The Pros And Cons Of Torture

Interrogational torture is one of the many tough ethical questions that people debate about in the United States. Is it right or is it wrong? Many believe that the United States does not practice intense interrogational acts such as torture. Many people have fought to abolish any form of torture while many fight to keep some forms of it to help keep the peace. Whether you believe in it or not, torture is and will always be an ethical dilemma that comes up.

“Rather, this discussion deals with torture for the purpose of preventing a greater evil.” Page. 125

Is tourturing a prisoner to obtain information any morally correct than a criminal tourtoring his victim to fulfill some sort of sadistic pleasure? Enhanced Intergogation they call it, a technique they use to bring jutice to light under a law that forrbids cruel and unusual punishment. It is to me, quite hypocritcal that a human being is allowed to cause harm on another human being under a man made law, to obtain possible information on the occurance of for exapmle, one human being hurting another human being. What if this individual, even after torture does not possess any information or provides false account, then can the torture be juctified as moraly correct? No man deserves to suffer in the hands of another. Torture is moraly incorrect nomatter its purpose.

How would it feel if someone you know got tortured just because the CIA had a suspicion on them? Not much evidence or proof, just some doubts and maybe a few pieces of paper. Ever since the 911 attack, people of various races have been targeted as suspects. More and more torture has been used against these certain ethnicities. The definition of torture on google is the action or practice of inflicting severe pain on someone as a punishment. However, this is only a one sided definition. There is so much more to the word torture. What about the families who have lost a son? The wife who lost her husband? The daughter who lost her father? America didn’t stop from resorting to such harsh techniques when interrogating suspects that were in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantánamo Bay. Former detainees in those places have spoken of severe beatings, water-boarding, excruciating stress positions, mock executions, sleep deprivation and much more.

In today’s world, there is an overwhelming call for drastic measures in response to issues involving national security and terrorism. For these reasons, acts of torture are often considered a potential and partial resolution to the ideological conflict between western life and extremism in the middle east. This mode of thinking follows the logic that torture is an effective means of gaining vital information for our security. This logic however is flawed and misinformed. All acts of torture are simply unwarranted in that they have no legitimate justification behind them. In fact, the use of torture is perhaps one of the most ineffective and immoral means of gathering intelligence, in that it yields factually undeterminable information, has overwhelming costs and impacts, and is inhumane in its means of execution.

Torture is morally wrong because it can affect an individual physically, socially and psychologically. This essay will address the physical affects and psychological affects towards people. Torture is unacceptable because is damages a person’s humanity, values, respect and reputation of the moral authorities. This essay will discuss two accounts for the moral wrongness of torture and they have been discovered by William Twining’s and from his research he noted torture to be morally wrong since the rights of the victim is violated, secondly David Sussman who believes torture is morally wrong because the victim is turned against the victim herself.

This paper addresses one of the most abiding and heated controversies surrounding the topic of torture and morality. Put simply, this controversy concerns the issue of whether under extreme and exceptional circumstances, a government agency should be legally permitted to use torture as a means of punishment or extracting information. According to Oxford Dictionary, torture is defined as “The action of inflicting severe pain on someone as a punishment or in order to force them to do or say something”.

Most people out there have mixed feelings about torture. However, torture, in any form, should never be used. Such an act violates our undeniable human rights that we have come to know and understand. No social justice can be brought out of it. Very strong cases against it would should how horrifying and barbaric, in nature, it is.

Torture, what is torture 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. Torture has been used since the beginning of human civilization. Some early forms of torture being the Brazen Bull, Impalement, the Heretic Fork, etc… Point being torture has always been used to punish the enemies of your people. That being said torture now a days will not kill the person, like it did back then, but some of the people getting torture would rather be dead than be waterboard. In the following essay I will explain how the CIA has responded to torture and how other countries also use and get affected by torture.

Torture is a very abstract concept for individuals to grasp as there are many points of view and perspectives as to whether or not torture is acceptable in certain situations. For example, some may think that because someone is known to be a serial killer but unwilling to admit it, that it is justifiable to go to certain measures of force to get the individual to respond. On the other hand, some may think that there should be more patience in the officer and that tricking the killer into saying the truth would be more effective. It is clear that some methods of torture are definitely not accepted by the majority, however there are some kinds of torture that aren’t as “frowned upon” by the public. An example can be found in Alan Dershowitz work

Torture is ban by most international laws but yet many societies continue with practice including many Democracies. The United Nation has a ban on torture with no exception under any circumstances. Article 2 of United Nations convention against torture states that no exceptionable circumstance can justify torture. Article gives meaning of what it considers to be torture. The meaning of torture given by United Nations is any act by which severe pain or suffering whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purpose as obtaining from him or a third party information or confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed, or is suspected of committing, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or

There is a sensible reason for the worldly prohibition on torture. The exactly simple of torture drive at attacking and dehumanizing is screams of uncivilized societies. It is not something cultivate societies should recur to. Nevertheless, the supporter of torture, including (Deshowitz, A. 2003.), suggest that, given torture has been being used behind the scenes all over the world, it be made more accountable within legal control. Deshowitz also mention the notorious “ticking bomb scenario” that torture is useful when such necessary and dreadful

I believe torture is only morally permissible in extreme emergency situations. By extreme emergency situations I mean when there is a risk that hundreds of people will be killed if the victim does not provide certain information. In the ticking time bomb case, interrogators have tried all the acceptable methods to get the code to disarm the bomb and have failed to do so and hence it is morally permissible to torture the person to get the code otherwise we will be putting the lives of millions of people at risks. Also, some cases where torture would be morally permissible are where the torturer is hundred percent sure that the victim is the perpetrator and has significant information to bring about greater good. This victim can be a kidnapper, a bomber, a terrorist or even a secret service agent who is selling confidential information. I also believe that while torturing someone the degree of torture should not be too high and it should be in the knowledge of highest law authority. A medical practitioner should also be present while torturing a victim so that there should be no risk to the life of the perpetrator. As Henry Shue said that “An act of torture ought to remain illegal” and anyone has to justify in order defending himself/herself legally (Shue). I strongly believe that under any circumstance torture should not be legalized whether it is for

Water boarding, removal of limbs, drilling holes into the body, electric shock, and crucifixion. All of these are methods of a subject called torture, or the act of which one inflicts physical or psychological pain for purpose of degrading, intimidating, controlling, or getting information (“Torture”). Throughout history, these have all been reasons for torturing people; however, whether or not torture should still be allowed is a topic of debate. There is a long and detailed history of torture, along with numerous reasons people are tortured today, and survivors face a wide variety of mental and physical effects.

“Torture has never been a reliable means of extracting information. It is ultimately self-defeating as a means of control. One wonders it is still practiced.”-- Captain Jean-Luc Picard1