Philosophers are particularly good at untangling unclear concepts; they are experienced at the task of formulating problems clearly and logically; they are ready to unmask the hidden presuppositions underlying a particular formulation. This is the kind of work Wittgenstein describes as "letting the fly out of the fly bottle"; it is what J. L. Austin does so well in "Three Ways of Spilling Ink." Drawing distinctions and formulating ideas clearly — these are core intellectual tools, and they lie at the root of philosophy Understanding Society.
Everyone would agree that torture is deplorable, perhaps the most abominable in human behavior. Are there circumstances, however, under which it might be justifiable or permissible?
That’s one important question which seems to exercise the finest minds of late, both on the national stage and our little microcosm here on BC. A further-reaching question perhaps, though rarely if ever asked, might be put thus: Do the very same acts, which under normal circumstances would undoubtedly constitute “torture,” deserve this most abhorrent of epithets when performed under circumstances or conditions that are, by anyone’s estimation, unusual?
Consider the following, rather astute observation to serve as our point of departure:
"If we look at torture in civilian life we never see cases where torture is employed to elicit information. Torture is employed for personal amusement by twisted personalities."
In a sense, the aforementioned remark hits the nail on the head. It comes awfully close to what Wittgenstein called a “grammatical remark,” a remark whose express purpose was to elucidate the key concept (torture). In the first part, we learn that under normal circumstances, (civilian life), torture rarely has anything to do with eliciting information; in the second, that it’s associated most often with “twisted personalities.”
The notion of cruelty that comes to mind first and foremost, is intentional cruelty, cruelty to animals being one example. The act seems to serve no discernible purpose other than to satisfy one’s sadistic impulses and feed the crazed personality. That’s the core of the concept as far as I’m concerned: the association of torture with cruelty and the connotation of the term, only confirms that. Torture is a taboo – more of a taboo perhaps, than incest, rape, even murder.
It would seem convenient, therefore, to leave matters at that, arguing that’s the purpose behind the strongest possible language and its highly evocative quality: namely, to guard against any and all instances or incidences of torture under “normal” circumstances.
But this cannot be the truth or the whole truth, since it would mean a near-total misuse of an otherwise perfectly functional moral language: for it’s not morality or moral rebuke that are likely to be effective in preventing someone from pursuing their perverted inclinations to acts of cruelty and the like, but therapy, or lock & key . All of which seems to suggest that the intentionally strong language associated with such terms as cruelty or torture is designed with an entirely different purpose in mind; to deal with extraordinary cases.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Jeannie Danna
The danger with torture sanctioned by the government is that once this line is crossed where does it end? Can they water-board, pull out fingernails one by one with a pair of pliers or maybe implant electrodes into your brain to make you talk ? Torture, enhanced or otherwise, is never justified period!
2 - Maurice
Roger,
it is always fun to read your posts! I can tell you spend a lot of time on them and I enjoy your use of language.
I have commented on this topic before and my point was that some would consider being forced to listen to Mariah Carey torture. I torture myself regularly by listening to NPR. I do disagree with your statement that torture implies that the torturer enjoys it. That is like saying the gynocologist is a pervert! It is his job to look up hoohoo's and that is what he is trained to do.
If we know we have a person that clearly has information about am impending attack then I think it is fine for trained professionals to do their job and extract that information.
BTW you have a typo on page 3 (lieswhen).
3 - roger nowosielski
Thanks, Maurice. Hopefully Clavos will correct it. Also, the first two paragraphs are part of a citation, and I'm not quite certain whether the formatting indicates that with sufficient clarity.
First off, it's a thought-experiment of sorts. And secondly, it would be impossible to examine all possible cases, so I focused on what I thought was a fairly standard "definition."
You're right, perhaps, in that "enjoyment" may not always be part of the picture - did I say it or imply it somewhere (and where)?
It's a touchy issue? Does a sadist enjoy inflicting pain?
Perhaps you can help me here.
4 - Mar k
Here's another's thought experiment that will serve as my comment.
5 - Bliffle
"If we know we have a person that clearly has information about am impending attack then I think it is fine for trained professionals to do their job and extract that information."
I have three objections to this statement:
1-how do we CLEARLY KNOW that a person has this knowledge? So far, I have not seen evidence that this has ever happened. Our human judgements are so often wrong that I think this antecedent is invalid. Witnesses in murder cases have positively identified someone as a murderer, only to be proven wrong, hopefully before the guy gets the chair.
2-"trained professionals" is also faulty. How do we know someone is a trained professional? Do we have a Civil Service test for torture? Do we have Civil Service pay grades for torturers at various levels of proficiency?
History indicates that tortures are most often performed by rank amateurs who just want to get their jollies. Witness Abu Graib, where EVERYONE says that the tortures were done by low level idiots.
3-how can you trust any info gained from torture? The obvious countermeasure of the enemy is to mislead the prisoner aforehand with bogosity that will lead any torturer astray.
6 - Maurice
The notion of cruelty that comes to mind first and foremost, is intentional cruelty, cruelty to animals being one example. The act seems to serve no discernible purpose other than to satisfy one’s sadistic impulses and feed the crazed personality. That’s the core of the concept as far as I’m concerned: the association of torture with cruelty and the connotation of the term, only confirms that."
The quote above more than implies your belief that the torturer enjoys torturing. I have to agree with your point about it being a touchy issue.
My question is always when does torture becomes torture. For example I love Lee Ritenour but some people would consider it torture to have to listen to hours and hours of excellent jazz guitar playing. Some people love to go to church. That to me would be the most exquisite form of torture.
Is it torture if the body is unharmed but the mind is uncomfortable?
7 - Clavos
Is it torture if the body is unharmed but the mind is uncomfortable?
That could well be a description of some of the most effective torture, Maurice.
8 - Dr Dreadful
Maurice,
For an act to be torture there has to be the deliberate intent to inflict pain. Listening to jazz guitar (or Kenny G*), sitting through the interminable drone of a preacher's sermon or watching a World Cup match between Ukraine and Bulgaria may be unbearably tedious for some, but any torture involved is self-inflicted. You can always walk out.
(Good to see you back, BTW. How are your boys doing?)
* I just thought we hadn't heard from the man's assistant in a while. Time to draw him out of the woodwind... er, woodwork, methinks.
9 - Clavos
Trying to concoct a new kind of torture, Doc?
10 - Dr Dreadful
No, I think Kenny G is quite capable of doing that on his own...
;-)
11 - Cindy
Your argument is flawed. People call child molesters sick and twisted. They say the same thing about serial killers, spouse-beaters, rapists. What is that language defending or protecting against? That there is no equivalent to 'interrogation purposes' for you to fit into your puzzle is a meaningless red herring. It's merely an extra condition that doesn't apply. However I could use rape and do the same thing.
Historically, males in war would rape the women of their enemy to defile their enemy's 'property' and cause ego damage.
Does this mean that when people refer to a rapist as sick and twisted the language is being used to prevent this historical even from recurring?
The language of your torture scheme does not have to have developed in any different way than the language against any other abhorrent acts. In fact it's more likely it developed the same way--as description not protection.
12 - Cindy
On another note, if torture needs a new word according to how is used, then you need to name it something that takes into account that it is not a means of extracting information to any reasonable person. It is a justified act of sadism. Name it accordingly.
To discuss the ticking time bomb and the other scenario there as if they are accepted, discredits, imo. By using those scenarios and not even presenting the counter-arguments, you are accepting the dictates of authority for no other reason than it is authority.
13 - roger nowosielski
Cindy, #12:
Let's change it a bit. Say the police intercepted one of the kindnappers of your baby daughter or a loved one (while the rest of the team is unaware of the fact yet).
So my question is - what measure(s) you'd deem justifiable in order to learn about the overall plan, the whereabouts of where they're to meet, the location where the victim would be held, etc. etc?
14 - roger nowosielski
Maurice, #6:
I'm not certain whether identification of CERTAIN cases of torture as springing from sadistic impulses necessarily carried the implication of enjoyment. The statement was meant as nothing more than to provide such an identification (again, only of certain kind of cases) without delving into "the enjoyment" part. At least I didn't mean to.
I suppose much turns here on whether the sadist enjoys what they're doing to another and whether "enjoyment" is the right term. I'd tend to think there is a certain high (or a thrill, if you like); and that might go for the masochist as well. However, even here we must be careful I think not to over-generalize.
BTW, I think that Doc's got it right in #8 when he speaks of "deliberate intent to inflict pain." Which is one reason why I, too, spoke of "intentional cruelty" rather than just cruelty (as when perhaps we're doing it to another, say a loved one, inadvertently): a rather weak case, I admit, for "inadvertent cruelty" but still, a distinction has got to be made.
Which raised another interesting set of points:
1) to what extent is the sadist acting deliberately (freely, intentionally, and with full awareness - I presume "aspects of a fully-deliberate action - if he's acting out of the depths of his dark and unexamined personality?
2) "the deliberate intent to inflict pain" - when taken at its fully intended meaning -would therefore seem more clearly applicable to cases in which there is an underlying purposed (extracting information being one such reason and purpose). Which, again, seems to place the sadist example in a kind of nether region in that the sadist's acts serve no discernible purpose (unless we choose to extent the definition of "purpose" to include irrational acts and/or satisfying perverted drives.)
15 - roger nowosielski
Mark, #4:
It's not what I think it is, is it, Mark?
Interesting how the theme changes depending on whether you're looking at it from afar or close-up. And then I looked at the title, and it was confirmed,
16 - Ruvy
Roger,
Reading these interminable articles on torture is torture for me. It's not brutality, of course - or even bestiality. These articles are more like chthonic creatures that appear, do their harm, and go away after 5.000 meaningless comments.
17 - roger nowosielski
Well, Ruvy. This one had a conceptual slant rather than arguing on the basis of sheer emotions. If you don't appreciate what I was trying to do here, it just shows we have way different mindsets. Which ain't bad.
It's good the world is made up of all kinds of people. Variety is a spice of life, as they say.
18 - Jeannie Danna
(It's good the world is made up of all kinds of people. Variety is a spice of life, as they say.) I agree!...:)
19 - Andy Marsh
You do have a way with words Roger! I read your article and I can't tell if you're for EIT's or against them. I did enjoy reading it though. You have a way of increasing my vocabulary! Dictionary.com probably loves all the extra hits!
My feeling on it all is like this. I'm pretty sure most of you have seen the old Dirty Harry movies. There's a scene in one of them when Harry's chased down the Zodiac killer and shot him in the leg. He's trying to find out where a little girl is that this creep has abducted and Harry steps on his leg right at the bullet hole until the creep gives up the info.
I remember cheering for Harry the first time I saw this scene.
It had to be torture, didn't it? Did Harry enjoy it? Probably! Was it necessary? Apparently not, the girl was already dead when they found her. But Harry didn't know that at the time. Was it justified? You may not think so, but I sure do!
Would I have done the same thing in the same situation? Hell yeah! And if it was one of my daughters it would've been worse!
It's easy to throw down the moral gauntlet and say torture is never justified. I say you'd sing a different tune if they were waterboarding someone that had a loved one of yours held prisoner some where, or was getting ready to blow up your family and friends.
I think it's also much easier to look back 8 years and say, did we really need to do that?
And I like the line in comment #1 - "Torture enhanced or otherwise." What's enhanced torture? Do they waterboard you with Perrier?
20 - Cindy
...what measure(s) you'd deem justifiable in order to learn about the overall plan, the whereabouts of where they're to meet, the location where the victim would be held, etc. etc?
The ones that are most likely to work. I've looked at the evidence. It suggests that non-torture methods reveal more valid information. It suggests that torturing people can lead to erroneous information and waste vital time. In fact erroneous torture information, is one of the justifications that was used to start the war in Iraq. I am not sure how much worse a result one could get as far as information obtained and put to use. That's sort of my point after all, when I say the only people who think torture could work to provide intelligence are the ones who go by the opinion of authority without looking at any further evidence.
In your parlance, I would say your opinion is based on emotion not reason. In my parlance I would say that your opinion is based on indoctrinated attitudes of culture which make you unlikely to look for any other evidence beyond what 'appears' reasonable to you based on what you were trained to expect as reasonable. That is, it just makes sense, it seems so evident, so you don't question it.
The problem is, when you begin looking more closely at things that 'just seem to make sense' you discover that much is not what you would intuitively expect it to be if your intuition has developed as a part of a social construct.
No one voice can ever have all the truth there is or all the perspectives. The culture consists of many voices--each with a view, each with information the others might not see, the dominant culture is nothing more than one of these voices which has co-opted all the media of communication. It's one view is propagated like this.
I don't know what to say to people who are intelligent yet don't automatically hold it suspect and question its tenets. I am not sure what good self-examination is or does if we are only examining illusions and reorganizing them. Self-examination requires challenging ideas that we accept as givens. It requires that we fight and struggle to see if we developed these ideas on our own or we just believe them because we have been exposed to a constant repeated exposure 24/7 all our lives from the time we can look around.
21 - roger nowosielski
Cindy,
Before digesting the whole of your long comment, let me say it outright: this piece is through-and-through experimental - again, a thought-experiment as I said it up the thread. Don't you see the clues?
I believe I stated within the article that "torture is never reasonable." And there I followed it with a conditional: "If doing X, Y, or Z to somewhat IS reasonable, then it cannot be torture."
All along, besides, I was speaking of "linguistic incongruity." And for as long as there exist this incongruity, something is wrong and fishy.
So not only were my conclusions posted in terms of the conditional (or the hypothetical, if you like). At the very end, I admit that the incongruity has not been resolved. And that's our language telling us something is wrong. (The moral of the article.)
As to your other major point - "eliciting information" - you're probably right. In fact, the precedent used by the U.S. to resort to EITs is taken from the playbook of the Chinese interrogators during the Korean conflict - and the purpose was not to elicit information (for it's doubtful whether those who were kept in the captivity as POWs had any such) but rather for the express purpose of having the Americans go on radio and TV and denounce their country for propaganda purposes. And they were successful to that extent. In fact, I believe I'm correct that right after the Korean conflict, we issued UCMJ - as to what a POW may rightly disclose, to prevent any such from happening in the future. And I do agree that if eliciting information is the object of the interrogation, than there surely are more reliable methods than resorting to torture.
A good line from Elizabeth (with Cate Blanchett) - You can get anyone to say anything under torture.
So anyway, my main object was trying to get at the logic of the term, to flesh it out to the extent possible
22 - roger nowosielski
Andy, #19.
Have just seen your comment and thank you. First, I was trying to examine the concept, bring it into the open. And you're right. So much depends on the right kind of example. The Dirty Harry movie may well be one. I'll have to rethink it.
23 - Doug Hunter
I think the historical baggage associated with the word torture makes it difficult to assess it's use in modern society. Torture once meant inserting a blunt pole in your anus and standing you up to slowly slide down as you died over a period of days while frightened villagers looked on and promised to do anything the government asked if they wouldn't receive the same fate. That or slowly pulling your intestines out and letting insects/animals feed on them until you died in septic shock of your own filth. Or drawing and quartering, the rack, the wheel, the keep, scaphism, etc. (thank God for the French invention of the merciful quillotine)
By comparison, what we do today is child's play. Clearly there are multiple levels of torture. Some, like confinement in prison, have been accepted as a necessary evil. Others, like anal impalement, have been roundly condemned. Is there anything in the middle to argue over? I don't think it's unreasonable to assume so.
I personally don't think there are enough realistic scenarios where using controversial techniques might produce something positive to warrant the harm of having them sanctioned. We're the good guys, remember. We either treat them with dignity and respect or blow the hell out of them at a safe distance.
24 - roger nowosielski
Doug,
"I personally don't think there are enough realistic scenarios where using controversial techniques might produce something positive to warrant the harm of having them sanctioned."
Great point. It all turns on being to come up with a credible example. Andy (see above) brought up an episode from "The Dirty Harry." If you've seen the two latest James Bond flicks, Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, there are also possibly credible episodes.
By and large, however, if eliciting information is the object, then I'm certain there are more effective methods than torture. And as I speak of the Chinese interrogators during the Korean conflict, see above, the object was different.
25 - roger nowosielski
Here's one example of "other than torture" means from Tom Clancy's novel, and I quote:
A scene from "The Cardinal of the Kremlin," by Tom Clancy, comes to mind. It's a new KGB, more humane, above such methods of extracting information as torture, waterboarding, and whatnot. Sensory deprivation is the latest thing. They put you in a tank for a day or two, and you're floating. No sense of gravity to tell which side is up or down, no bodily movements to orient yourself by. You're in total darkness, deprived besides of all sound except perhaps the beating of your own heart; and after a while, even of that you're not certain. Yet your mind keeps on racing as never before and your imagination is at its most active, craving for input, any input, but none is forthcoming. You experience nothing except your own disembodied self. Soon enough, even this you begin to doubt. Am I dead or alive, in heaven or in hell? Any sensation, even excruciating pain, would be better, infinitely better and more welcome, than the state you're in. And so it was with Svetlana:
"She was lying on a gurney when he got there, the wetsuit already taken off. He sat beside the unconscious form and held her hand as the technician jabbed her with a mild stimulant. She was a pretty one, the doctor thought as her breathing picked up. He waved the technician out of the room, leaving the two of them alone.
"Hello, Svetlana," he said in his gentlest voice. The blue eyes opened, saw the lights on the ceiling, and the walls. Then her head turned toward him.
He knew he was indulging himself, but he'd worked long into the night and the next day on this case, and this was probably the most important application of his program to date. The naked woman leaped off the table into his arms and nearly strangled him with a hug. It wasn't particularly because he was good-looking, the doctor knew, just that he was a human being, and she wanted to touch one. Her body was still slick with oil as her tears fell on his white laboratory coat. She would never commit another crime against the State, not after this. It was too bad that she'd have to go to a labor camp. Such a waste, he thought as he examined her. Perhaps he could do something about that. After ten minutes, she was sedated again, and he left her asleep." As I Lay Dying.