Pros And Cons Of Torture

The debate on whether or not torture is an effective and morally right practice to use on other human beings has been discussed for a long time. There are two sides to every argument and fortunately, the Catholic Church and the United States government has taken the same stance on the issue. There are many different kinds of torture and reasons as to why some people see it as just punishment. Through countless hours of research; reading government legislature, the Catholic Church Catechism, several articles and even testimonies on the topic, it can be concluded that torture is immoral. Now, to back up that claim there are many things that will have to be proved and explained. For starters, the Merriam-Webster definition of torture is: “the

This principle may be employed when one is considering an action that is morally good, yet the action involves one or more unintended bad consequences. Because these consequences are side effects, and not directly willed, the choice that brings them about is morally acceptable” (CCC 1732, 1955). So in short, if someone’s intention is good and the action that is being done has a good outcome and bad outcome, the act can be justified as morally acceptable. Although this is true, many people argue that torture is an unnecessary means to an end, acquiring possible information or particular actions that need to be done. There are a few counter arguments as to why torture is neither good nor bad, but rather a neutral

These circumstances are very essential to the counter argument because they are real life issues that are happening in today’s world. For example, if a nation has been terrorized by a certain person or group of people and that nation’s military attain this terrorist or groups of terrorists, is torture a valid option? Well, many people say that the only way to receive a confession or important information is to destroy the terrorists’ humanity and give him or her no other option but to come forth with what is needed. This letter by Bishop Richard E. Pates that stresses the immorality of torture to the US government says, “A number of former CIA, FBI and military experts have stated that torture is not an effective technique for producing reliable information” (Richard E. Pates). This brings up another point, if torturing someone if the only way to gain much needed information for the protection of other life, what is to say that the information given is even accurate? In this situation only the terrorist and God knows the objective truth. The person being tortured could easily say or do something that will get the torturers to stop inflicting pain on the detainee. Moreover, there are various gray areas in the claim that torture is an okay thing to