Monday, January 26, 2015
Who would Laws Pertaining to Torture Protect?
In the most recent reading about torturing terrorists, the author opines that our governing laws must accommodate torture if we see it necessary in certain situations. Creating laws pertaining to and allowing torture will bring the acts of torture into the public view and create checks and balances in hopes of protecting the suspects being tortured. Both of which are evaded when torture happens off the grid. However, is it foolish to imagine that these laws may be abused by officials torturing suspects? Could there be cases where officials find protection in the written laws by finding justification for their actions and subsequently jump the gun by torturing more suspects, maybe innocent people? It may be that being off the grid grinds the fact that torture is condemned in our country into the minds of officials. Torturing off the grid may be the best protection for suspects in this hypothetical case. Laws on the other hand may take this mindset away. I am not saying that we should or shouldn't create laws to regulate torture. These are simply some ideas to consider when discussing that argument.
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This is a good point. Perhaps the psychology of humans is such that restricted acceptance would bring about more cases of torture. However, I think it would be up to the laws to ensure that innocent people were not permitted to be tortured. This could be achieved by restricting cases of allowable torture to those in which the subject readily, without persuasion, admits to planting the bomb (or whatever crime it may be), or at least something along those lines.
ReplyDeleteI think that your case still holds even with perfect laws. While we have outlawed the torture of innocent members of society, the regulations would not be able to control the "off the grid" cases of innocent torture. If your reasoning is to be believed, these may skyrocket once people believe that some sort of torture is condoned. Granted, they would still be committing an illegal act, just as before.
In short, I think your argument extends further than you think and agree, it is an argument that must be dealt with for the non-isolated case.
I just want to add a couple ideas off the top of my head. When looking at the ticking time bomb scenario, anyone would have some doubt about the wisdom pertaining to the absolute prohibition of torture. If the torture somehow proved successful, the case wouldn't be looked at as a rare exception but rather as a possible instigator to a new rule permitting torture. However, we shouldn't look at it this way. We should allude to the old case of five sailors stranded on a raft in the middle of the ocean with no food. Four sailors decide to consume the fifth, a sailor boy, in order to survive. When they return, they are tried for cannibalism and murder, but the judge is lenient given the circumstances and their sentence is lifted. However, we don't remove the laws against murder and cannibalism as a consequence of such case.
ReplyDeleteIf torture were to be legalized, I don't think the idea that it would create "checks and balanced" has much prevalence just based off of the existing cases of law-abuse. I also think that legalizing something as unethical and immoral as torture - an act explicitly banned under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, would put torture in a relatively more positive light for future generations. It's not impossible to believe that torture schools would arise, that future generations would be desensitized to the idea of torture, that children will be raised explicitly to become "master torturers" and consequently be devoid of human dignity - human worth in the sense of our capacity to reason, for choice, to bodily integrity, and to social nature. I might be exaggerating a little (or not - who knows), but an act as morally complex as torture needs very careful consideration when brought up to law.
I also believe that society needs to have a better understanding of what a human right truly is before (possibly) pursuing the legalization of torture. A general belief is that human dignity is inviolable and absolute - but is this true?The existence of the characteristics (as i stated above) are inalienable, but the extent is not. For example; under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, everyone is entitled to own property. However, this right, an expression of human dignity, does not by itself substantiate a claim to own "this" or "that" piece of property. There is a limit, and we are unclear as to what a right truly is and how it may be properly limited for the sake of the person, the society, and the law.
Firstly, torture is something that has multiple viewpoints and will always bring into question the idea of an individual's morality but the perspective of why it happens has to be what comes up first on whether or not to harm a suspect. The risk of what could happen in my opinion is always worth more than harming one individual. I would like to bring in the idea of the state of war from Thomas Hobbes were man is naturally in a chaotic state and that man will do whatever possible to protect themselves from harm. I think this is the same case when it comes to torture. The idea of another 9/11 is absolutely horrific to think about and currently we are at war with multiple terrorist groups in the middle east. If torturing helps protect our nation and allows us to be safe so that we don't have to go across the ocean to fight then the morality in this case is self evident. I believe to often Americans take their safety for granted and don't realize that in some countries like Israel force every citizen to serve the military at some time or another. I believe that because of some of the torturing methods we have used though morally questionable have kept us safe and out of harms way on the home front and allows us to live our daily lives without fear.
ReplyDeleteI think there is a major issue here, which is the basis for why the author feels torture should be regulated, is missing from this discussion. That is the age old question of whether anyone, and especially the government, is above the rule of law. The thing is torture is not a rarity, and while it is condemned by law it is certainly not disdained by those currently in power (see the Senate torture reports). When the military or intelligence communities are looking to gain information from suspects there are methods of 'enhanced interrogation' being used (aka torture), and the fact of the matter is those people who call the shots are not concerned with whether or not torture is illegal. Realistically all they care about in from a repercussion standpoint is whether they feel it is likely that there will be charges brought against them in the future. And who is it that is suppose to bring up these charges? Well conveniently it is in the hands of the executive branch (broadly speaking), the same institution that those making these decision work for. Therefore it's clear, because torture is largely deemed acceptable by the executives its utilization will remain prevalent and so to say that keeping it illegal will mitigate its frequency I feel is being ignorant of exactly what is going on. Now, I'm not saying that torture is necessarily a morally justifiable endeavor but what I am saying is that to allow it to continue without the endorsement of law open up the door to far more terrifying possibilities.
ReplyDeleteTo directly answer the question posed in this thread, about who these torture laws are designed to protect, it is not necessarily the terrorist suspects, although they certainly do seem to gain by the introduction of a torture-warrant system. Rather I see the greatest danger to us, as citizens of the US. See, when we begin to allow the government to act increasingly on its own terms, and decrease our capacity as citizens to carry out our own duty, which is to hold those in power to the standards that we deem fit, we allow those in charge to act unchecked. Just look at what Edward Snowden released to the world about the illegal gathering of emails, without a warrant. These are of course not only the emails of previously suspected terrorists, but are the private emails and passwords of nearly every US citizen. While this is done with under the blanket phrase of "searching for new terrorists," there is increased evidence that the NSA is leaking information the organizations like the DEA in order to arrest and convict street-level drug dealers. This is a flagrant violation of the fourth amendment and is just the first sign of what we have indirectly allowed our government to do when it is no longer required to be liable for its own actions and is no longer responsible to defend itself in front of the law or the American People.
By sidestepping issues like torture and debating whether or not it is right, we are opening ourselves up to tremendous vulnerability from the inside, all while we stand no chance of actually ending its practices. These are just some of my thoughts on the matter and why I feel the lack of government oversight is far more egregious than the societal implications of legalizing torture.