The Case Against Torture

Torture is how you create enemies, not how you defeat them.

• Fmr. President Barack Obama

Torture has been used throughout history as a means of extracting information from a subject who would otherwise be unwilling to divulge it. In the latter half of the 20th Century, its use came to be considered abhorrent amongst the international community, with the ratification of the United Nations’ Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in December 1984 seemingly putting an end to its use, at least by “civilised nations”. In the post-911 world, however, as asymmetric insurgent conflicts replaced great-power struggles, and the need to secure human intelligence in order to prevent terrorist attacks became more urgent, the option of using torture was once again mooted by those who had sought to outlaw its practice only twenty years previously. Adopting a Kantian moral framework, this essay will argue that torture is morally impermissible. By assessing the act and purpose of torture against the categorical and practical imperatives, the following discussion will demonstrate that torture does not meet the standard of a moral act, and violates essential principles necessary to moral justice. For the purposes of this debate, this paper will consider primarily interrogational torture, which will be defined as: “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from them or a third person information or a confession”.(Hamm 2007)

If the act of torture is, by design, for the purposes of extracting information from a subject, the torturer is using that person as a “means” not an “end”. Kant’s practical imperative requires that one must “act to treat humanity, whether yourself or another, as an end-in-itself and never as a means.”(Kant and Paton 1964) By this Kant means that individuals should not use, or exploit, others in pursuit of their own goals and ambitions. Therefore, torture must be considered immoral under Kant’s practical imperative on the basis that it treats the subject as a means in order to satisfy the goals of the interrogator. Indeed, other moral philosophies might take a contrary position, arguing that the consequences of the torture, preventing a suicide bombing, for instance, offers sufficient justification for a limited “transgression” of individual rights. This argument, however, violates a further Kantian principle; that the act, in and of itself, must be “good” and that the outcome of that act is irrelevant if its motivation is from a sense of duty. While this notion finds itself in direct contradiction of the consequentialist reasoning of utilitarianism, when considered in combination with Kant’s prohibition on using people as a means, makes a compelling case that torture is morally indefensible.

“Suspicion” is an unavoidable condition in the use of torture, a factor that makes it impossible to align with the categorical imperative. Kant proposes a four-step methodology for determining whether a principle or law reconciles with the categorical imperative.

1. Devise a maxim that defines the reasons for the proposed action

2. Ask whether that maxim can be applied as a universal law, one that would govern all rational beings.

3. Determine whether it is realisable or does it hold a logical contradiction?

4. If it is realisable, then, finally, ask whether everyone would, or could, rationally “will” to act on your maxim.

If the action satisfies these four steps, it can be considered morally permissible. If one were to hypothetically replicate this process, as it might apply to torture, how would the maxim read?

“Excruciating pain may be inflicted on one individual by another in order to secure information from that individual they would otherwise be unwilling to share.”

Could this be universalised? Not unless you are comfortable with using torture in a raft of different contexts, for instance trying to find out where a spouse hid the packet of chocolate biscuits you bought last night. In order to meet the “universalisation” standard, the maxim would need to be significantly more specific:

Those individuals suspected of withholding information that might reasonably be expected to prevent a terrorist attack may be subject to torture

Herein lies a fundamental flaw in any argument seeking to morally justify torture: suspicion. Rarely, if ever, is it conclusively known that an individual being tortured definitely possesses information that can avert a catastrophic event. They may know something without knowing enough to have any impact on events in motion. They may know everything, but time won’t allow prevention of those events. Should that person still be tortured, even if the outcome is unavoidable? While the above maxim might be considered to have satisfied steps one through three of Kant’s formula, it would not hold for the final step. Would anyone rationally “will” it into existence? Even were it entirely untrue, the risk that they themselves might become one of those “individuals suspected of withholding information”, and then subject to torture, is sufficient foundation to suggest not. No one would rationally submit themselves to torture, even the risk of torture, and accordingly would not rationally will the act into a moral law.

Recent research has shown torture to be mostly ineffective in delivering valuable and useable intelligence with real-world application. (Salvati and Houck 2019) Putting this issue to the side, when assessing moral reasoning for the use of torture through a Kantian lens, it becomes abundantly clear that the act of torture is inherently immoral. While in some contexts, the opportunity may exist to prevent the loss of innocent lives, it is impossible to avoid using people as a “means” in the act of torture. Any attempt to universalise a moral law permitting the use of torture would fail to meet the standards of Kant’s categorical imperative, and must not be accepted by a rational society committed to principles of justice.

CITATIONS

• Hamm, Mark S. 2007. “High Crimes and Misdemeanors’: George W. Bush and the Sins of Abu Ghraib.” Crime, Media, Culture 3 (3): 259–84.

• Kant, Immanuel, and Herbert James Paton. 1964. Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals. Translated and Analysed by HJ Paton. Harper & Row.

• Salvati, Joeann M., and Shannon C. Houck. 2019. “Examining the Causes and Consequences of Confession-Eliciting Tactics during Interrogation.” Journal of Applied Security Research 14 (3): 241–56.