The use of Torture can be Morally Permissible

Thanks con. Looking forward to the debate. Introduction & Groundwork First, I would remind the viewers that I am arguing for the moral permissibility of torture, not the legal status of it. I’m not making a case for torture being legalized, rather that in certain circumstances, it can be viewed as morally permissible. Two rellevent theories are as follows. Consequentialism maintains the consequences of an act determine whether it's moral or not. This would mean that the ends outweigh the means.[2] Deontological ethics is duty based morality. According to deontological ethics, the moral worth of an action is not dependent on the consequence. This would entail that the ends do not justify the means. [1] Most arguments for torture follow consequentialist reasoning, thus are not particularly convincing to deontologists. I, however, will make it my aim to fully satisfy my burden from both a deontologist perspective as well as consequentialist one. I predict that con will not be able to offer any moral theory that poses a convincing counter-argument to my case. That is because I am going to approach the issue from a broad perspective meaning that con cannot easily offer a counter perspective on morality. I thus make it my aim to satisfy the issue reflectively. I’d also note, permissibility does not equal obligation. There's an easy distinction between may and must. While an action can be morally permissible, it does not mean people are obligated to do it. The Relativistic Nature of Ethics I would posit that very few acts are always strictly morally impermissible. In most cases, we could conceive of possible scenarios where an act could be permissible even if the act itself seems immoral in even the vast majority of times. While the individual principles concerning ethics seem more absolute, broad actions, such as torture, depend very much on circumstance. While torture is, in the large majority of cases, wrong, that does not mean it’s always wrong. It’s just too broad a question. Torture for the sake of torture is probably wrong, but torture can be used for many different reasons and under so many different factors. Ethics is a complicated system. Certain values outweigh others so when those values compete, it is only logical that the higher value wins. So how high or low a value do we place on torture? When it competes with other principles, does it stay universally on top? The use of torture, under certain conceivable situations, affects many different relevant factors of morality. I will show that there is no reason to say the act of torture in itself as wrong, outweighs the immorality of the other moral factors always. Achieving the Greatest Possible Moral Good; From a Deontological and Consequentialist Perspective P.1 In all moral situations, there or one or more solutions that result in the greatest moral good possible under those circumstances. P.2 Part of the greatest good is included the method for achieving it. P.3 In all moral circumstances, the greatest moral good is the best outcome. P.4 Sometimes torture is necessary in order to achieve the greatest moral good. C: Torture can be permissible. By the greatest moral good, I do not mean the greatest outcome but in relevance to the satisfaction of all moral factors whether they be deontological or consequentialist. Torture itself is something that we do want to avoid generally. The idea strikes a repugnant reaction. But that doesn't mean there are no circumstances where it is morally permissible. There are in fact many things we do not wish to have but do admit of circumstances where we allow them. Pain, for example, is not something we generally want but for medical reasons and other purposes we often have to allow it. The benefit gained outweighs the side effects. Hypothetical scenario #1: Three mad criminals have abducted 10 men and women. They’ve all been identified as people who’ve been convicted of developing the most cruel ways of torturing their victims. You are sure that is what they are wanting to do with the 10 people. One of the criminals is caught but the other escapes with their victims. You now need to find them quickly before they suffer a horrible fate. Your only avenue it seems, is the one criminal you’ve attained. You question him but he’s not saying anything. You’re faced with the choice of torturing him to get him to talk. You do so. He does talk and you do save the innocent people from the other two twisted criminals. As, the viewers should recall, the ten men and women were saved from torture; very horrible torture too. In order to save them, the third criminal was tortured, probably much more humanely than the methods they would have used. So how can it not be morally permissible? You can’t say it’s wrong because torture is wrong. You only used one torture to prevent ten others of the more extreme degree! How can this not be permissible!? If torture is indeed wrong, than ten tortures should be worse than one, so one torture of an immoral man to stop ten tortures of innocent people is fully morally permissible. Hypothetical scenario #2: A terrorist plants a massive bomb in New York city. If it goes off, millions of people die. The terrorist is captured but won’t talk no matter how hard you try. There has been no luck finding the bomb. You can implement torture to possibly save these millions of lives. In terms of suffering, the lives of the innocent millions far outweigh the pain of the one guilty terrorist. In that regard, there is absolutely no dispute, so where is there? Well possible objections could be that the terrorist has his rights. I would say he clearly lost those rights when he tried to blow up a bomb. Another objection could be that there isn’t enough guarantee that it will work. Well what about what’s at stake? The terrorist can prevent the torture occurring any time he wishes via talking. Millions of lives are too big a risk to care about whether it will work or not. But even if not, why don’t we change it a bit and say the detonation of the bomb would most likely result in the start of a nuclear war which would most likely devastate the planet? What is at stake makes the question of whether it will work, largely irrelevant. Even if he fails, he was justified to try and if he succeeds, countless lives are saved. Hypothetical scenario #3: A sadistic killer plants a bomb this time in the middle of an elementary school. He threatens to blow it up, along with all the children and teachers inside if anyone leaves. He does however have one bizarre term for letting everyone go. He's built a mechanical torture machine for his own use. However, due to a twitch that he's developed, he's not been able to use it himself. He's obsessed with the urge of putting it to use. Since he can't do so himself, his term for not blowing up the school is as following; He wants to see one man use the torture machine on another to satisfy his urge. Then he'll let everyone go, otherwise boom. One courageous man, scared for the lives of his children and all the rest in the school, volunteers himself to be tortured. However, no one is willing to operate the machine. The aforementioned parent begs his friend who also has children in the school to operate it and so torture him. The friend at last, reluctantly complies and says yes. So the latter does so and tortures the man in order to save the innocent lives. The mad man does not blow up the school as promised. This situation fully corresponds to deontological principles. The man being tortured volunteered/wanted to be tortured. Rights and the non-aggression principle are irrelevant because with the man wanting to be tortured, no rights would be violated. The man who did the torturing only did it because the former wanted it and to save the lives of everyone in the school. On these terms it was morally permissible. The greater good was accomplished and the usual deontological objections do not apply. http://goo.gl...