Glenden BrownMaking Torture Moral
I hate the way the so-called War On Terror has been twisted to make morally repugnant acts like torture acceptable.
Rather than argue that torture is a moral good, supporters of torture have argued it is a regrettable moral necessity.
The argument goes like this:
Terrorists do bad things. Doing bad things proves they are bad men. Bad men who do bad things are by definition not reasonable. We want to keep bad men from doing bad things. We can’t negotiate with bad men since they are reasonable and since they are bad. Therefore we are left with one option: We have to torture them so we can get information to keep them (and their associates) from doing bad things. Since they are “bad” men are probably deserve to be tortured anyway. There’s a second layer here which assumes since terrorists are “bad men” they have probably done bad things so even if we have in jail in trumped up, false, wrong or invented charges or for no reason at all they probably deserve to be there since, being bad men, they have surely done other bad things. So torture is not a good thing, but it is a regrettably moral response to a regrettable situation forced on us by these “bad men”.
Psychologists calls this a “dispositional” argument. It holds that some people possess a bad disposition - that they are by nature flawed, evil, bad, wrong. They would do bad things no matter what since that is their nature. An alternative theory holds that people are equally capable of good or evil acts depending on the social and systemic forces at work in their lives. In this approach, a person is neither wholly good or wholly evil; he/she is shaped by influences of peers, family, friends. This systems analysis sees people as existing within a context that is capable of producing good or evil acts. It’s a difficult argument to accept because none of us really wants to admit we have the potential for evil inside us.
The “bad men” argument appeals because it says that we are good people who don’t do bad things. We see ourselves as “good” people doing “good” things. If we have to do unfortunate things (i.e. torture or make sure prisoners get someplace some one will torture them), those acts have been forced on us by the bad guys. In Joss Whedon’s Serenity, the Agent is a perfect example of someone who does bad things in the name of good.
It is seductive, misleading and ultimately, has allowed Americans to accept and encourage manifestly immoral acts done in our names.
March 23rd, 2008 at 9:45 pm
It all means nothing until you lose. Once your enemies have breached you, then whatever you have done, no matter the reason…makes you the bad guy. Don’t fall from the top, there is no righteous people, there are those that win and write their way into a righteous future.
Imagine the written history after the Soviets win a decisive victory over us, or perhaps the Chinese, or think of any of our enemies doing so.
Had we lost the Revolution all of our heroes would exist as named cowardly traitors…, their hang-mans graves languishing under the union jack.
March 24th, 2008 at 12:15 am
The terrifying thing about America today is that hypocrites and liars are deciding who the “bad people” are and they throw a huge net, ALWAYS around people who can’t fight back, to encompass their political enemies. A congresswoman even exclaimed very recently that homosexuals are worse then terrorists and refuses to recant.
Jester/glenn is right that the victors write the history, but it’s horrifying that our current leaders have given the writers of that history an easy task of demonizing us all. Thank Goodness for the artists, writers, protesters ect. that will either defeat the real “evildoers” or at least water down the negative history of this time. There are many thousands that have sacrificed and are invisible to the vast majority of Americans.
March 24th, 2008 at 7:32 am
Thanks for bring in Joss Whedon, however the name of the character you refer to in “Serenity” (aka the Big Damn Movie) was The Operative, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor. Not that this takes away from the argument you are making, I just wanted to make sure that sacred writ is being cited properly :-)
March 24th, 2008 at 8:11 am
Richard - You’re right! I started to type “The Operative” and it didn’t look right so I changed it. I of course had the movie sitting next to me and could have popped it into the computer and checked but that would be too easy!
March 24th, 2008 at 8:34 am
Larry the leaders don’t demonize people, nor compel others to write about whose fault things are, the rest of the world does that. As is Germany, the shame was passed to all no matter their stance against nazism. It didn’t matter, the fact that they didn’t stop it is all that did. Well, trying to stop nazis would get you in the camps, and very likely shot, no matter who you were.
Compare this to American citizens against bush, where the consequences of being against what has happened is not nearly as permanent, and you get a portrait of a pathetic ineffectual domestic population that merely whined while the bombs fell.
It will be no surprise then that the world will blame and hate all Americans for their hapless ineffective arrogance. You can sure on this subject, I know what I am talking about.
March 24th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
If we have someone at Gitmo and we need to get information now, I dont see the problem. They would do it to us in a second.
March 25th, 2008 at 12:54 am
Ben:
If you want to get lots of good information from people, you have to make them sympathetic to your side. That takes longer then a second. The reason we’re stuck in this stupid war is because we tortured somebody and got false information about WMD.