Institutionalization Of Torture

In this essay I 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. Reasons for torture can include punishment, revenge, political re-education, deterrence, interrogation or coercion of the victim or a third party, or simply the sadistic gratification of those carrying out or observing the torture. In this paper I will argue that torture is not morally justified; torture ought not to be legalized or otherwise institutionalized even in the ticking time bomb scenario because the rights of the innocent …show more content…
Waldron reflects the means of giving up liberty to gain more security through torture by questioning the effectiveness, distribution of burdens and priority of liberty. Torture is not an effective method simply because the information gathered from interrogational torture is very likely to be unreliable. Accepting a restriction on liberty in order to enhance collective security often targets minorities. Perhaps some liberty is lost and some security is gained, but the person who gains security is not the person who lost their liberty. Members of a minority are detained without trial, spied upon or humiliated during an interrogation to make the majority feel more secure. A recent example would be the case of Ahmed Mohammad, a 14 year old boy who was humiliated for bringing a homemade clock to school to impress his teacher, but instead got arrested and interrogated by police because the clock looked like a “bomb”. The real reason why Ahmed was targeted is simply because he is a Muslim, a minority in Texas. This is troubling because rights are supposed to be guarantees given to individuals and minorities; rights are supposed to restrict trade-offs, not be traded off …show more content…
Henry Shue argues that idealization in the ticking time bomb scenario eliminates reality, such that you do not know what the person knows, about what you are wanting to get out of them. The ticking time bomb justification assumes that the person will hold out during the torture, will not lie to stop the torturing, and will be effective in the short time being. The ticking time bomb scenario abstracts how torturers become. Torturers need to use effective means; a bureaucracy needs to be created for training. The realistic problem with the legalization of torture for terrorists is that there are 2 types of guys that exist. The low level men who may not know the big plans but can be broken easily and the high level men who have been trained to resist torture, they may break eventually but the information given is not going to be worthwhile. The legalization of torture will result in the events that occurred in Abu