). However, were a absolutist faced with the need to make a

For instance, if harming a detainee to prevent him from causing further harm to others or to save lives torture may be permissible. For torture to be morally permissible a situation must be dire, there must be a reasonable evidence to believe the suspect holds vital information, the use of torture techniques must be the only way to obtain that information, and the information obtained must be accurate. Most importantly, for torture to be morally permissible, it must produce results that are desirable and law must regulate it. Opponents of all torture regardless of the circumstance may argue a detainee is not a threat and is not an aggressor, allowing torture in even the most rare circumstance will open the gates to torture on a widespread level, and even if torture were allowed in extreme situations it could not be regulated. Opponents may even suggest that torturing a detainee in the most extreme circumstances would not bring about desired results as the detainee would either strengthen his resolve to spite his capturers, that the detainee will forever become mentally and physically weakened as a result of the torture, or that the torture may kill the detainee. They may even argue as Katie Smith does in her article, Is Torture ever Morally Acceptable? that “Torture is not possible without the brutalization of the torturer; you must ‘lose your soul’ if you are to save victims” (Smith, 2007). Yet, such