Torture: Justified or Unjustified?
Amber Ellis
Jessika Griffin
Eng. 093
March 23, 2012
Torture: Justified or Unjustified?
Is torture justified? Does it make us feel safer? Most Americans would say that it is immoral to torture any human being for any reason. There are a few people left who would disagree with that and say that some deserve to be tortured in order to obtain information that could potentially save the lives of hundreds or thousands.
According to Michael Levin torture may seem unconstitutional or barbaric to some but to others it seems the only solution to stopping a potential threat to hundreds or even thousands of innocent lives. My question to him: how do you determine if those that the threat is against are actually innocent or do we just assume that because most are U.S. citizens that they are automatically innocent? Most people I know believe in the statement that everyone is innocent until proven guilty but there are certain circumstances where a little more research should go into finding out. Are we torturing someone because they have endangered the lives of innocents, or are we assuming that all people are innocent if they do not pose an immediate threat? Michael Levin touched on this subject briefly but I think he could have gone into this debate a little more extensively. The way he describes the number of people that could be in danger, going from 300 to 100 to 10 and going all the way down to a single infant seems to me like he is trying to show that no matter how many lives may be at risk, human lives are important period.
I also think that he needed to use more cases that have actually happened instead of using too many hypothetical scenarios. To me people seem to take things with a grain of salt when it comes to hypothetical situations. If he would have used events that have happened or events that are going to happen people would listen with more intent to what he is saying. I feel that he is right when he describes that the most powerful
Jessika Griffin
Eng. 093
March 23, 2012
Torture: Justified or Unjustified?
Is torture justified? Does it make us feel safer? Most Americans would say that it is immoral to torture any human being for any reason. There are a few people left who would disagree with that and say that some deserve to be tortured in order to obtain information that could potentially save the lives of hundreds or thousands.
According to Michael Levin torture may seem unconstitutional or barbaric to some but to others it seems the only solution to stopping a potential threat to hundreds or even thousands of innocent lives. My question to him: how do you determine if those that the threat is against are actually innocent or do we just assume that because most are U.S. citizens that they are automatically innocent? Most people I know believe in the statement that everyone is innocent until proven guilty but there are certain circumstances where a little more research should go into finding out. Are we torturing someone because they have endangered the lives of innocents, or are we assuming that all people are innocent if they do not pose an immediate threat? Michael Levin touched on this subject briefly but I think he could have gone into this debate a little more extensively. The way he describes the number of people that could be in danger, going from 300 to 100 to 10 and going all the way down to a single infant seems to me like he is trying to show that no matter how many lives may be at risk, human lives are important period.
I also think that he needed to use more cases that have actually happened instead of using too many hypothetical scenarios. To me people seem to take things with a grain of salt when it comes to hypothetical situations. If he would have used events that have happened or events that are going to happen people would listen with more intent to what he is saying. I feel that he is right when he describes that the most powerful
Cited: Levin, Michael. “The Case of Torture.” Evergreen, 9th ed. Susan Fawcett. Boston: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2012. 438-441. Print.