The essentially good Dr. David Weinberger seeks a middle ground around torture:
I am willing to admit that there are circumstances in which torture is permissible, just as I think sometimes we have to kill people. And I'm willing to admit that what we apparently put the Abu Ghraib prisoners through wasn't nearly as bad as the torture that's routine in many other countries.That compromise is the rationale for the School of the Americas. I'm afraid that there are some matters that brook no compromise.
First, I understand that you're citing what you disagree with, but remember that I only uncomfortably suggest we admit to the lines you quote in hopes of extracting a commitment against the policy of torture from those who are minimizing the significance of the recent revelations.
Second, Frank, are you a pacifist? I used to be until I got tired of defending the position against hypotheticals. I came to believe that there are occasions - rare - when it's morally ok and even necessary to kill people. I'm still anti-war, anti-capital punishment, etc., and even sometimes identify myself as a pacifist since I don't believe there's ANY position that can be held to 100% of the time. And that's how I feel about torture. Of course I'm against it and would work for a total ban on it. Allowing it is a terrible terrible policy on moral and practical grounds. Nevertheless, I stick with what I said: I can imagine circumstances in which I'd be willing to beat information out of someone.
Why isn't this completely self-contradictory? Because policies are different than actions. A country that accepts torture as a policy has given up its claim to be moral. But in a world this complex, there are circumstances in which policy has to come second, IMO. Admitting that might help us get past the objections of those who are minimizing the torture of Iraqi soldiers.
Posted by: David Weinberger | May 08, 2004 at 08:11 AM
Torture, abuse and killing are often a slippery slope. Who decides which rare occasions make it morally okay, the Weinbergers of the world or the Limbaughs? What safeguards can you possibly install that prevent the slide in the direction of lower standards of what is rare. One common problem in establishing such standards is that they are often undermined by simply changing definitions. We have many policies in the United States that have some negative consequences, Miranda warnings come to mind, but we keep them because the benefits outweigh the negatives. Likewise, I think the benefits of no torture, abuse, and killing outweigh the negatives. The policy against torture that has exceptions, circumstances in which the policy is abandoned is not the actual policy at all. The actual policy is not against torture, but against torture in certain circumstances. Defining a policy and following it with a list of exceptions is simply a ruse to have it both ways.
Posted by: Norm Jenson | May 08, 2004 at 11:18 AM
I don't think there are ever instances where torture can be permissable -- and it has nothing to do with slopes, slippery or not, as they aren't the point -- just as I don't think there are ever any situations where premeditated hitting of one's child is permissable. If someone hits their child in a moment of crisis -- a slap -- it can *almost* be excused, but I could never excuse or condone or watch or enable a parent who plots the abuse of their child or who prolongs a moment of lost self-control by turning a slap into a beating. Even to the "mere" slapper, I'd say, "get help." As for the beater, I'd say, "go to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200. Turn yourself in, now."
For me, this is a crucial parameter for defining torture, too: it's premeditated, it's planned, it's malice aforethought. I disagree that anything of that nature could ever be permitted. Torture does not presuppose an immediate purpose (say, squeezing information out of someone that allows you then to save the life of someone you know). Torture is a perverse mediation wherein the tortured person stands in for a mediated satisfaction experienced by the torturer. That holds for the child abuser, and it holds for the "institutionally authorised" torturer. Neither cares about the object (the child, the tortured individual), they care only about their own mediated satisfaction.
I too read David's entry and just shook my head, although I didn't comment there. I don't know if he'll read my comment here or not. I didn't comment on his blog because he has an especially wrong-headed and persistent commentor hogging his board who has taken it upon himself to attack anyone who disagrees with him, and I just can't deal with people like that anymore. I mean, where do you start?
It seems we're going to hell in a handbasket. Even Philip Greenspun's sovereignty appears sorely tried these days as he has just suggested in his inimitably snippy way that the AIDS virus is the revenge of the apes on us humans. If Mr. Sovereignty throws up his hands to imply that perhaps it's a case of the best animal winning, maybe we humans really do have each other by the short hairs -- and unless we let go, this is really going to hurt.
Posted by: Yule Heibel | May 08, 2004 at 11:42 PM
I think Norm and Yule have shut down further comment on this one, Frank. I wholeheartedly agree with and support their views and hope they post them to their blogs. What's next? Permissible murder? It doesn't take a philosopher, theologian or international jurist to see the contradiction in that one. Damn it! I didn't realise David had already made provision for it. David, some things are just patently wrong, no matter the circumstances. You're arguing for privatised pre-emptive wars for personal gain. Please rethink this.
Posted by: Mike Golby | May 09, 2004 at 05:12 PM
So...
If we admit that Joe slapping his wife around just a little bit is not as bad as Mel beating his wife black and blue, and although I do not condone wife beating, but do admit that I understand it, perhaps this will help me get past all the wife beating going on, and better still get a commitment against wife beating from those that minimize its significance.
Is that about right? Or am I being clueless.
Posted by: bmo | May 09, 2004 at 07:52 PM
Thanks for all the thoughtful comments. I tink there's a real disagreement here as well as one based on my putting my idea poorly.
The real disagreement is over whether every conceivable use of pain to extract information (which is what I think we mean by torture) is unjustifiable. There's a long conversation to be had about that, which I think ultimately comes down to whether one believes that morality consists of adherence to principles or that it consists in the intended outcome of one's actions. I used to believe in the former, but I've come to value the other way of thinking as well. In short, I can imagine cases where I'd be willing to hurt someone, and not all the cases involve Martians and explosives on timers. But, clearly, if you hold to a pure pacifist principle against force and the infliction of pain, then we're going to disagree. But, notice, that just as you can be a very peaceful person while still believing that there may be extremely rare cases where force is justifiable, you can believe there are rare cases where the infliction of pain is justificable without having to condone Abu Ghraib or the war in Iraq. (That's one of the problems I have with the principled view of morality: It often gives license to condemn equally all those who ever violate the principle, so all cases of killing become "permissible murder," in Mike's phrase, lumping together euthanasia, carnivorism, abortion, capital punishment, self-defense, Nazi soldiers and Warsaw rebels. Many or all of these may be wrong, but we need to be able to talk about why they are wrong and how they are wrong in different ways and to different degrees. And that means getting past the assertion of general principles. IMO.)
The misunderstanding springs from bad writing on my part. Sorry. The aim of the piece that started this was to try to get to a common ground condemning torture. In order to get there, I thought I would have to get the rightwing (actually, the Rushwing) hypotheticals out of the way: "Imagine that there's a nuclear bomb on a timer set to go off in NYC and you're only lead is..." etc. Rather than fight for the absolutist position (which I don't believe in) that under no imaginable circumstances could torture ever be morally ok, I thought I'd just admit it: Yes, there may be a time when the only way to achieve a big, important good result is to hurt someone...not as a matter of policy but in response to a terrible, dangerous situation. The aim of this concession was to enable my imaginary rightwing pal to concede what I think is the really important thing: We must condemn torture. We cannot allow it as a policy. We must change the system and punish those who permitted it. I wrote this badly enough that my concession overwhelmed the aim of the concession.
The problem is that you (= I) can't announce a policy while admitting that there will be exceptions, because then the policy itself admits of exceptions, which as a policy it should not. In that sense, I wasn't just writing sloppily. Rather, it's impossible to say out loud what I actually believe -- we need a strong policy condemdning torture while understanding that no principle is absolute -- because then the exception vitiates the statement of policy. I literally don't know how to talk about this.
Posted by: David Weinberger | May 10, 2004 at 07:49 AM
I don't want to be flip, or a simpleton, but I think it should go something like this: We do not use torture. However, in the course of human events, an individual actor (or actors) may take it upon themselves to use it. We will use our laws to try that case.
Posted by: Bruce | May 10, 2004 at 08:43 AM
Bruce, I think it's almost that simple, and thanks for putting it that way. There are ways the conversation will re-explode out from your simple formulation, but, well, I think I'll just step back from the explosion this time since I've so botched it the first time through.
Posted by: David Weinberger | May 10, 2004 at 09:20 AM
...and as a follow-on to Bruce's comment, it is likely that someone who has decided to break the law for a higher good will be found guilty of breaking the law. Hopefully our method of jurisprudence can maintain its integrity while in some way respecting that person in the breach (the suspended sentence comes to mind).
Posted by: fp | May 10, 2004 at 09:23 AM
I'm aligned with this morning's comments by Bruce and Dave. I prefer to operate from the position that torture is unacceptable, and that there are consequences in law. I am also all right with the consequences being rather inflexible. It is valuable for someone who makes a decision to torture to understand that there are certain consequences, whatever is seen to justify the action in a particular case. I knew a fellow who's response to barber-shop pontificating on matters was the question, "Are you willing to die for that belief?" That might be the right question for undertaking an action that holds as cheap the anguish and death of another. I think we should start from the position that torture is unacceptable.
I also think we should continue David's line of questioning with regard to the adversarial nature of the discussion: Where is there agreement among all of the viewpoints that can be a basis for arriving at a shared understanding of who we are for ourselves and for others in the world.
Posted by: orcmid | May 10, 2004 at 02:48 PM