Imagine this: you are a being held at a prison for a crime you did not commit. You are also being questioned for answers you do not have and as a result of your lack of knowledge you are being brutally tortured. In this case, would you say that torture is morally just? It is difficult to answer yes to this question when considering yourself in this position, but would your answer be different if the person in question wasn't you or even a suspected terrorist?
Shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the U.S. government had no idea how to handle the threat of national security. Instead of creating new policies and rationalizing fear to calm the public, the government took to the extremes and decided the torture of anyone affiliated with the
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Several moral issues arise when we give people the power to torture:
1. Torture dehumanizes the persons being tortured and thus results in a loss of humanity for the torturer.
Traditionally used as an example, the Stanford Experiment has allowed people throughout the years to understand the prison guard-prisoner power dynamic. During the experiment, the people assigned as prison guards induced emotional and physical pain against the people assigned as prisoners. It was observed that as the guards increasingly tormented the prisoners, they would be more prone to inflict greater and more harmful acts against them in the near future. In lamest terms, the experiment showed that people in positions of power will distance their emotions and morality to do a job they were told to do.
Similar outcomes can be seen in the concentration camps in World War II and thus the torture prisons in Abu Ghraib. Torture, in the instance of Abu Ghraib, resulted in the interrogators losing a grip of their humanity and sense of morality.
It is not ethical to allow someone to sacrifice a part of their compassion to complete a violent task.
2. Torture is not an effective interrogation tool, allowing unwarranted abuse to