The Logic of Torture

[Stone Island]

I am a huge fan of Keith Burgess-Jackson and frequently read his blog. Here's the lede for a editorial he wrote that was carried by OpinionJournal:

[FONT=Verdana, Times]During the past few years, in the wake of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, much has been written about torture, almost none of it, regrettably, philosophically edifying. May I help?

[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, Times]The most important thing to keep in mind as you reflect on torture is that there are different types of question one can ask about it. Different types of question call for different types of answer (and therefore different types of expertise). First, there are conceptual questions. What is torture? How does torture differ from such things as torment, punishment, harsh treatment, cruelty, vengeance, sadism and violence? Can torture be accidental? Must it involve physical (as opposed to mental) pain? Can deprivation or confinement constitute torture? Conceptual questions such as these are about the concepts, ideas, categories and distinctions we use. Answering them is the province of philosophy.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Times][/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Times]Second, there are factual questions. Given a conception of torture, how widespread is it? Is there less of it now than there used to be, and if so, why? Who practices it, and why? What forms does it take? Is waterboarding torture? How much pain or suffering does a particular form of torture typically inflict? How much pain or suffering does a particular instance of torture actually inflict? Is torture effective as a means of gathering information? If so, how effective? Factual questions such as these are about how things are. Answering them requires investigation, consultation (with relevant experts) and observation. Philosophers, as such, have no expertise in this area. This doesn't mean philosophers can't make factual claims, for they can and do; it means their philosophical training doesn't make their factual claims more likely to be true. In other words, philosophers have no comparative advantage in ascertaining how things are.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Times][/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Times]Third, there are evaluative questions. Given a conception of torture, is torture permissible? If so, in what circumstances? Is torture ever obligatory? If so, why? Should the law permit torture? If so, how should it be regulated to prevent (or minimize the likelihood of) abuse? Perhaps torture should be illegal even if it is, in rare cases, morally permissible. Law and morality are different institutions, after all, with different purposes, standards and limitations. A thing can be morally permissible but legally impermissible, just as a thing can be legally permissible but morally impermissible.[/FONT]

The full article at OpinionJournal.com.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

The article is a bit dry, and there doesn't seem to be any discussion forthcoming. Would you like to:

A) Mischaracterize those who agree/disagree with the author, or the author himself?

B) Pretend the author endorses/condems some obscure/popular idea

C) Call everyone "libruls" and decry "Links LIIINNNNNKKKKKS!"

 

[Stone Island]

The article is a bit dry, and there doesn't seem to be any discussion forthcoming. Would you like to:

A) Mischaracterize those who agree/disagree with the author, or the author himself?

B) Pretend the author endorses/condems some obscure/popular idea

C) Call everyone "libruls" and decry "Links LIIINNNNNKKKKKS!"

I'm going to choose 4) non-sequitor

 

[Kopji]

I thought the article was well written. Nice labels and explanations for the different pov's. Reasonable logic. Coherent.

The topic of torture has been written about quite a bit on the forum. I suppose that I am darkly fascinated by it (just a little). I'd characterize 'torture' is as a religious-like idea that appears in a secular context. Perhaps the same mechanisms that evolved religions, also evolved a revulsion to torture. (And I don't know how I'd argue the truth of that notion.)

Has philosophy answered 'what is good' yet?

And what is good, Phaedrus, and what is not good - need we ask anyone to tell us these things? -- Plato

It seems hard to argue any kind of position of doing 'good' without admitting that it should be perfectly ok for someone to torture me if they perceived their needs as high enough.

Philosophy provides us with some good tools to examine ideas, but if it tells us that discussion is nonsense do we plod on anyway?

When I think about torture seriously, I think Karl Popper might lend some help in treating torture as a problem to solve. When I approach torture as a problem to be solved, it quickly becomes apparent that we must construct strawmen in order to discuss it. We throw out the fact that if some people knew we were torturing their friends or kin, they would not rest until we ourselves were dead. The "thousands of people that would be saved" is a simplistic and false argument created for easy handling of the problem, when they might not rest until the millions of us were wiped from the earth.

So in my opinion, when we look at torture as a 'solvable problem' we change what it really is in a way that simplifies the problem. We then solve the simplified problem rather than the 'real' problem. The philosophical term for this is a strawman.

I'm tempted to take a purely scientific approach to it, and gather a few politicians and torture them to see if the outcome can be made to accomplish a repeatable 'good'.

 

[Ryokan]

My view, as both a veteran and a politician, is that torture is never okay. Never.

(Kopji, please don't torture me.)

 

[ConspiRaider]

My view, as both a veteran and a politician, is that torture is never okay. Never.

(Kopji, please don't torture me.)

Very cool. Ditto for me. Well, I'm a veteran but instead of being a politician I'm a wiseass instead. But: Zero tolerance for torture.

The fact that in this country, the USA, a friggin' fictional TELEVISION SHOW CALLED "24" is used to subtly swing good Americans into a tolerant, even a favorable mindset concerning the use of torture? Appalling. Reprehensible. Not very far into the future, people will look back and shake their heads in disbelief at our callous and reckless attitudes. They'll have every right to do so. We should hang our heads in shame - ALL human societies who currently torture must feel the weight of great shame.

I can hardly comprehend that a significant portion of the American populace currently favors torture. What the hell was I in the military for? Defending what?!?

 

[Kopji]

For the record, I would hold the position that torture is not ever ok either. I cannot say that that I arrived at my viewpoint rationally though, I just hold it. I am curious about the 'why' of things sometimes, and this is one of those things.

 

[JonM1121]

I'm gonna go with: torture is always ok. If you are powerful enough to torture, then you are powerful enough to kill. In that sense, you are actually preserving life by torturing instead of killing. From the torturer's standpoint, torture is merciful.

 

[IMST]

I'm gonna go with: torture is always ok. If you are powerful enough to torture, then you are powerful enough to kill. In that sense, you are actually preserving life by torturing instead of killing. From the torturer's standpoint, torture is merciful.

Ima just hope this is a really poorly executed joke.

 

[Schneibster]

Now THAT was a properly constructed philosophical evaluation. At least as far as it went. The problem is, when the Professor talks about laws against torture that permit arguments of various sorts before courts, the point that in the case he is actually referring to no one will ever come before a court, and in fact some pretty extreme efforts have been undertaken to ensure that is the case, gets lost in the chaff.

 

[Stone Island]

Maverick Philosopher replies to Keith Burgess-Jackson.

In his usual crisp and clear manner, Burgess-Jackson sets forth elementary distinctions that one must make if one wishes to think clearly about torture or indeed about any ethical problem. After explaining the differences among conceptual, factual, and evaluative questions, he distinguishes between legality and morality. "A thing can be morally permissible but legally impermissible, just as a thing can be legally permissible but morally impermissible." This is a point worth underlining. Since Keith does not provide examples, I will give two (with which he may not agree). It is morally permissible, but legally impermissible (in many jurisdictions), to grow marijuana plants for one's own (smoking) use. It is legally permissible but morally impermissible to drink oneself into a stupor in one's own house. Having made the distinction between the law and morality one must also distinguish factual questions about what the law is from evaluative questions about what the law ought to be.

 

[Kopji]

Not to be accused of not thinking clearly, but it seems naive to think that we can approach or understand emotional issues entirely with reason and logic. If this were the case, religion would be largely eradicated by now.

 

[casebro]

But in my mind, the BIG question has to be asked- Do we gain worthwhile info from the victims?

For decades, our theory was that since victims will say anything the interrogator wants to hear, just to stop the torture, then the info is likely invalid. What has changed? The methods? The state of mind of the victims?

Or are we using the specter of torture to persuade the prisoners to talk, as much as the actual torture? Perhaps the benefits of the using torture are not so much gained by the physical acts, but by the system of torture?

And an amusing thought- when lawyers argue over property claims, isn't what they do tort-ure?

 

[Elind]

Originally Posted by Ryokan
My view, as both a veteran and a politician, is that torture is never okay. Never.

(Kopji, please don't torture me.)

Very cool. Ditto for me. Well, I'm a veteran but instead of being a politician I'm a wiseass instead. But: Zero tolerance for torture.

The fact that in this country, the USA, a friggin' fictional TELEVISION SHOW CALLED "24" is used to subtly swing good Americans into a tolerant, even a favorable mindset concerning the use of torture? Appalling. Reprehensible. Not very far into the future, people will look back and shake their heads in disbelief at our callous and reckless attitudes. They'll have every right to do so. We should hang our heads in shame - ALL human societies who currently torture must feel the weight of great shame.

I can hardly comprehend that a significant portion of the American populace currently favors torture. What the hell was I in the military for? Defending what?!?

Don't torture me either, please, but you both live in lala land because you don't even pretend to define what is torture and what the goals of something that "might" be torture are.

I think you hold your positions because it makes you feel good, and of course in the case of our wiseass, because it's cheap ammo against the US.

 

[Praktik]

I think you hold your positions because it makes you feel good, and of course in the case of our wiseass, because it's cheap ammo against the US.

I don't normally go in for woo - but either there's something about message boards that allows for a window into a far-off person's soul and hidden motivations - OR - people like to pontificate about the motivations of people they've never met as "cheap ammo" in internet message board debates.

I doubt you have the kind of evidence necessary to make such conclusions about someone's underlying motivations.

 

[Elind]

I don't normally go in for woo - but either there's something about message boards that allows for a window into a far-off person's soul and hidden motivations - OR - people like to pontificate about the motivations of people they've never met as "cheap ammo" in internet message board debates.

I doubt you have the kind of evidence necessary to make such conclusions about someone's underlying motivations.

Sounds to me like the latter is what you are doing. Personally I tend to go with what people say. Admittedly not all, including myself, always say what they mean in a manner decipherable by all, but that can always be cleared up if there is a will on both sides.

I said, in effect, that absolutist statements as expressed earlier, are from LaLa land, and have the standard allusion that torture is synonymous with either discomfort, or sadism since any attempt to acknowledge the real human condition and reality needs many many more sentences.

Then of course there is the perspective that, right or wrong, a particular statement has the potential to be simply a political swipe with little relevance to the issue at hand.

 

[ConspiRaider]

Don't torture me either, please, but you both live in lala land because you don't even pretend to define what is torture and what the goals of something that "might" be torture are.

I think you hold your positions because it makes you feel good, and of course in the case of our wiseass, because it's cheap ammo against the US.

Hey right winger -

Check out the Geneva Convention as a starting point for the definition of torture.

And never forget this: I am NOT against the USA. The official position of the United States of America is that torture is UNACCEPTABLE. Therefore if you are condoning torture, it is YOU who are against the USA. Why do you hate America?

 

[gumboot]

I am 100% opposed to physical torture. My primary reason is that torture has been proven time and time again to be ineffective. The most likely outcomes are:

1) The prisoner hardens against the abuse and does not break
or
2) The prisoner begins spouting an endless stream of information, false and otherwise, in the hope that the interrogators believe some of it and stop

It's important to note that the primary purpose of torture is to impair the prisoner's ability to track the passage of time. All information in war time is time dependent. The longer the delay in releasing the information, the less useful it is. Torture is designed to cause the prisoner to lose their sense of time, so they believe that long enough time has passed that their information is no longer useful.

There are far more effective techniques for doing this, which do not involve physical torture.

Now only another aspect. Psychological interrogation. Many psychological techniques (such as waterboarding) are now considered torture, and indeed the label "torture" is now thrown on all sorts of things done to prisoners. I do not think all of these treatments are appropriately called "torture".

There is a growing position in western society that those who experience traumatic events suffer permanent and debilitating psychological damage which is often far more severe than physical damage.

As such, psychological interrogation is often seen as worse than physical mistreatment.

The problem here, is that I don't believe traumatic events necessarily cause permanent psychological damage. So called "post traumatic stress disorder" is something that has been fabricated by our society, specifically by the way we treat victims - encouraging them to dwell on the trauma rather than encouraging them to move past it.

This is of course an entirely separate topic, and I don't wish to derail the thread, but I wanted to briefly outline why it is I am strongly opposed to physical torture, but do not consider most forms of psychological interrogation to be torture.

On a side note, I mentioned waterboarding above. When done correctly, a prisoner undergoing waterboarding believes they are drowning, however they are under no threat of bodily harm whatsoever. As such this would fall under the category of psychological interrogation as opposed to physical torture.

However, waterboarding is still a from of "hard" interrogation, and history tells us that soft psychological interrogation techniques are vastly more effective than hard techniques (either physical or psychological).

Frankly, I think the use of such techniques is a sign of a lazy intelligence agency, resorting to primitive techniques instead of expending resources developing more effective techniques.

Part of the problem is that agencies like the CIA are severly under resourced in human intelligence assets, and as such are both desperate for information, and unable to effectively sort good intelligence from bad intelligence. As such they're liable to believe everything that a prisoner tells them, and thus think that their techniques are working. The list of activities Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confessed to is a prime example. I have no doubt that he is guilty of some of those activities he confessed to. However there's also no doubt he's not guilty of some of them.

But by mixing it all together the false claims immediately bring into doubt the true claims, essentially making the entire statement worthless.

-Gumboot

ETA. Just a post script, on reflection, Water Boarding would qualify as mock execution, which is unacceptable under international law, quite independent of torture.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

The problem here, is that I don't believe traumatic events necessarily cause permanent psychological damage. So called "post traumatic stress disorder" is something that has been fabricated by our society, specifically by the way we treat victims - encouraging them to dwell on the trauma rather than encouraging them to move past it.

I'm sure all the soldiers, 9/11 survivors, first responders, and all the people who have this disorder appreciate you perpetuating the myth that PTSD is fake.

This rape victim clearly was not encouraged "to dwell on the trauma," and neither is it standard psychological practice to encourage someone to"dwell on the trauma."

“I was raped when I was 25 years old. For a long time, I spoke about the rape as though it was something that happened to someone else. I was very aware that it had happened to me, but there was just no feeling.”

“Then I started having flashbacks. They kind of came over me like a splash of water. I would be terrified. Suddenly I was reliving the rape. Every instant was startling. I wasn’t aware of anything around me, I was in a bubble, just kind of floating. And it was scary. Having a flashback can wring you out.”

“The rape happened the week before Thanksgiving, and I can’t believe the anxiety and fear I feel every year around the anniversary date. It’s as though I’ve seen a werewolf. I can’t relax, can’t sleep, don’t want to be with anyone. I wonder whether I’ll ever be free of this terrible problem.”

As PTSD sufferers often develop symptoms months, or even years after the event after having, do various degrees of success, 'put it out of their minds' and that the symptons come on usally without any external stimulus, I fail to see how your crticism holds any water.

 

[gumboot]

I'm sure all the soldiers, 9/11 survivors, first responders, and all the people who have this disorder appreciate you perpetuating the myth that PTSD is fake.

I don't think it's fake. I think it has been fabricated (created) by society. In other words it's a social construct rather than a natural biological reaction. That's not to say those experiencing PTSD are not experiencing the psychological trauma - I believe absolutely they are. But I also believe the reason they're experiencing it is because society has conditioned victims to experience it.

The reason I argue this is that the presumed cause of the first cases of PTSD - shell shock from soldiers in WWI - was incorrect. The cause was not the threat of harm, but being forced into a situation where one was expected to kill other human beings. This is carried over into psychological trauma cases in World War Two - where only those expected to personally kill fellow humans suffered rises in psychological trauma (WW2 is especially valuable due to the large exposure of non combatants to extremely traumatic experiences). It's finally played out in Vietnam where combatants were almost five times more likely to have killed an enemy, with a resulting psychological trauma rate that reflected that.

-Gumboot