Point/Counterpoints on the Morality of Torture

Point: The "enhanced interrogation techniques" used by the U.S. in the wake of 9/11 on al-Qaeda prisoners — waterboarding and others — were forms of torture, and as such were absolutely wrong, morally speaking.

Counterpoint 1: The EITs used by this country on al-Qaeda terrorists were morally justified by the fact that they, in the words of former Vice President Cheney, "were legal, essential, justified, successful and the right thing to do . . . They prevented the violent death of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of people."

My response: Mr. Cheney does not sufficiently address the question of whether the EITs were absolutely wrong, in a moral sense. By "absolutely wrong" I suggest that torture of enemy prisoners can never be morally justified. Many things which are normally considered immoral can be justified if other moral concerns "trump" them. But torture, like murder, is absolutely wrong, and cannot be justified by other, non-morally absolute concerns that might be said to trump the moral proscription against torture.

For example, if a hypothetical American president says he has a duty to use torture to show an enemy how resolute we are, that would be a specious argument, since showing an enemy how tough we are is not an absolute moral necessity.

It is not at all clear from his words that Mr. Cheney would abjure such an argument.

Counterpoint 2: The EITs were not "torture," and as such were not morally wrong in any absolute sense.

My response: This is a tough one. Defenders of the EITs have made the legal point that international laws prohibiting the torture of wartime prisoners — the Geneva Conventions, etc. — were not violated by use of these particular techniques. Additionally, the point has been made that the Geneva Conventions, along with relevant anti-torture resolutions of the United Nations, do not anticipate the kind of conflict which the "war on terrorism" actually is, and so don't apply to this situation.

But these are legal considerations, not moral ones. In moral terms, arguing that waterboarding is not a form of torture is like arguing that abortion is not a form of murder.

Judging by the unabated intensity of the argument over abortion, the latter position remains a controversial one. Well-intentioned people line up on both sides of the argument.

The same is true of the present argument as to whether waterboarding is torture. I don't claim to be able to settle this particular discussion.

Counterpoint 3: The point made at the outset of this post is correct. Waterboarding is torture, and torture (like murder) is absolutely wrong ...

... but ...

... the EITs prevented murder from being done. They, as Mr. Cheney says in his speech, "were used on hardened terrorists after other efforts failed," and they successfully elicited from our al-Qaeda prisoners information that "prevented the violent death of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of people."

My response: This counterpoint, it seems to me, is the best moral argument in favor of the use of EITs. Here we have the case of a conflict between two moral absolutes. If murder is absolutely evil, per our moral beliefs, surely the prevention of murder is an absolute good, especially when the number of people kept safe is large — but even when the number is small.

Counterpoint 4: Torture is not absolutely wrong in the first place. It is not like murder, which is prohibited by one of the Ten Commandments.

My response: If torture is absolutely wrong, it is so because it is a clear violation of basic human dignity.

Now, I admit that certain violations of human dignity have been tolerated historically. Slavery is a case in point. Down through history and, sadly, in some cultures even today slavery has been accepted. Yet, equally clearly, history is on the side of those who oppose slavery as an absolute affront to human dignity.

The lesson here is that things that are absolutely immoral do have a historical component which, looked at all by itself, seems to say that the moral principle is a relative one, not an absolute.

But how many of us in the U.S. today would treat opposition to slavery as a relative good?

Likewise, I would say, opposition to the torture of prisoners is now emerging from the shadows of history as an absolute good. Thus, I would say this counterpoint is a specious argument. We in this country can now generally agree, I believe, that torture is absolutely wrong.

Still and all, I think the third counterpoint listed above does carry moral weight. When torture (an absolute evil) serves to prevent murder (another absolute evil), it can be justified.