Torture Revisited

In the course of our discussions on the morality of torture, an important distinction was made between the definition of tourture (or what specific methods constitute torture) and whether torture itself is justified; to this end, we were urged to think of "whatever we consider torture" when weighing its morality, to avoid becoming bogged down in the specifics of whether putting panties on a prisoner's head is equivalent to mutilation. 

I suspect a similar danger of obfuscation has arisen in the considerable effort devoted to debunking the effectiveness of torture. It is all very good to say that torture leads to unreliable information and therefore may cause more harm than good, but there are always factual arguments for either position, and they are besides the point for one who assents to the proposition that "you cannot derive an 'ought' from an 'is'.  Likewise, there is little use arguing that innocents may be swept up into the practice of torture; this merely an argument for torturing carefully. These practical arguments against torture rest on the comforting illusion that a choice need never be made between ideals and material interests. Yet this line of argument effectively concedes the terms of debate to a utilitarian paradigm, and it is obvious that there are some reasonable practical arguments for the use of torture, otherwise it would never be advanced as a means of interrogation at all. Unreliable as torture may be, is it pure fantasy to assert that a situation will never arise where such methods could provide appreciable, even life-saving benefits.

In asserting that torture should never be preformed under any circumstances, even to save a life, one is effectively arguing that to torture someone is worse even than killing them (given that virtually everyone accepts the state-sponsored taking of life in the event of immediate danger). The case for this proposition rests on two observations, of which the first is intuitive: Torture revolts our basic human sensibilities. Hume after all, noted that men judge actions not only by their usefulness (utility) but by their agreeableness, and surely torture fails to live up to the latter stipulation. All this is too subjective for some however; the second, more universalist contention, rests on a view of man as a uniquely rational or spiritual being. Interogational torture uses physical force (or psychological trauma) to overcome his inner self, to violate the sanctum of his own mind and will at the most basic level. It implicitly devalues him as a human being, and in a sense, all humanity, by abusing those faculties which, unlike his mere physical form, make him a human being. In Kantian terms, it is the ultimate use of another as a "means" rather than an "end", as the inner self is reduced to a source of information to be extracted.

Anyone who undertakes to defend the human rights of a terrorist is already likely not to be particularly utilitarian in their ethical orientation. Those who assert that torture doesn't work are not making a moral argument, though they may be making a useful political point.