On Torture

Anyone who chooses to support torture is on the horns of Plato's dilemma: to paraphrase,

Are we good people because we do good things? Or do we do good things because we are good people?

If we choose the latter, I'm afraid it's all too easy to justify actions because of our "goodness". When it's pointed out that waterboarding is a technique used by the Spanish Inquisition and the Khmer Rouge (and a technique used primarily to elicit false confessions) torture supporters, like Mark Thiessen, become enraged: when they did it it was bad; When we do it, it's good, or at least morally neutral, because our motives are pure, and our enemies are so evil. Or they try to point out trivial differences: we didn't tie our victims down with wire, but used less "painful" restraints. I find it difficult to conceive of a more morally incoherent position. Their arguments reduce to "We're Americans. We're special."

One could be tempted to use the principle of double effect to justify torture, as Aquinas did in justifying murder in self defense. Motives are important, and it's tempting to justify torture in terms of protecting us and our loved ones, our country. But the action of torture cannot be morally neutral. The intent of torture is to inflict pain and suffering on someone totally under out control. It cannot be merely a by-product or side effect of actions taken for honorable purposes; and the Catholic Church, I think, has it right: torture is morally abhorrent in all circumstances. One does wish, though, that the church was a bit more forthright about their actions in the past, some of which involved the torture and murder of some of my wife's ancestors in the Albigensian Crusades.

I think Thiessen is a tribalist; which is to say that he is a type of relativist who believes that moral law allows us to treat those not of our tribe differently. He is not alone. I have heard a particular priest creep very close to that position in a number of sermons not long after 9/11 (but not recently; I fancy he feels differently now...).

There's also the problem of the innocent. Torture supporters seem unable to admit that many of those we tortured were not terrorists at all, but people who ended up in our custody for any number of reasons, from tribal rivalries and treachery to the payment of bounties, always a source of corruption. How does one possibly justify the torture of innocents?

Nietsche was right: "Avoid people who have a strong impulse to punish."