Going too Far

While war is bad and should not persist if it can be ended, the way in which a war is ended entails an important moral consideration: Not everything that will more quickly end war is a morally permissible choice. Dropping an atomic bomb on a largely populated city (or anywhere) is one of these morally impermissible cases. From a Utilitarian view, one could argue that the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan maximized the good by helping to end the Second World War sooner, saving the lives of thousands of soldiers and innocents on all fronts. Although this is true, using the Little Boy put many more people in the line of fire than just the Japanese army; tens of thousands of innocent and defenseless people were immediately affected by the bomb. These are people who had never asked to be a part of the war and were no direct threat to the Allied countries. As Kant would point out, using the atomic bomb denied these individuals their subjective personhood, but rather used them as objects or as means to an end, which was immoral.

    Aside from losing one’s limbs, senses, dwelling place, possessions, and loved ones, a survivor of the bombing was likely to have additionally suffered psychological strain and/or chronic illness. The people cited in most manuscripts that reference wartime collateral are not the only ones affected. The immense quantity of radiation released due to the explosion of the bomb was enough to cause genetic mutations; thus, the progeny of those who survived the bombing as well as the children of the subsequent generations would also be affected by the bombing. If the US Army had captured and physically tortured Japanese citizens of a number equal  to that of those immediately affected by the bombing, this would not have carried as much moral consequence as would dropping the atomic bomb. This is because forms of torture affect the tortured individual directly and his/her loved ones indirectly, but neither his/her progeny nor future generations.

    Bringing up an old argument, the bombing of Hiroshima (and Nagasaki) robbed innocent citizens of Japan of their futures. As Kinue Tomoyasu said in her interview, “If it were not for the war, my two children would not have died. If it were not for the war, I wouldn't have to stay at an institution like this. I suppose the three of us would have been living together in happiness. Ah, it is so hard on me." War always claims the futures of many; however, this is different between a combatant (if s/he wished to join the army) and a noncombatant (who has not willingly put his/her life on the line but simply happens to live in a warzone). Stealing the futures of those who have not risked them for the sake of war is an act of disrespect for their wishes, for their lives, and especially in this case, for the lives of the unborn.

Hiroshima and the Fat Man

The main argument for the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki being justified lies within the idea that Truman bombed these cities as a means to end a seemingly endless war to save the lives of millions of soldiers that could be killed in the future. However, after reading the assigned articles, that argument doesn’t seem to hold as much weight as I thought it did before. The scenario is similar to ones we laid out long ago to learn about Utilitarianism vs. Kantianism: do you kill some people to save a lot of people? Thus far I have always taken a Utilitarian viewpoint and said that it is always worth saving more people, but Hiroshima has changed my mind. The amount of damage done by the bomb must warrant a constraint on what can be done for the greater good. The after-effects described in the Takahashi, Japanese Perspectives, and Hiroshima testimonies readings are reminiscent of chemical weapons, which themselves are subjects of great debate in ethics because they are inhumane and can less precisely target without harming civilians. I am also reminded of the distinction between the railroad track, organ donor, and fat man cases discussed previously: intent. Without a patient or a fat man to intend to kill the case would not even really exist, whereas if 1 person did not happen to be tied to the other side of the tracks from 5 others you could still flip the switch. In another example, when American bombers attack targets hiding in foreign counties, such as military operations that hide among civilians, the bombing could be considered justified because if the civilian casualties were not there the bombing would be more obviously justified (if you believe in that kind of stuff). However, terrorists suicide-bombing civilians in a shopping mall cannot be considered justified because if the civilians were not present the bombing would have no purpose. As it relates to Hiroshima, America chose to target a massive amount of civilians to demoralize Japan into surrender, and as it follows from before the act was unjustified, which is how many look back at it today.  As Gandhi said in his piece, evil only brings evil, only good brings good, and therefore the only way we can end violence is non-violence.

Blog post 9

If you choose to post by Monday night by 11:00 PM, either (a) raise and develop an objection to some moral issue raised in the readings about Hiroshima, OR (b) offer and develop a supporting argument about some moral issue raised in the readings about Hiroshima.

Basil Fernando Torture and a Failed State

First, I’m interested in examples of torture actually working. Meaning information was provided that we wouldn’t have otherwise obtained and it led to life-saving action. For the rest of my post I’m interested in Basil Fernando’s analysis of torture in Asia. I feel that several examples of hers amply to the United States. More importantly the larger diagnosis of institutionalized problems is ideal for discussing problems in the United States.

Fernando’s understanding of the use/overuse of torture in Asia is that it is symptomatic of larger institutionalized issues. This analysis applies equally well to the US, albeit with different details. Fernando uses the example of extra-judicial killing as a sign of failing judicial system. This reminds me of the killing of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Kajieme Powell and others. Another thing Fernando mentions is the lack of genuine legal proceedings for those who make it from the police to the judicial system. I hear this referred to as fair and speedy trial. Fernando notes how some countries it can take years to reach a decision in a trial. In the United States my concern is that the majority of people facing charges never stand trial. Some sort of plea bargain is taken. This is a dramatic failure of the judicial system. These are serious shortcomings that indicate systemic problems within our own systems of justice. Before we can confront the ethical problems with serious action, we must look at and change our penal system, policing and rule of law.

Blog 8

After finishing the majority of the articles for tomorrows reading, I was thinking, well yes these views show when torture is good, when the results of said torture are sound, and who should be able to torture under what circumstances, but it wasn’t until I read Arar’s To Torture or Not To Torture did it answer my questions on the morality of torture. Both of Bagaric’s pieces exemplify different mediums in which torture is acceptable in society, however never delves into the moral permissibility of it. Arar on the other hand believes that torture causes moral strife in our societies and that “Torture can never be an instrument to fight terror, for torture is an instrument of terror." Using Arar’s view that torture is an instrument of terror, I began to realize that morally, we cannot permit an adequate circumstance where torture is moral, even if it’s to save innocence. Bagric uses examples of what good comes out of torturing members of Al-Qaeda to get information to find abducted soldiers. However if members from Al-Qaeda then in return torture a member of the U.S. army in order to find where an abducted member of their organization, then it is seen wrong and immoral in the eyes of the U.S. But is in not the same principle? The double edge sword of when society believes torture is acceptable is a strong piece of evidence that morally, torture is impermissible.  Despite the information that torture yields or how many lives it saves, it is still a terrible act performed on another human being, no matter who that human is. The day society believes that the second scenario, when the Al-Qaeda tortures an American to save on of their people, is morally permissible then maybe my response will change. Until then, I agree with Arar, you cannot fight terror with terror and it be morally sound.

This is Torture!

A lot of the readings discussed whether or not getting information (whether it was reliable or not) through torture was morally permissible. I think that having that extra end point makes deciding whether or not torture is morally permissible more difficult because no one will ever truly know if the person you are planning to torture has the information you need or not. This makes the argument more difficult because there are too many factors to consider before the original argument (whether or not torture can be permissible) can be answered.  

I don’t think it can be said that extracting information using torture as a vehicle is completely not permissible. In terms of efficiency, sometimes extracting information through torture produces the best results. A lot of the time torture is used when the torture party is pressed for time – when the lives of many are at stake. While there are definitely other safer means to extract information, torture as a last resort (as the very, very last resort) is crucial, and shouldn’t be not permissible so long as it is truly for the greater good. Sometimes (while this may sound morbid) suffering that happens in the present may reap many benefits and even save the future. Having said, the torture should never be to the point where a person’s health is very severely compromised (kidney failure and such) or where they become near death.

Some of the readings talked about torture as self-defense. I think that whether or not torture is permissible in those cases varies case to case, because the degree of which it can be considered self-defense is not the same and is very subjective. However, what still stands is that torture should only be done in extreme cases, and the intensity of the torture should not always be very high, and should depend on the case. Torture should only be done under extreme circumstances, and should be avoided at all costs if another alternative is available. 

Too many words about Torture

Before I get down to the meat and potatoes of the arguments presented in this article, I  think its worth covering some of the premises of these arguments-premises that not all the authors of these articles agree on. The main area of disagreement seems to be on the efficacy of torture in extracting reliable information from victims (to show my hand with wording a bit). Bagaric is under the impression that torture can reliably produce good information, and Arar and Fernando think it cannot. Arar cites that America invaded Iraq on the basis of false information derived through torture and points to the case of El-Masri's abduction and torture for 5 months based on the mistaken notion that he was a terrorist as a way to degrade the CIA's skill for fingering terror suspects. Bagaric points to claims by Israeli authorities that they have foiled 90 terrorist attacks through coercive interrogation and an account by retired CIA agent John Kiriakou of the successful torture of one al-Qa'ida suspect. Considering much of the information relevant to this question is classified, I will rely only on the information given in the articles. Given the evidence provided by each side, I'm leaning more on the side of torture's inefficacy in extracting reliable information.

Bagaric's argument in his "Some Torture a Needed Life-Saving Tool" is pretty weak by my valuation. He uses quite a few analogies in this piece that I consider flawed or lead to conclusions that I find unacceptable. Bagaric says it is important to take responsibility for the things we fail to prevent as well as the things we do. I agree with this statement. However, the analogy he uses to illustrate this is that it is wrong to not throw a rope to a drowning person, and it is also wrong to not utilize torture to the end of saving innocents. This analogy is flawed, as the act of throwing a rope to a drowning man is not one that is in and of itself morally wrong, whereas the act of torture is in and of itself morally wrong. Another analogy Bagaric uses later in the piece is that life saving torture and tissue transplants are similar in the sense that they cause pain and discomfort in one person to the end of saving innocent lives. This analogy misses the key dissimilarity that tissue donation is done with the consent of the donator and the pain and discomfort is incidental to the tissue donation, whereas torture is done without the consent of the victim and the pain and discomfort is essential to the saving of lives. Bagaric also pre-empts an objection I have to torture (there is no way we can be sure the victim has relevant information) with a hand wave by saying we should only torture victims when we are sure the victims are certain to possess information that would save innocent lives. This standard is so restrictive as to be impossible to adequately fulfill in any but a very small number of cases, and this very small number is dwarfed by the number of cases in which torture is currently utilized. Referencing El-Masri, who clearly did not possess information that would save innocent lives, the man was tortured for almost half a year. If Bagaric's position is to tighten the standards for torture for the sake of interrogation, that would be one thing. Certainly if this was the position he held, he would express sympathies with the likes of El-Masri and others who were clearly not members of his group of acceptable targets, and make a point to acknowledge commonalities with those who believe torture is inhumane on these grounds. Yet Bagaric instead decries the views of those in opposition to his view as the "fanatical claims of libertarian groups," and his only mention of breaching the list of acceptable targets is to declare that situations in which there is "no evidence of an immediate risk to the life of an innocent person" are wrong, seemingly backing away from the stricter requirements of the victim absolutely possessing information that would save the life of this innocent. This claim is made in the other article by Bagaric.

I think torture is a deeply complex issue and I think that Bagaric's use of overly simple analogies in an attempt to de-nuance the issue does a disservice to the discussion and his own view. I think his attempt to pre-emptively distort the claims of his opposition as the "fanatical claims of libertarian groups" is in bad faith and it makes him seem more interested in making a political point than an ethical one. But I also think he makes some good points re: the moral responsibility of people to prevent harm and the necessity of sometimes committing small evils to prevent greater ones. Still, I am bothered by the need to posit hard choices as though they are no-brainers. I think we ought to treat hard problems as hard problems. Things are never so easy, and to claim they are denies issues their gravity and denies those who must answer these moral quandaries a great deal of credit.

A response to Arar

When a person undeniably has information of value, at what cost do we honor his or her wellbeing when lives could be saved through torture? Firstly, one must establish that this person very likely or does in fact have such valued information. Maher Arar, seemingly against all forms of torture, uses the example of a policeman torturing someone at a crime scene merely because he believes that person is the perpetrator of a crime. Arar is trying to show that deeming torture acceptable or unacceptable based on guilt or innocence is no different than accepting this policeman story. I find this analogy very unconvincing. Arar assumes that guilt in the case of the policeman is determined by some feeling or “just because I know it is” type of reasoning. If this were the basis for determining guilt or innocence, I would agree with him that torture in this case is wrong. However, being found guilty under more convincing methods (such as a trial and jury perhaps) changes the validity of the man’s guilt. If the man is found guilty under more reliable methods, torture is more acceptable to possibly save a life or solve the remainder of the crime. I think I understand what Arar was actually trying to get at in his article, though. In the case of the United States, they are acting more as the policeman who deals out guilt and innocence based on a gut feeling. If this is true, then we should seek to change how guilt and innocence is determined by the United States. However, we don’t get “torture is always immoral” from such a case. 

Argument Against the "Fail to Prevent" Idea

I am possibly naively pacifist when it comes to war and torture.  I am sure many people would agree that if it were possible, they would not want war or torture to be used as a primary way to solve problems around the world.  I would like to focus on objecting to the “fail to prevent” idea presented in Bacaric's writing.  Bacaric argues that we can fail to prevent deaths through torture, which makes it morally permissible.  At first it may seem like a sound, utilitarian argument.  It in some sense sacrifices one person’s happiness for a large group’s well being.  However, there are flaws to this argument.  The purpose of torture is primarily to obtain information that will not be revealed without other measures being taken, but sometimes other methods can be employed.  This objection does not stand on its own because if there was a time limit on the saving of the many, other methods would take a larger amount of time.  I think the best objection to the argument towards the moral permissibility of torture is the success rate.  There are so many ways torture can work against its intended purpose.  There are many cases of mistaken identity.   If the tortured individual is unable to provide the information, the torture will only add to the injustice, not take away from it.  It will also encourage the tortured individual to make up false information.  Even if the tortured individual does know the information, that individual could still provide false information, making the torture an unsuccessful means for getting information. 

I think that Arar properly addresses some major problems with the argument that torture is morally permissible for the failure to prevent future deaths of innocent people.  Arar’s argument made me curious about the success rate of torture.  I do not know how that would be calculated, but it would most likely work against Bagaric's argument.  Though Bagaric might argue it is worth the sacrifice it it would be hypocritical to do so.  If an individual is tortured and cannot provide information, they are innocent, and they have not provided good to the many.  Success rate alone does not prove or disprove morality, but it does relate.  Bagaric argues that “life saving torture is not cruel.” I would say it if the success rate of torture as a method for acquiring intelligence was 100% or very close, that might be a correct statement under certain circumstances.  Bagaric says that those opposed to torture are responsible for the innocent lives that could have been saved.  This implies that torture is an infallible system, when it clearly does not produce a large enough amount of results to be permissible.  To further emphasize the weakness of his argument, I would like to point out that Bagaric does not anticipate the counterargument that he could be responsible for the tortured, innocent individuals who were mistaken for other people.  

Morality of Torture

Torture has been utilized throughout the centuries as a means of gathering intelligence. Ignoring its effectiveness for the moment, is it moral? If there is someone who may or may not possess information regarding an event where innocent people may lose their lives, is it okay to use torture? First let us examine the weight of each action. On one hand, we could choose to torture and possibly gain important information. On the other hand, we could choose not to torture and instead risk the lives of innocents. To choose the first option would be an enactment of self-defense of other, to protect those who do not know their lives may be in danger. However in order for this argument to hold there must be sufficient evidence of force or threat of attack. Otherwise this case would be similar to a preemptive attack based on certain beliefs. This would not be a valid form of self-defense of other, because we did not possess sufficient evidence that there were people in danger in the first place. Imagine the following scenario:

A person suspected of being a terrorist has been caught and placed in the hands of the authorities. He does not speak a word, and the authorities wonder whether or not to resort to torture. Suddenly, the suspect claims he knows important information regarding an attack that will occur in exactly 24 hours. In this situation the possibility of an attack seems very high and therefore sufficient force is detected given by both the escalation of force by the suspect and the immediacy of the event, thus giving torture the okay signal.

Consider the same scenario with one twist. Suppose the suspect had remained quiet and the authorities then threatened him with torture. Now the suspect threatens them back with the same information above. Do the authorities have the right to torture the suspect? Now the answer is a resounding no. Although the immediacy is still there, the escalation of force was now done by the authorities, and it is highly likely the suspect lashed back in retaliation out of fear.

Nevertheless, there are many murky cases, and in these we do not have sufficient evidence to believe there is both a threat of force and immediacy of such a threat. Instead, it would be best to focus on other methods of intelligence gathering rather than focusing on the gathering of information that may not even be present via torture.

There also exists an argument that torture degrades society. However, this argument seems somewhat strange, because many people are not even aware that actions like torture even exist in society. Occasionally they may watch a movie a witness a torture scene, but the thought that it may occur in their own society most likely does not cross the mind. How then, could torture degrade society? Perhaps it is a degradation of the bureaucracy that allows torture, with the argument that slowly more and more cases of torture will be allowed for. Of course is a slippery slope fallacy and should not be argued. There can be a stopping point for torture and it starts where threat of danger and immediacy are high.

The Importance of Dehumanization

In his article, "A case for torture," Mirko Bagaric argues that torture is permissible in some circumstances. One counterargument that Bagaric addresses is the claim that torture dehumanizes society. I will argue that Bagaric does not take this rejoinder seriously enough and seems to poorly interpret the implications of the rejoinder.

The specific quote from Bagaric concerning dehumanization is, "The second main argument is that torture will dehumanise society... A society that elects to favour the interests of wrongdoers over those of the innocent, when a choice must be made between the two, is in need of serious ethical rewiring" ("A case for torture" 2-3). Bagaric argues that torture in order to save an innocent is essentially an act of self-defense. Torture, even in the case to save an innocent, differs in an important way from self-defense in the type of harm. Intentionally inflicting pain on someone, whether to gain information or as a form of punishment, is an entirely different harm from killing the hostage taker in Bagaric's example. I don't want to get into the business of judging what moral harms are worse than others, that seems mathematical in a way that doesn't apply to morality, but I think it is enough to say the harms are very different. The situations are also importantly different in that there is an exigency and clarity in the hostage taker rather than a situation where torture is necessary to save someone.

There are some harms that violate rights that people cannot lose no matter what actions they have committed. People have a right to not have severe pain intentionally inflicted upon them and this right cannot be surrendered simply by being a criminal or by breaking a moral rule. In other words, to possess the right against torture is a right we have by being human; to torture someone is to disrespect their humanity in this way. This is the main claim of the dehumanization counterargument. Torture disrespects the humanity of the tortured such that the torturer no longer treats their victim as a human. Any society that permits torture in this way allows for dehumanization to occur and any society that permits dehumanization dehumanizes itself in way that unreasonably places it's rules above the rights of humans.

The latter half of that quote is a rather radical claim concerning the implications of the dehumanization rejoinder. Bagaric is arguing that if we prohibit torture as an option in order to save an innocent person's life, then we are placing the interests of wrongdoers over the interests (the lives) of the innocent. I argue that Bagaric is interpreting the prohibition of torture backwards here. This is not a case of favor, this is a case of respecting humanity and the rights of humans regardless of their actions. The wrongdoer may have violated the right of the innocent, but that does not mean that wrongdoer automatically loses their rights too. The wrongdoer is a human and there are some rights that have special status such that they cannot be lost despite the actions of the wrongdoer.

Torture

I think in many cases torture can be permissible. However as my fellow peers pointed out, I think the arguments as to why some of the authors believe torture can be permissible is not very justified. I think the article called “A Case for Torture” could have some really great points, however their arguments are not very backed up nor logical. For example, the authors declare that “Torture is permissible where the evidence suggests that this is the only means, due to the immediacy of the situation, to save the life of an innocent person”. However, I believe the complete opposite of this. I do not think that is even very likely that torture could be used in such an immediate situation. I believe torture is more seen in long term potentially harmful situations such as potential terrorist attacks. Most cases of torture are long-drawn out events, not quick and easy-which causes the majority of controversy about the subject. Therefore, I would see it as not permissible for an immediate situation such as a kidnapping because there would most likely be no benefit due to the time constraints.

I do not think the idea of whether torture should be permissible or not should be simplified down the idea of the right to self-defense. I think that opens the door for a horrible slippery slope of people take it into their own hands to inflict these kinds of torture onto others arguing that it was for “self-defense”. I think that the permissibility of torture should only be used for the greater overall good of the country and saving a large amount of lives. I think the pros outweigh the cons in a scenario like that whereas if it was only used to save one life, the cons of torturing would outweigh the pros. Overall, I think that there are many cases and arguments for the permissibility of torture. However, this article did a poor job representing them. 

A Poor Argument for Torture

Although I do think there exists some argument for why torture may be permissible, I want to address the article "A Case for Torture" and how it makes a poor argument against those who oppose torture. 

I will mainly argue that Bagaric's hostage-kidnap analogy is a poor one. 

He describes the analogy as follows:

"The reason that torture in such a case is defensible and necessary is because the justification manifests from the closest thing we have to an inviolable right: the right to self-defence, which of course extends to the defence of another...The analogy with self-defence is sharpened by considering the hostage-taking scenario, where a wrongdoer takes a hostage and points a gun to the hostage's head, threatening to kill the hostage unless a certain (unreasonable) demand is met. In such a case it is not only permissible, but desirable for police to shoot (and kill) the wrongdoer if they get a "clear shot"...There is no logical or moral difference between this scenario and one where there is overwhelming evidence that a wrongdoer has kidnapped an innocent person and informs police that the victim will be killed by a co-offender if certain demands are not met. In the hostage scenario, it is universally accepted that it is permissible to violate the right to life of the aggressor to save an innocent person. How can it be wrong to violate an even less important right (the right to physical integrity) by torturing the aggressor in order to save a life in the second scenario?"

First, I believe he is wrong in saying that the inviolable right of self-defense "of course extends to defense of another." It seems arguable that morality permits to you to harm another person when that person is threatening to hurt you for reasons that do not extend to defending someone else. Many arguments for self defense hinge on the idea that we have a responsibility/connection/right to ourselves, our own bodies/life/well-being that enables us to put ourselves before others. If this is one's argument for self-defense, it wouldn't make sense to say we can extend that right to mean we have the right to defend others. Bagaric needs to provide an argument for why the right to defend ourselves implies a right to defend others.

Second, I believe the example of a kidnapper holding a gun to a hostages head is dis-analogous to most hostage situations. In the example, the danger is tremendously clear and imminent. Without any question/doubt whatsoever, the police man can tell who is/will be the victim, who is/will be the perpetrator and that there are presumable minutes, if not seconds, before his lack of action could result in death. In most cases of torture, the potential victims, perpetrators, moment of how and when the danger will occur and is unclear. That's why the torture is happening in the first place. This lack of knowledge I think is morally relevent in differentiating between the two scenarios and whether or not it is permissible to act. Furthermore, it seems dis-analogous to suggest that the man holding the gun up the the hostage is morally equivalent to the subject of torture. When being held captive and tortured, it is likely that the torturee is aware of or previously involved in the potential crime/attack/danger but at that moment they are not the ones actively carrying out the harm the way the man with the gun is. Knowledge that harm is going to occur does not rid you of the right to not be harmed the same way holding someone at gunpoint does.

Lastly, 

Torture and lawyers with guilty clients

            I don’t see how one could claim that torture is never permissible.  If we knew that a mad scientist had placed a bomb in the core of the Earth that would destroy all mankind and the only way to figure out how to defuse the bomb is to torture the scientist, I think it would be clear to anyone that the scientist should be tortured.  On the other hand, if I really wanted a Twinkie and I had no money to buy one, it would probably not be ideal for me to torture the owner of a supermarket in order to obtain one.  So somewhere in between those extremes must be a point at which torture becomes permissible or impermissible.

            However, I think it is also clear that torture is so inherently evil (if that is the right word to use) that we should have a very strong stance against it.

            In a way, this issue and the worries I have about it seem similar to the issue and worries that surround the duty of the lawyer to defend his client even if he knows the client is guilty.  Although there may be cases where the lawyer could easily turn in a guilty client and see a clear benefit, the broader negative implications of simply allowing lawyers to renege on their duty as a lawyer are too great.  For example, the breakdown of the principle that the prosecution must prove the guilt of the accused is an enormously important consequence that must be considered.  Does this mean that lawyers should never ever turn in a guilty client?  I don’t think that such an absolute could ever be defensible.  But this does not mean that such cases should not be exceedingly rare.

            Similarly, I think torture is a tool that should almost never be used.  The potential for torture to be disproportionately used on people in a certain region or of a certain race seems quite high.  The use of torture on innocent people without a transparent process of showing why that person is being tortured also seems like a horrible potential consequence of being loose in our attitude towards torture.  The list goes on.  Does this mean that in specific cases that torture cannot save lives?  Of course not, just as a lawyer could turn in his guilty client and see a clear benefit of doing so.  However, the broader consequences of being apathetic or treating torture as a tool to be used lightly are greater than the benefits that are seen when considering specific cases on their own, just as the broader consequences of allowing lawyers to turn in their clients outweigh the case-by-case benefits.

Preventing Torture

In “Some Torture a Needed Life-Saving Tool”, Mirko Bagaric claims that torture is sometimes necessary to keep innocent people from being killed (and even includes a degree of ad hominem in proclaiming that opponents of torture either “lack compassion or have a warped moral compass”). Near the end of the piece he entertains possible counterarguments, including one that we can never be positive that the suspect even has the information we are trying to obtain, such as in the El-Masri case mentioned in Maher Arar’s article, in which the wrong person was captured and tortured for five months. Bagaric responds by saying that in that case, torture should not be used, and compares it to not shooting someone in self-defense until it is definitely known that they have malicious intentions. Here Bagaric seems to contradict himself, since if we should not torture someone unless we are sure they have relevant information, and we can never be entirely sure that a suspect has relevant information (Bagaric himself uses the word “never”), then it could be concluded that we should never torture. Suspecting someone of knowing something cannot be proven the same way a court of law can prove that a person performed an action. The mind is ambiguous enough that one cannot be completely certain that someone else knows something, and at least not certain enough to allow the assumption that torturing that person will definitely protect innocent lives. 

Some torture a needed life-saving tool

I completely agree with Mirko Bagaric in his article “Some torture a needed life-saving tool.”  I believe torture is needed sometimes as long as it is helping to save the lives of innocent people.  It is only okay to torture if you are doing it to someone who is “evil” and is planning on killing many innocent lives.  If you cannot get the information to save these lives without the use of torture then you must do anything to get what you need out of this horrible person.  This “evil” person is torturing people anyway by killing them just for his own benefit.  If there is a terrorist and you need to find out where their next attack is going to be then go ahead and torture them until you have gotten the information that you need to stop it.  It is not okay though to just torture for the sake of torturing someone.  If you are just doing it for your own sick pleasure then it is completely wrong to do.  If you are not getting any information that saves lives from the person you are torturing then you should not be doing it.  Once you have gotten everything you need from that person you should stop the torture.  Torture can help to save many lives.  Those who are torturing in order to save lives are doing the right thing and should continue to do so.  Many people have tortured terrorists and have successfully stopped attacks and have saved very many lives.     

Torture.

              Based on the readings about torture, I noticed that most of the articles didn’t really focus at all on the person who will be doing the torturing if the act was permissible. I think this is a very important factor to consider because it’s not an easy thing to do and it could affect that person for the rest of their lives. By torturing someone you might be “saving an innocent life,” but this notion is a little counterproductive because that person doing the torturing has a possibility of being internally damaged. The person who is inflicting the torture on the perpetrator might have the “right reasons” to torture that person but it doesn’t mean that it will feel good. Different people would probably react differently to certain situations but your feelings can vary. Maybe you’ll feel guilt or maybe you will be traumzatized. Everyone’s last moments of life is when they are most vulnerable. It would be so horrible to watch someone pleading for mercy and acting so vulnerable when you know you put them in that situation. It can psychologically damage someone and something like that can’t be easily erased.

                I really liked the article called “A Case for Torture” because it was an interesting read and it also gave counter arguments and then refuted them.  I agreed with the counter arguments but I wasn’t fully convinced on the author’s rebuttal to them. For example, the second argument stated that “torture will dehumanize society.” Their rebuttal to this argument was comparing torture to self-defense but I think that this is a fallacy of false analogy. I don’t think you really relate the two together because it’s two totally separate acts that don’t correlate in my opinion. 

Blog post 8

If you choose to post by Wednesday night by 11:00 PM, either (a) raise and develop an objection to some moral issue raised in the readings about torture, OR (b) offer and develop a supporting argument about some moral issue raised in the readings about torture.

Human Experimentation

Something that I want to cover here is the idea of ethical morality towards prisoners of war. When Ishii started to do his experimentation, he started on his work on prisoners that were already set to be executed without trial. The only argument that can be made as to how this type of experimentation could be remotely ethical comes from the idea of deserving. According to utilitarian thinking, these people don’t deserve the “good” and thus can be used in order to advance research that will maximize a greater “good” for the rest of the people. In this case the “good” that these prisoners would have received was going to be direct execution instead of experimental torture. The best argument against the morality of human experimentation would probably be presented by Kantian thinking. This would entail that any rational being should never be used as a means for maximizing good. Tsuchiya quoted one of the researchers Shiro Kasahara who had written a paper about identifying pathogens of a type of fever. The quote “’The first ape became feverish with a temperature of 39.4 degrees Celsius on the 19^th after injection and moderately affected’” shows that the researchers would ignore the fact that they were testing on other humans (35). The idea that they were afraid to mention working on humans shows that those involved in the research were prone to understanding ethical behavior towards other human beings. The evidence for the immorality of human experimentation is built in with the testimonies that were presented within the article.

Who Can Truly Cast the First Stone?

          Many of us have jumped to these negative assertions about Japan after reading about these Japanese human experimentation facilities, but I would argue that this article concentrates so much on the atrocities of these experiments that it fails to shed light on the positive effects that practicing these human experiments had on the greater good of both Japan and the US. The experiments that were conducted could have been categorized as explanation of diseases, development of therapies and research into and development of biological and chemical warfare. By conducting such experiments the science of that time was accelerated forward at a pace that could have other wised taken many decades long. Given this information scientist today are able to save hundreds of thousands of lives. Some argue that the cost was too great because POW were killed to obtain this scientific research, but I argue that if we are now able to save more people than were sacrificed is it still wrong that they died to save us all? I also question the ability for a culture to negatively label Japan for their actions regarding their form of torture. This is not the first time a great number of people were killed for the betterment of the future. I would argue that it is easy for a culture such as ours to look at other cultures and tell them that they are morally corrupt for the way in which they choose to build a better future. The US, for instance, has no right to cast that stone because they too are guilty of building America off of the backs of slaves. One could even go as far as to say that they did even worse to the innocent slaves than Japan did to the POW, where at least there was a logical reasoning behind the torture and imprisonment of the Japanese POW in the first place being that they were prisoners. Now on another note, I can agree that both forms of torture are wrong, but I question the reasons that make it wrong. It seems as though the experimentation on humans is wrong because people were sacrificed because they were POW but how is that different from our death penalty? Lethal injection is used often enough on the prisoners on death row and some of them are innocent but still die. What gives anyone the reason to kill another human being? The Japanese POW were at the very least used for the greater good while day after day prisoners of our own are killed for nothing at all, where is the morality in that?

           Overall, I think that this article has made Japan look like a bad culture for their involvement in such ridiculous experiments. I feel as though the entire picture is not shown adequately enough in this reading in order to shed light on the good that arose from the atrocities and I believe there are atrocities like this that have happened and still happen today but cultures choose to not condemn it.