Essay On Duty To Torture

To torture or not to torture, that is the question. Should we torture a prisoner who does some heinous crime, or should we not torture and find some other means to get the information we need, or as punishment for the crime. This is a pertinent question, especially with the current course cases attempting to forbid execution, on the grounds that it is torture. When one begins to consider this question philosophically, four views come to mind, which are: utilitarianism, Christian-principle based ethics, Kantian duty-based ethics, and virtue ethics.
For the utilitarianist, they see ethics as providing the maximum good for the most people. In other words, if I have a person who is threatening an attack on civilians, and he is refusing to talk about the plan, I have several options. The first being, I could …show more content…
In this view, one must hold that they have a duty to do good. In other words, “Nor is it enough to act just in accordance with duty; we must act out of regard for duty and respect for moral law.” So in the view of the prisoner, we can torture or not torture. So we must ask “is it our duty to torture, and does torture respect for moral law?” It could possibly be our duty to torture, only if it is advocated by moral law. Now what is moral law? Moral law is designated from moral principles, which are held universal. These principles are derived from natural law. Natural law is the rational laws which govern the universe. Now where is natural law derived from? One can claim from God, since the Bible in the very least can be called a book of morals. In which all persons are held equal before the law and treated as such, and with dignity as being humans. For one person to be tortured all people of the same crime must be tortured. Also, during the torture one must not strip man of his dignity, thereby, the Kantian would not torture and seek a different solution as the Christian-principle based ethicist