The Abolition Of Torture By Andrew Sullivan

In the article, “The Torture Myth,” Anne Applebaum explores the controversial topic of torture practices, focused primarily in The United States. The article was published on January 12, 2005, inspired by the dramatic increase of tensions between terrorist organizations and The United States. Applebaum explores three equality titillating concepts within the article. Applebaum's questions the actual effectiveness of using torture as a means of obtaining valuable information in urgent times. Applebaum explores the ways in which she feels that the United States’ torture policy ultimately produces negative effects upon the country. Applebaum's final question is if torture is not optimally successful, why so much of society believes it

The War on Terror has produced several different viewpoints on the utilization of torture and its effectiveness as a means to elicit information. A main argument has been supplied that torture is ineffective in its purpose to gather information from the victim. The usefulness of torture has been questioned because prisoners might use false information to elude their torturers, which has occurred in previous cases of torture. It has also been supposed that torture is necessary in order to use the information to save many lives. Torture has been compared to civil disobedience. In addition, the argument has been raised that torture is immoral and inhumane. Lastly, Some say that the acts are not even regarded as torture.

The United States is considered one of the most powerful countries in the world. They have a well organized and trained armed forces. But, they were built with principles and moral standards. According to those rules, people could not do what they pleased all the time. The paper signed by the founding Fathers is, the Constitution of the United States, which prohibits the enforcers of the law to torture. Yet, it is still done. There is no straight statement that prohibits torture. An arguement of whether it can be legal or not is made, for the use of, retriving important information, the use of the 8th amendment and how 9/ 11 change some perspectives.

In this article, written by Andrew Fiala, the topic of discussion is torture, terrorism, and the lesser evil of arguments. Fiala has many strong statements about torture, and how there are different types used in different situations and it being to excessive. He touches on terrorism of how it is wrong, but he states that the terrorist is closely related to torture. Then he touches on the double-standards that moral standards of people sacrificing themselves to save others. Fiala argues that torture needs to be diminished, then argues that terrorism and torture are closely linked, but they have many differences, and then how the “fat man” analogy is what terrorism can be compared to.

Regarding the moral ambiguity of torture and the War on Terror, former President Barack Obama once said: “Today we are engaged in a deadly global struggle for those who would intimidate, torture, and murder people for exercising the most basic freedoms. If we are to win this struggle and spread those freedoms, we must keep our own moral compass pointed in a true direction” (qtd. in Piwowarczyk). Torture is a form of punishment the U.S. government and many governments use around the world. It is an effective tool to get information quickly, but under the Obama administration, the United States stopped all use of torture. While many governments still support the use of torture. The United States, however, went in a different direction taking torture out of all military personnel. Seeing how information can be extracted in a more civilized and humane way. Also, that any information given to the interrogators may be false or inaccurate, and that it is against international law, and that it puts any United States soldiers abroad in danger. Many citizens of the United States supported the policy, and many did not like the policy. The United States has used torture in the past to find the location of many terrorists that have threatened our homeland, and many of those instances lead to more American lives saved. Although torture has saved countless American lives, many of the strategies and forms of torture are unethical and inhumane to use on people of this world.

Torture has long been a controversial issue in the battle against terrorism. Especially, the catastrophic incident of September 11, 2001 has once again brought the issue into debate, and this time with more rage than ever before. Even until today, the debate over should we or should we not use torture interrogation to obtain information from terrorists has never died down. Many questions were brought up: Does the method go against the law of human rights? Does it help prevent more terrorist attacks? Should it be made visible by law? It is undeniable that the use of torture interrogation surely brings up a lot of problems as well as criticism. One of the biggest problems is that if torture is effective at all. There are

Torture is one of the most provocative topics within modern day government and interrogation practices. While the United States constitution’s eighth amendment states that the use of cruel and unusual punishment is a violation, there have been instances whether you look at the Civil Rights era or post-September 11, 2001. Torture has been unfortunately remained a fairly common practice. This book delves into the perspectives of many authors on their views of torture.

In this essay I will defend the nature of the balance of civil liberties, rights and torture by drawing upon Jeremy Waldron, Henry Shue and Jeff McMahan’s view on the morality of torture. Torture is the act of deliberately inflicting severe physical or psychological pain to an individual who is restrained and defenseless. In this paper I will argue that torture cannot be morally justified; torture ought not to be legalized or otherwise institutionalized even in the ticking time bomb scenario because the rights of the innocent against the guilty is not equally balanced and the idealization/abstraction problem in the ticking time bomb case makes it unrealistic.

In the United States legal system, torture is currently defined as “an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control.” as defined by Office of the Law Revision Counsel, U.S. House of Representatives (US Code, 1) Though this is a seemingly black and white definition, the conditional “…other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions…” have led many to question what precisely this entails. In other words, what are the lawful sanctions that permit such acts? Are they ethically right? Where is the line drawn as torture

In “The Case for Torture”, philosophy professor Michael Levin attempts to defend using torture as a means to save lives is justifiable and necessary. Throughout the article, Levin provides persuasive arguments to support his essay using clever wording and powerful, moving examples. However, the essay consists heavily of pathos, fallacies, and “What if?” situations that single out torture as the only method of resolution, rendering the argument hypothetical, weak, and unreliable for the city of San Jose as a whole community to follow.

At the beginning of Levin’s’ article “The Case for Torture,” Levin states what he believes the public thinks about torture: “It is generally assumed that torture is impermissible, a throwback to a more brutal age. Enlightened

The most well-known support for torture is the “ticking time bomb” scenario. The author of “Case for Torture” gives an example of this by asking the reader to “suppose a terrorist has hidden an atomic bomb on Manhattan Island” (Levin 95) but will not “disclose where the bomb is” (95). In doing this, the reader reflects on how effective torture would be in this specific situation. However, the argument fails to address that torture is not the only way to gain information or more importantly, that it is the correct information. Neurologist Lawrence Hinkle, who examined Korean War veterans after communist “brain-washing” stated that “any circumstance that impairs the function of the brain potentially affects the ability to give information and well as the ability to withhold it” (Arrigo 547). This proves that just because torture is being used does not guarantee that the terrorists will give all information up. They can easily create a lie or withhold the truth. Therefore, torture is

Isn't torture analogous to assassination and pre-emptive strikes, when used as an extraordinary, extralegal means of preventing future harm? And who would oppose having assassinated Hitler? Levin has successfully forced inquisitive readers to question the idea that torture is never permissible, and sown the seeds to suggest that there are in fact situations which require it. He has also addressed a number of counterarguments: yes, torture violates the rights of the terrorist, but by virtue of his antisocial and destructive actions the terrorist has forfeited his rights by removing himself from the very society which granted them to him. Yes, torture is barbaric, but it is less barbaric than the alternative in many cases. After establishing all this, The Case for Torture loses much of its momentum.

In “The Case for Torture,” Michael Levin presents logical fallacies that originate at the authors desire to relate the importance of his message. Though his specific argument is a very plausible solution to a taboo problem, the manner in which he presents it has some fallacies that cause it to be unsupported

The use of torture as a weapon for coercing an individual to do or say something of desire or for intimidation is a widely debated subject worldwide, though some level of torture is utilized by most countries, including those that are often regarded as being highly civil (Cahn, 2016, p.296-27). Given that, based on data from Amnesty International, the use of torture is on the rise, it is extremely important to explore the moral significance of torture as a weapon of both coercion and intimidation (Cahn, 2016, p.296). According to Henry Shue, a former researcher and Professor of Philosophy at Cornell University, torture is “contrary to every international law, including the laws of war” and is morally never acceptable, though there are very limited circumstances in which the use of torture is less morally unacceptable, such as when the use of torture satisfies the constraints of possible compliance (Cahn, 2016, p.296-298; Mertel, 2017a, slide 2). The first part of this paper will examine Shue’s argument by exploring “the constraint of possible compliance” and its importance to Shue, and will discuss the various forms of torture and their relation to this key concept. The second part will defend Shue’s stance on the moral acceptance of torture by analyzing the key points he puts forward in his argument and demonstrating their moral plausibility. The final part will offer one potential objection to this position and a refute argument to the objection.