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Interrogational Torture

Interrogational Torture PATRICK LEE I. INTRODUCTION Since 9/11 and the beginning of the war against extremist Muslim terrorists, questions about exactly what torture is and whether torture is ever morally justified have become a live issue. In previous wars, the question of exactly where to draw the line between torture and non-torture was not, at least in public, discussed in detail, and Americans generally assumed that the United States policy, both official and unofficial, unqualifiedly opposed what one would rightly call torture and indeed that the United States significantly differed from its enemies (the Nazis, the Soviets, and the North Vietnamese, for example) in this regard. However, perhaps partly because in this war the enemy is avowedly terroristic (openly intending to kill noncombatants in order to promote terror), in some circles it has been argued that there are some types of torture that can be morally justified. In this paper I will attempt to do three things: (1) identify the specific, distinct type of act (a specific type of choice) that should be called torture; (2) show that this type of act is intrinsically immoral; and (3) show that there are other types of acts, that some people sometimes call "torture," http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png American Journal of Jurisprudence Oxford University Press

Interrogational Torture

Lee, Patrick
American Journal of Jurisprudence , Volume 51 (1) – Jan 1, 2006
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Publisher
Oxford University Press
Copyright
© 2006 by The University of Notre Dame
ISSN
0065-8995
eISSN
2049-6494
DOI
10.1093/ajj/51.1.131
Publisher site
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Abstract

PATRICK LEE I. INTRODUCTION Since 9/11 and the beginning of the war against extremist Muslim terrorists, questions about exactly what torture is and whether torture is ever morally justified have become a live issue. In previous wars, the question of exactly where to draw the line between torture and non-torture was not, at least in public, discussed in detail, and Americans generally assumed that the United States policy, both official and unofficial, unqualifiedly opposed what one would rightly call torture and indeed that the United States significantly differed from its enemies (the Nazis, the Soviets, and the North Vietnamese, for example) in this regard. However, perhaps partly because in this war the enemy is avowedly terroristic (openly intending to kill noncombatants in order to promote terror), in some circles it has been argued that there are some types of torture that can be morally justified. In this paper I will attempt to do three things: (1) identify the specific, distinct type of act (a specific type of choice) that should be called torture; (2) show that this type of act is intrinsically immoral; and (3) show that there are other types of acts, that some people sometimes call "torture,"

Journal

American Journal of Jurisprudence – Oxford University Press

Published: Jan 1, 2006

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