Torture has been the focus of ethical debate for quite some time. Many people have very different, opposing thoughts on whether it is alright to torture somebody or not. Whether it be torturing for information to save lives or punishment, the morals of have been discussed. Two schools of thought with differing views would be Human Rights advocates and the Consequentialists. A Human Rights advocate would suggest that torture is a cruel, unreliable method for retrieving information while a Consequentialist would likely believe torture to be acceptable if it benefits more people than it harms. In this paper the opinion of torture from Human Rights advocates and Consequentialists will be explored. Before one can discuss the ethics of torture
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The difficulty with this way of thinking is that nobody can really say who determines what a human right actually is since they definitely differ from culture to culture. The rights of a human being in North Korea will definitely differ from the rights of a person in America. Countries like America have had legislature like the Constitution prohibiting torture since the dawn of it’s creation while other countries are just now adding such legislature or outright don’t think about it. Another catch is that the Constitution really only protects citizens of the US from being tortured and not foreigners. Human Rights advocates might then look to documents like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article five of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.” It’s documents like these that have helped make it so that various people from POWs to civilians aren’t tortured. There have been many other documents such as the United Nations Convention Against Torture. These papers give the Human Rights advocates a strong leg to stand on. A Consequentialist might turn around and say that adhering to these documents is morally wrong since in the eyes of anyone going by act utilitarianism or evaluating consequences would see it as something that is preventing good from happening. They would think this because they see torture as a means to bringing about more good, even if it’s just a possibility of bringing about more good because to them that would still be morally right. Another thing that a Consequentialist might say is that they could torture a man just once and that after that they’ll never, ever do it again. This could be argued by saying that if it happens once and the government thinks it’s alright that it will happen again and again.
The difficulty with this way of thinking is that nobody can really say who determines what a human right actually is since they definitely differ from culture to culture. The rights of a human being in North Korea will definitely differ from the rights of a person in America. Countries like America have had legislature like the Constitution prohibiting torture since the dawn of it’s creation while other countries are just now adding such legislature or outright don’t think about it. Another catch is that the Constitution really only protects citizens of the US from being tortured and not foreigners. Human Rights advocates might then look to documents like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article five of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.” It’s documents like these that have helped make it so that various people from POWs to civilians aren’t tortured. There have been many other documents such as the United Nations Convention Against Torture. These papers give the Human Rights advocates a strong leg to stand on. A Consequentialist might turn around and say that adhering to these documents is morally wrong since in the eyes of anyone going by act utilitarianism or evaluating consequences would see it as something that is preventing good from happening. They would think this because they see torture as a means to bringing about more good, even if it’s just a possibility of bringing about more good because to them that would still be morally right. Another thing that a Consequentialist might say is that they could torture a man just once and that after that they’ll never, ever do it again. This could be argued by saying that if it happens once and the government thinks it’s alright that it will happen again and again.