preview

Michael Levin The Case For Torture Thesis

Decent Essays

Paragraph #1
In the News Week article from 1982 Michael Levin an American philosopher and university professor, presents his premises and his conclusion to why he personally believes that torture is morally permissible. In addition Levin’s expects others to understand why such thing as torture is a permissible act that everyone should incorporate as a morally acceptable act. To commence, Levin presents his topic by presenting the usual though that torture may seem barbaric; however, he then diverts to his issue, in which he personally states his believe in the quote “There are situations in which torture is not merely permissible but morally mandatory.” Then, Levin moves on to explain his reasons for why he believes in such moral claim. For …show more content…

Firstly, as the article states its topic is on torture; however, this right away causes several problems to fully understand what he means by torture; therefore, leaving the word torture to an open interpretation. To explain, levin never makes it clear what kind of torture should be permissible. Does he believe that lynching someone to a point close to dying is a proper way of torture, or is he referring to waterboarding? In any case, the word torture could be seriously interpreted wrongfully to a mean where he himself might believe to be too extreme. Another major ambiguous word to his claims is the devised term for terrorist. Once again this is a major setback to a well-constructed philosophical article. What does Levin mean specifically by terrorist? Is he referring to al-Qaida or people from cartels? Although he presents hypothetical examples he never defines the word terrorist; thus, leaving the word open to an unclear interpretation to his exact meaning for such word. A third ambiguous phrase is the one used in his last paragraph “western democracies” this makes the whole article a bit unclear, because it fails to define exactly for what specific type …show more content…

For instance, let’s begin with Levin’s conclusion that states “someday soon a terrorist will threaten tens of thousands of lives, and torture will be the only way to save them.” by this Levin ultimately forces one to assume descriptively that terrorist will one day force us change the way we think about our values for human rights in western democracy. In addition, one must assume that he is specifically directing his argument for persuasion towards the United States community. Another assumption one must make is that one must understand that the proper moral way to approach torture is through Utilitarianism which is a theory that weights the greater good out of a situation. Or as it states in John Stuart Mill’s book Utilitarianism

Get Access