While I’m hesitant to jump into the ongoing debate here (I’ve already got my hands full discussing the issue on the First Thoughts blog) I wanted to add a clarification and a question:
Clarification: John Mark defines torture as “intending to inflict permanent psychological or physical harm to a man in order to break his will and get information from him that he does not wish to give us.”
I have to take issue with his inclusion of the word permanent. Almost everyone I’ve talked to in this debate seems to think that permanency of effect is part of the word’s meaning. But none of the domestic or international documents that the U.S. subscribes to define the term in that way—and for good reason: it would preclude many acts that we would normally consider to be torture.
Take, for instance, the most common example used when talking about torture: putting bamboo under a person’s fingernails. This action causes no permanent damage; is it therefore not torture? And what about other forms of physical damage that are not permanent? Broken bones and cuts heal over time. Does that mean we can use clubs and knives during interrogations?
Also, proving that an act causes permanent psychological damage is nearly impossible. How do we know how a particular person will be affected? Many people who endure rape or sexual abuse are not permanently scarred. Are we therefore justified in using rape as an interrogation technique in extreme emergencies?
Question: I’m curious to hear why, if torture is allowed by the state, that it’s use can only be justified on foreigners and not on our own citizens. Capturing terrorist who have knowledge of actions that will cause future loss of life are rare. But the police capture criminals every day who have knowledge that could prevent the deaths of innocents. Why don’t we allow the police to torture them?
We often justify the use of torture in the hypothetical ticking bomb scenarios of terrorism. Yet these are actual situations in which the state could protect the innocent on a daily basis. How do we justify the use of torture against terrorists but not against criminals? Why is saving lives in one situation right and in the other wrong? (I’m speaking of the morality, not just the legality of such actions.)
January 10th, 2010 | 1:50 am | #1
It seems futile at this point to ask the specific question you posed on defining torture and expect clarification or progress in this discusion. Others have asked the identical question and offered various examples of acts that are precluded from being considered torture on JMRs definitions, but that are stereotypical examples of torture, yet have not received replies to the point.
January 10th, 2010 | 2:49 am | #2
Joe:
It will not surprise you to discover that I agree with the import of your question. I have defined things that are necessarily torture.
I will concede that some things that are torture (bamboo shoots) are not included. My definition is therefore not exhaustive, but was designed to include only indisputable cases.
Let us try this:
an action may be torture if it breaks the free will right of a person through psychological or physical means, but is necessarily torture if it inflicts such harms permanently.
An action is torture if it involves an act (eg. rape) that is necessarily base in and of itself.
January 10th, 2010 | 7:05 am | #3
Not entirely on point but …
I’d be curious as to your supporting reference(s) for saying “Many people who endure rape or sexual abuse are not permanently scarred.”?!? I am way, way beyond doubtful of the accuracy of that statement. I have yet to meet a single individual who was not.
Could not let that go without comment.
January 10th, 2010 | 8:14 am | #4
Rape does leave permanent psychological scars, so you need to be clear whether you mean permanent physical harm or permanent harm in general. JMR was clear that he included psychological harm. But here’s a case of torture that causes no permanent harm:
Suppose I had the ability to erase memories permanently. There are drugs you can administer to make someone forget a certain period of time. My mom doesn’t have any memories of the birth of one of her children. I could use such a drug to rape someone or use fingernail bamboo (or any other non-permanently-harming pain-causing method) in order to get certain information and not have the person remember it. I could do so in a way that causes no permanent physical harm, and there will be no psychological harm if there is no memory. Yet it seems to be a clear case of torture.
January 10th, 2010 | 9:42 am | #5
“Question: I’m curious to hear why, if torture is allowed by the state, that it’s use can only be justified on foreigners and not on our own citizens. Capturing terrorist who have knowledge of actions that will cause future loss of life are rare. But the police capture criminals every day who have knowledge that could prevent the deaths of innocents. Why don’t we allow the police to torture them?”
In response to Joe’s question:
i) The use of the word “torture” is prejudicial. I understand that opponents will use this word in characterizing their own opposition since they think that designation properly applies to a whole spectrum of coercive techniques. But keep in mind that many proponents of coercive interrogation reject that broad-brush definition.
ii) There is no absolute moral distinction between a foreign terrorist and a domestic terrorist (i.e. US citizen). And if, for the sake of argument, we regard coercion as morally permissible (or even obligatory) in a ticking timebomb situation involving a foreign terrorist, then it would be morally permissible to extend that to a domestic terrorist.
iii) However, the distinction isn’t purely ad hoc. The notion of citizenship is bound up with the notion of a social contract. A social contract involves a tradeoff. You assume certain responsibilities in exchange for certain rights.
And this, in turn, carries the presumption that every member of the social contract (i.e. citizen) is entitled to certain protections, even if an individual shirks his civil duties–because the responsible citizens shouldn’t lose their protections on his account. One for all and all for one.
iv) But in principle, there are extreme cases where that conventional presumption might be overridden. Such immunities are a means to an end, not an end in themselves. And there might be extreme situations in which rote adherence to that conventional presumption would subvert its rationale.
It depends on how hypothetical we want to get.
January 10th, 2010 | 10:33 am | #6
John Mark Reynolds
“An action may be torture if it breaks the free will right of a person through psychological or physical means, but is necessarily torture if it inflicts such harms permanently.”
Correct me if I’m wrong, but you seem to build a particular version of action theory into your definition, then derive a corresponding right from your definition. In other words, the right not to be “tortured” apparently derives, on your definition, from the presupposition that human agents enjoy libertarian freewill. That being the case, to violate their libertarian freedom would be inherently evil.
If that’s your position, then your opposition to “torture” is contingent on your precommitment to libertarian action theory. And, in that case, the moral permissibility or impermissibility of “torture” is not something we can resolve by debating the pros and cons of “torture” directly. Rather, we’d first need to debate the pros and cons of whatever action theory is sponsoring your position on “torture.”
On the face of it, the debate over “torture,” as you have cast it, is a presuppositional debate. If that’s the case, then we need to debate the underlying presuppositions rather than “torture” per se.
But perhaps I misread your intentions.
January 10th, 2010 | 4:37 pm | #7
John Mark Reynolds
“An action may be torture if it breaks the free will right of a person through psychological or physical means, but is necessarily torture if it inflicts such harms permanently.”
i) I’m unclear in the driving principle.
a) Is the primary objection to depriving an agent of his right not to have his freewill violated? (Let’s call this a “libertarian right.)
b) Or is the primary objection to inflicting physical and/or psychological harm?
Moreover, I don’t see how this definition confers immunity from “torture” on the terrorist.
If, on this definition, he’s coercively interrogated, then he’s been denied his libertarian rights.
However, his libertarian right is not the only libertarian right to take into consideration.
His victims didn’t give consent to be maimed or murdered.
The victim’s survivors (friends and family) didn’t consent to lose their loved one in a terrorist attack.
So even if we grant JMR’s principle of the sake of argument, that simply generates a dilemma. For however you cut it, someone will have his libertarian rights denied him.
That being the case, why should the libertarian rights of the guilty assailant trump the libertarian rights of the innocent victim?
iii) Furthermore, killing a terrorist, whether on the battlefield or by judicial execution also deprives him of his freedom of choice or freedom of opportunity.
iv) And if the rejoinder is that a terrorist gives implied consent to his own death by assuming the risky occupation of a terrorist, then, by the same token, isn’t he giving implied consent to whatever may befall him at the hands of his captors in case he’s taken alive?
January 10th, 2010 | 6:46 pm | #8
How do we justify the use of torture against terrorists but not against criminals? Why is saving lives in one situation right and in the other wrong?
There is no reason why torture is not justifiable on US criminals if it is justifiable on terrorists IF the condition of the ticking time bomb scenario holds in BOTH classes. One of the main problems the pro-torture argument has is that is unable to demarcate when and where torture is acceptable. Moreover, it is difficult to define when exactly a scenario becomes “ticking time bomb” type.
The main assumption in the pro-torture argument is that it is a means to good and reliable information. However, there is no good reason to believe this. When Rumsfeld authorized the torture of a captured insurgent he was fed a lot of misinformation as a result.
So even on its most pragmatic “ends justifying the means” argument the pro torture case is incredibly weak.
January 11th, 2010 | 10:32 am | #9
Steve, I’m not sure why you think JMR’s argument requires libertarian freedom. You could frame the whole anti-coercion argument in compatibilist terms. Compatibilists generally think we ought to avoid the kind of coercion that violates compatibilist free will. Most of the cases when libertarians think we’re free are the same cases when compatibilists think we’re free. The disagreement isn’t really over the cases but over what’s going on metaphysically when such choices are made.
My argument has been that coercion isn’t something absolutely wrong but is worth avoiding, and that can be outweighed by circumstances of a particularly serious nature. JMR’s argument is that it’s always wrong to coerce. It’s an ethical disagreement, not really a metaphysical one, and I don’t think it’s my compatibilism on the latter question that leads me to thinking coercion can sometimes be ok on the former question. I think it’s my willingness to consider a much broader range of cases then the very narrow, clearly immoral ones that JMR keeps using as his paradigm bad acts that somehow therefore show that the borderline and less extreme ones are just as evil.
January 11th, 2010 | 10:34 am | #10
I should note that Joe Carter is a compatibilist on the metaphysical question but fully absolutist in his anti-torture stance on the ethical question. It’s not metaphysical libertarianism that’s driving this.
January 11th, 2010 | 12:54 pm | #11
Jeremy Pierce
“Steve, I’m not sure why you think JMR’s argument requires libertarian freedom.”
I didn’t say it “requires” it. I’m merely exploring one possible interpretation of his argument.
I believe that he’s a convert to Eastern Orthodoxy, and in my experience the Eastern Orthodox affirm libertarian freewill (e.g. Maximus the Confessor, Joseph Farrel, Perry Robinson, Photios Jones). So I’m just wondering if that’s a theological presupposition of his objection to coercive interrogation inasmuch as coercion violates the freedom of the terrorist to withhold information by “breaking his will” (as JMR is fond of putting it).
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