The Abolition Of Torture By Andrew Sullivan

In the article, “The Torture Myth,” Anne Applebaum explores the controversial topic of torture practices, focused primarily in The United States. The article was published on January 12, 2005, inspired by the dramatic increase of tensions between terrorist organizations and The United States. Applebaum explores three equality titillating concepts within the article. Applebaum's questions the actual effectiveness of using torture as a means of obtaining valuable information in urgent times. Applebaum explores the ways in which she feels that the United States’ torture policy ultimately produces negative effects upon the country. Applebaum's final question is if torture is not optimally successful, why so much of society believes it

In “The Case for Torture,” Michael Levin presents logical fallacies that originate at the authors desire to relate the importance of his message. Though his specific argument is a very plausible solution to a taboo problem, the manner in which he presents it has some fallacies that cause it to be unsupported

In “The Case for Torture”, philosophy professor Michael Levin attempts to defend using torture as a means to save lives is justifiable and necessary. Throughout the article, Levin provides persuasive arguments to support his essay using clever wording and powerful, moving examples. However, the essay consists heavily of pathos, fallacies, and “What if?” situations that single out torture as the only method of resolution, rendering the argument hypothetical, weak, and unreliable for the city of San Jose as a whole community to follow.

The United States is considered one of the most powerful countries in the world. They have a well organized and trained armed forces. But, they were built with principles and moral standards. According to those rules, people could not do what they pleased all the time. The paper signed by the founding Fathers is, the Constitution of the United States, which prohibits the enforcers of the law to torture. Yet, it is still done. There is no straight statement that prohibits torture. An arguement of whether it can be legal or not is made, for the use of, retriving important information, the use of the 8th amendment and how 9/ 11 change some perspectives.

The United States citizens have been wrestling with the question of, whether their government intelligence agencies should be prohibited from using torture to gather information. According to Michael Ignatieff, this is the hardest case of what he describes as ‘lesser evil ethics’—a political ethics predicated on the idea that in emergencies leaders must choose between different evils Before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, torture was viewed by most American’s as only actions that brutal dictators would employ on their citizens, to keep order within their country. However, this all changed when in May 2004, The New Yorker released photographs from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The disturbing pictures were released on the internet showing bodies of naked Iraqis piled onto each other, others showed Iraqis being tortured and humiliated. There was a huge up roar, which caused the President at the time George W. Bush to publicly apologize, and threaten the job of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Soon after, the CIA Conformed the use of waterboarding on three Al-Qaida suspects in 2002 and 2003, which further annihilated the topic. Since these reports, torture has been in the forefront of national politics, and the public opinion has been struggling to commit on whether torture is right or wrong.

Torture has long been a controversial issue in the battle against terrorism. Especially, the catastrophic incident of September 11, 2001 has once again brought the issue into debate, and this time with more rage than ever before. Even until today, the debate over should we or should we not use torture interrogation to obtain information from terrorists has never died down. Many questions were brought up: Does the method go against the law of human rights? Does it help prevent more terrorist attacks? Should it be made visible by law? It is undeniable that the use of torture interrogation surely brings up a lot of problems as well as criticism. One of the biggest problems is that if torture is effective at all. There are

Torture, (n.), the action or practice of inflicting severe pain on someone as a punishment or to force them to do or say something, or for the pleasure of the person inflicting the pain. After reading “Torture” by Holocaust survivor, Jean Amery, it is clear that the above definition of torture does not provide an honest connotative definition for the act and effects of torture. Amery speaks about torture from his own personal experiences in both Auschwitz and Buchenwald, providing witness to the dehumanization of Jews. In “Torture”, Jean Amery truthfully depicts torture as an unimaginable terror, in which one loses sense of self, human dignity, and trust in the world, while gaining a haunted future.

The events that occurred on the date of September 11th will never be forgotten. Millions of Americans watched as two hijackers crashed a plane into the World Trade Center. The towers, filled with smoke, broken glass, and debris, collapsed and killed thousands. This event left a large impact on Americans. Many began to wonder how we could prevent such a tragedy from occurring again. After President Bush’s proposal of preemptive war, ideas of using torture for terrorists emerged. It was seen as a way to get information from terrorists quickly in order to prevent the loss of life. However, torture is not a viable way to prevent the loss of life because it is inhumane, violates the American standard, and is ineffective.

Torture is one of the most provocative topics within modern day government and interrogation practices. While the United States constitution’s eighth amendment states that the use of cruel and unusual punishment is a violation, there have been instances whether you look at the Civil Rights era or post-September 11, 2001. Torture has been unfortunately remained a fairly common practice. This book delves into the perspectives of many authors on their views of torture.

In this essay I will defend the nature of the balance of civil liberties, rights and torture by drawing upon Jeremy Waldron, Henry Shue and Jeff McMahan’s view on the morality of torture. Torture is the act of deliberately inflicting severe physical or psychological pain to an individual who is restrained and defenseless. In this paper I will argue that torture cannot be morally justified; torture ought not to be legalized or otherwise institutionalized even in the ticking time bomb scenario because the rights of the innocent against the guilty is not equally balanced and the idealization/abstraction problem in the ticking time bomb case makes it unrealistic.

In the United States legal system, torture is currently defined as “an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control.” as defined by Office of the Law Revision Counsel, U.S. House of Representatives (US Code, 1) Though this is a seemingly black and white definition, the conditional “…other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions…” have led many to question what precisely this entails. In other words, what are the lawful sanctions that permit such acts? Are they ethically right? Where is the line drawn as torture

After the events of September 11, 2001, the United States had a unique dilemma. America was engaged in what would be called a “War on Terror”. This new conflict was unlike any in American history. Previously, in the context of war the United States had always fought a nation or group that had defined boundaries as to where they resided. This new conflict went away from these rules of the past. Terrorist groups were not bound to a region, but were instead united by an ideal. September 11 marked the first time in which terrorism would rise to the forefront of the nation’s agenda. This emergent wave of conflict required a different strategy than the those of the past because of the unorthodox nature of the opponent. One of the major innovations fostered by the “War on Terror” was the expansion of torture. The dramatic rise in terrorism sparked the unethical advancement of interrogation techniques in order to more effectively acquire information. The emergence of the “War on Terror” required government officials acquire intelligence in a new way thus spawning the emergence of “enhanced interrogation” methods, however, the morality of these techniques would come into question as they were revealed to the public.

Isn't torture analogous to assassination and pre-emptive strikes, when used as an extraordinary, extralegal means of preventing future harm? And who would oppose having assassinated Hitler? Levin has successfully forced inquisitive readers to question the idea that torture is never permissible, and sown the seeds to suggest that there are in fact situations which require it. He has also addressed a number of counterarguments: yes, torture violates the rights of the terrorist, but by virtue of his antisocial and destructive actions the terrorist has forfeited his rights by removing himself from the very society which granted them to him. Yes, torture is barbaric, but it is less barbaric than the alternative in many cases. After establishing all this, The Case for Torture loses much of its momentum.

The use of torture as a weapon for coercing an individual to do or say something of desire or for intimidation is a widely debated subject worldwide, though some level of torture is utilized by most countries, including those that are often regarded as being highly civil (Cahn, 2016, p.296-27). Given that, based on data from Amnesty International, the use of torture is on the rise, it is extremely important to explore the moral significance of torture as a weapon of both coercion and intimidation (Cahn, 2016, p.296). According to Henry Shue, a former researcher and Professor of Philosophy at Cornell University, torture is “contrary to every international law, including the laws of war” and is morally never acceptable, though there are very limited circumstances in which the use of torture is less morally unacceptable, such as when the use of torture satisfies the constraints of possible compliance (Cahn, 2016, p.296-298; Mertel, 2017a, slide 2). The first part of this paper will examine Shue’s argument by exploring “the constraint of possible compliance” and its importance to Shue, and will discuss the various forms of torture and their relation to this key concept. The second part will defend Shue’s stance on the moral acceptance of torture by analyzing the key points he puts forward in his argument and demonstrating their moral plausibility. The final part will offer one potential objection to this position and a refute argument to the objection.

Regarding the moral ambiguity of torture and the War on Terror, former President Barack Obama once said: “Today we are engaged in a deadly global struggle for those who would intimidate, torture, and murder people for exercising the most basic freedoms. If we are to win this struggle and spread those freedoms, we must keep our own moral compass pointed in a true direction” (qtd. in Piwowarczyk). Torture is a form of punishment the U.S. government and many governments use around the world. It is an effective tool to get information quickly, but under the Obama administration, the United States stopped all use of torture. While many governments still support the use of torture. The United States, however, went in a different direction taking torture out of all military personnel. Seeing how information can be extracted in a more civilized and humane way. Also, that any information given to the interrogators may be false or inaccurate, and that it is against international law, and that it puts any United States soldiers abroad in danger. Many citizens of the United States supported the policy, and many did not like the policy. The United States has used torture in the past to find the location of many terrorists that have threatened our homeland, and many of those instances lead to more American lives saved. Although torture has saved countless American lives, many of the strategies and forms of torture are unethical and inhumane to use on people of this world.