Torture is clearly beyond the pale, for its end is recognizably evil. Or so it might seem. However, it has been judged differently in various contexts. Generally, we consider anyone who tortures another as a pariah, feeding on another’s misfortune to fall prey to his/her power. Such a person would normally be termed morally bankrupt. A sadomasochist, on the other hand, derives pleasure from causing or experiencing pain or both. In this instant, we consider such people mentally disturbed and their actions derived more from a psychological state than from a moral deficit. But how would we characterize torture as a means to an end, specifically, an end that is good and desirable? Recently a broadcaster asked this question in the context of America’s state-sponsored torture program after 9/11, “Is not torture justified when the lives of 3,000 people might be saved?” This question presumes that the saving of many lives is a most desirable end and, as such, can outweigh the evil act of torture. Or so it might seem.

I have mentioned elsewhere how national “ethics” differ from personal ethics (ref. “The Rule of the Primate”). The issue of torture touches on the same ambivalence in the guise of situational ethics. The classic hypothetical case presented in psychology 101 involves two scenarios. The first situation has a train approaching a fork controlled by a switch. On one track are five people who would be run over by the train. On the other track there is only one person. Should the track be switched so that only one person would die rather than five? In the second situation, there is no switch, but that one person is close at hand. Should that person be shoved in front of the oncoming train in order to stop it before it hits the other five people further down the track? “Most people would throw the switch in the first instance, but refuse to push a person in front of a moving train. Even though the moral judgment is the same in either case—the saving of five people at the expense of one—the decision is made on the basis of emotions, not rational judgment. In brain scans they have found that the amygdala, our emotional center, is deeply engaged in your (sic) second scenario. Most people cannot execute the correct, moral act in this case because of the emotions triggered by physical contact with the person they must sacrifice (ref. p.95, “The Therapy Session,” in A Life Apart).” This quote, albeit taken out of context, seems to support the Bush administration’s argument that so-called “enhance interrogations” were morally correct, based upon rational judgment rather than the emotions of teary-eyed liberals. And this argument, my friends, represents the classic difference between the ethical actions that must exist between individuals and the practices of nation states. Ethics is foremost about values, like the value of a human life, and the discernment of such in given situations. Logic then must serve those values, not the reverse, thereby giving weight to that fundamental ethical construct, “the end does not justify the means.”

How torturous is the logic of those defenders of “enhanced interrogation techniques (EIT)?” Well, they never define EIT as torture. Its acronym even further obfuscates its true nature. Yet EIT is the same elephant that was adjudicated in the Nuremburg Trials, is well defined in UN Conventions as torture, and is specifically absent in the US military guidelines for combatant interrogations. Unfortunately, that elephant took up residence in our White House. When its proponents could no longer argue that the elephant did not exist, they argued that it was legal and justified. Of course, slavery was once legal and so was the exclusion of women from the electorate. Legality does not always square with morality. And the pragmatic argument seems no less torturous. Besides the fact of being irrelevant (remember “the end does not justify the means”), what usable intelligence was derived from EIT? Allegedly, one victim’s denial of knowledge was the basis for assuming he was lying and therefore an unwitting admittance of usable intelligence in locating Bin Laden. Little else has been offered as justification for EIT. In reality, the case for a pragmatic justification seems mainly based upon categorical statements that EIT preserved lives without actual proof of such. Much like the statement of former Vice President Cheney that “I would do it again in a minute,” truth must be accepted as a matter of dictate, rather than of logic and, most certainly, of ethics.

Now it is true that we live in a violent world. For that reason alone, we elect leaders who we believe will protect us by any means appropriate. But where do we draw the line; where does our moral conscience intervene? President Johnson personally authorized B52 bombing of the Ho Chi Minh trail, even though those bombs violated the sovereign territory of Vietnam’s neighbors. But he never authorized torture. President Nixon had no reserve about extending the bombing to civilian population centers like Hanoi and Haiphong. But he never authorized torture. President Obama personally authorized guidelines for drone strikes, where civilian casualties, though minimalized, are still incurred. But he revoked the guidelines for EIT and condemned torture. In a perfect world, civilian casualties in war would also be condemned as immoral. There is no moral justification for the killing of innocents. Unfortunately, we don’t live in that world. This fact only further emphasizes the need to adhere to any ethical guidelines the international community has agreed to support. Maybe the human species isn’t developed to the level of eliminating wars. But it can agree to prohibit indiscriminate minefields—and torture. And we can awaken to the fact that fighting terrorism with state-sponsored torture only raises the stakes in savagery. Rather than President Reagan’s bright city on a hill, we become no more than the whitened sepulcher of hypocrisy.

Personally, I prefer the moral high ground. Let’s not vote for any politician that defends or supports torture. “I think it’s possible for people to change history by choosing not to become participants in its destructive tendencies (ref. p.297, “A War of Words,” in A Life Apart, or for context click here).”