Torture 6

Torture 6

  • Submitted By: monk2010
  • Date Submitted: 02/15/2010 9:35 AM
  • Category: English
  • Words: 2110
  • Page: 9
  • Views: 1

During the Bush administration, the debate of torture continued in the United States. The debate argues authorities must obtain information from a person of interest via any form of torture. Torture has often been used as a method to punish or to extract information from an individual of interest throughout the course of history. It has been known to be cruel and unethical to inflict pain onto intended individuals by physical and mental means. This type of practice is also considered a violation of human rights by today’s standards. However, other people believe that torture should be legalized and it is justifiable when there are many lives in danger. Therefore, this essay will analyze Philip B. Heymann’s and Andre Sullivan’s arguments that the practice of torture is intolerable, and Alan M. Dershowitz’s and Charles Krauthammer’s arguments that torture is acceptable to save innocent lives.
In Philip B. Heymann’s essay, he explains “authorizing torture is a bad and dangerous idea that can easily be made to sound plausible.” Individuals know that torture is immoral, but the practice of torture can easily be reality. Heymann believes that there is a misleading notion in the traditional “ticking bomb” scenario that torture is necessary in order to gather information to save countless lives. Heymann states that this type of argument “leads to abandonment of one of the few worldwide legal prohibitions” and that he does not have faith in the authorizing system for finding the required circumstances with any certainty,” because an individual who is tortured can easily provide false information. Heymann further concludes that authorizing torture “also ignores the high probability that the practice of torture will spread unwisely if acceptance of torture with the approval of judges is substituted for a flat, worldwide prohibition.” Heymann is concerned that authorities could easily misuse the practice, and that type of misuse can spread violently like wildfire...

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