Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

(*grumble* I programmed the VCR, rewound the tape I'd just watched and planned to re-use, and fell asleep before the thing finished rewinding so I never turned the VCR off. No Joan of Arcadia for me tonight. *grumble* OTOH, I slept for six and a half hours straight, which is a refreshing change from the hour or two at a time I've been getting lately.)

Some thoughts about torture (and not the fun kind (which I really haven't written about enough recently come to think of it (but I digress...))):

acroyear70 asserted that torture is always wrong. lokifrost gently stated that, "Sometimes the ends justify the means", and got back both moral and practical rejoinders saying, no, they don't.

I'm inclined to agree with what acroyear70 and blueeowyn wrote in that thread, but I must admit that a tiny corner of my mind agrees with lokifrost in theory. Can one concoct a hypothetical situation in which one would consider the ends not, perhaps, to justify the means so much as to outweigh the means? A scenario in which one could imagine choosing to inflict torture despite one's own abhorrence of it? Severe time constraints, innocent lives at stake, absolute certainty that the prisoner has -- and can be made to reveal -- the information which will save those lives ... We saw a similar decision last season on Star Trek: Enterprise last season, though not as clearly delineated as I would have liked, and Captain Archer's soul-searching regarding his decision afterward has not been examined as deeply as I had hoped it would be.

So I read the gentle, understated, "Sometimes the ends do..." and knew one of the places that could come from, but at the same time could not bring myself to raise my voice in defense of torture even so. And not just for the very real practical reasons -- poor reliability of information thus gained, especially when you're not 100% certain you're actually holding the person with the answers you seek; providing one's enemies more reason to dig in their heels, fear to surrender, seek revenge, etc. And not just for the "because then we become what we hate" argument either, though the argument I'm about to present comes close to that.

So, how to reconcile "I can imagine a hypothetical situation" with "but dammit, it's wrong"? Two ways come to mind, one of which I'm much more comfortable with in fictional characters than in life: One can say, "I know this is wrong, but my cause is more important to me than my career, social standing, and my soul[1], so I shall sacrifice all of those to solve this problem now, and accept that I am forever tainted by this act." You can probably see why that solution is much tidier in a novel or a movie (or a television series), where the perpetrator can be made to suffer -- and the audience know it -- "the right amount" of angst as punishment (or turn into a clear-cut villain) than in real life. And how it can be applied to an individual but is a very poor fit for an organization ... or a nation. It makes for some compelling characters[2] (and cheesifies some others when handled poorly by the author or the actor), and I can see an individual in real life making that choice, but it doesn't seem like a great basis for moral teaching, or for policy.

You want your fictional characters to fuck up, morally and otherwise, every so often. It gives you a story. You really don't want your real-world political leaders to do so; you know they're going to, but you hope they don't.

I propose another way to look at the moral problem of torture. Borrow a concept from Judaism. That phrase I can never remember when I need it, that translates to "building a fence around the Torah". Consider:

• I can, as already noted, construct a hypothetical situation in which many people would say torture "makes sense", such as the defense of large numbers of innocent people at risk, but change sides, reshape a couple of axioms, and the other side in that hypothetical struggle can equally justify torture to prevent my agents from interfering. I may wish to save several hundred people from being killed today; they may be killing those people in order to save several thousand of their own from being killed next year. Or we may be pitting the destruction of a few hundred lives against the obliteration of a culture, which makes one-to-one comparisons difficult (or at least subjective).
• In the above case, I'll feel that I have acted morally by using torture "only when it was absolutely required", but my opponent will not merely say that I was "willing to use torture", but honestly believe that the ends for which I committed torture were unjust.[3] The arguments I use to justify torture in extremis, my opponent can turn around and use right back at me. (This is a moral argument in addition to the political argument that using torture provides my enemy with excuses to do the same or incites vengeance.)
• I can construct "grey area" situations which will make even those who condone torture in extremis uncomfortable answering. If we allow this much, does that mean we also allow this much else? (Yes, the "slippery slope" argument, but focussing on how one decides more than "will lead to" predictions.)

So I say it makes sense to "erect a fence" around the idea that torture is wrong: to say that even though (some of us) can justify torture in the most extreme circumstances, that our inability (as mere humans living in the real world) to know with absolute certainty that the conditions for morally defensible torture are unambiguously met means that the idea of torture at all is too risky. That despite being able to construct hypothetical situations in which torture might be justified, for all practical purposes we must act as though torture can never be justified.

That is, even if you believe that torture can be justified "as a last resort", in practical terms that means it should never be used at all because it's so hard to know when the end of the rope has been reached, and so tempting to make excuses just a little bit early.

Note that the practical considerations still exist as well, even if you don't buy my moral argument. But lest we be tempted by even what small expediencies torture may provide, let us not leap that fence[4].

Especially not as a nation, and never as a matter of policy.

[1] Yes, I'm deliberately being melodramatic here, and yes, as a born-again Christian I personally believe "once Saved, always Saved", so one's sould would not be literally forfeit, but I wish to reinforce that the moral question is of that great a magnitude. Also, even though one's Salvation is irrevocable, one is still responsible for one's acts. The decision I'm painting here is a "damn oneself to save others" situation by analogy even if it does not invoke literal damnation. I think the melodrama is appropriate.

[2] Jack Bauer on the television series 24 is an interesting case; he starts the first season as a somewhat flawed, but basically just "tough and willing to make the hard choices" hero. By the third season I perceive a gradual shift -- a "slippery slope" -- as he becomes less heroic while remaining incredibly effective and important. The impression I get is that he himself is at least partially aware of this but is too busy with immediate problems to have time to figure out what it means. If there's another season, I look forward to seeing whether the writers dig into that more.

[3] This is not an argument for "moral relativisim", but it is a matter of a) epistemology and b) politics/PR (mostly epistemology). I can "know" that I am right but not be able to show that I am right, in which case I cannot expect others to accept that I was right just because I say so.

[4] Or rather, let us get back on the right side of it and stop whatever unofficial and/or secret torture our personnel may be engaging in, stop the semantic games and "where's the line" gamesmaship on the "non-torture duress" interrogations, put an end to the idea of shipping prisoners to countries were torture is legal so that "we" aren't the ones in the room, and start living up to our own Constitution in general.