torture

One of my current projects is putting together an edited book on torture. Contributors include Tzvetan Todorov, Barbara Ehrenreich, Juan Goytisolo, Margarita Serje, and about eight others. It should be interesting. I'd like to discuss torture here periodically during the next year and would greatly appreciate comments.

For starters, from a philosophical-ethical view there is no coherent justification for torture except, questionably, from the abused "ticking time-bomb" analogy. Certainly not from Kantian positions based in the fundamental dignity of human beings. An exception could be one qualified by lex talionis (eye for an eye). This argument has been used to defend capital punishment: in brief, one gives up one's claim to human dignity when one violates the universal rule that would apply to others whom one has terrorized or tortured or whatever. The penalty aspect then comes from LT -- what to do with this violation? Eye for an eye. But this argument doesn't apply to Abu Ghraib, for example, because, as US generals have admitted, perhaps some 80-90% of "detainees" (itself a consciously chosen term by the administration) were caught up in the wrong place at the wrong time. So, without any guilt in the first instance, a justification for torture based on the Kantian-lex talionis combo claim above appears to have no basis whatsoever. In this instance, in fact, if we assume widespread torture and abuse, most of the victims are innocent. Those who are guilty may be found guilty but only after the fact of torture and not prior, as would be necessary to make the claims above.

From a consequentialist point of view, I think things are a little trickier. It appears clear that if there's a ticking time bomb and someone is tortured who gives you the information on where that bomb is and you thus save thousands of lives with the info gained from torture, then there's a case to be made. But it's unclear in practice whether this case holds up. First, in the Abu Ghraib case, it's clear that the outcomes of the use of torture have largely been to strengthen the insurgency in Iraq, help to recruit further fighters -- Iraqi and foreign -- to the cause of battling the American occupation, and has demolished respect for the US worldwide, not to mention its moral standing in the international sphere. These all have extremely negative short-term and long-term consequences. Second, torture is famously ineffective. The person who is tortured will say anything to make it stop whether the information is true or not.

I can't imagine that we can find justification for torture in other ethical approaches such as virtue theory, feminist ethics, pragmatism, etc.

So, what's the point in torture? It's one of the worst things human beings do to each other -- perhaps the paramount abuse of other humans. It's why we end up with odd formulations in capital punishment that killing people who have killed is okay, but "cruel and unusual punishment" in addition to capital punishment is beyond moral bounds. Clearly, if we're looking to consequences, the Abu Ghraib cases and the legal contortions of the Gonzalez memo, etc. suggest that there are some beneficial outcomes in mind on the part of the administration. I have no idea what these could be.

I read a piece by Naomi Klein recently (forgot where) in which, in a bit of a throwaway line, she notes that one of the popular shows on al-Arabiya (the Iraqi tv network set up by the Americans) is one where claimed Iraqi insurgents with their faces bruised confess to their crimes. In a situation in which it looks pretty clear that there are no benefits for the US of condoning and carrying out torture, such that some Republicans are complaining about "negative media coverage" of the war (and, really, any kind of criticism) as a kind of treason, why would the US televise clearly beat-up prisoners? Is there a larger goal here?

Anyway, some preliminary thoughts on torture.... Please feel free to comment.

UPDATE:
Check out this column on torture from yesterday's Washington Post: OpEd