Jul 03, · Torture Essay Exclusively available on IvyPanda Updated: Jul 3rd, A former top adviser to President Bush in Iraq, Robert Blackwill, who was a national security adviser during Bush’s first term, once said that torture should never be totally ruled out Essay. Words4 Pages. Torture is the process of inflicting pain upon other people in order to force them to say something against their own will. The word “torture” comes from the Latin word “torquere,” which means to twist. Torture can not only be psychologically but mentally painful Free Essay: Torture is inflicting pain on someone to get them to say or do blogger.come is one of the crimes that humans have committed for many
Human Torture Essays - Words | Help Me
Torture has been a tool of coercion for nearly all of human historywhether to instill fear in a population or force people to convert, but almost all contemporary attempts to justify the use of torture revolve around torture as a means of extracting information from a victim.
Used in this contexttorture has a number of prominent advocates, despite the fact that ample historical and experimental evidence suggests that torture is a particularly ineffective way of extracting information Cole,p. Despite its inefficacy, torture was a central element of the United States' response to the terrorist attack of September 11th,and its supporters frequently invoked the image of a high-value target refusing to provide time-sensitive information.
Regardless of these dramatic scenarios or even the question of torture's efficacy, it is possible to definitively demonstrate that torture is not acceptable under theories of ontological, deontological, utilitarianor natural law ethics, and as such should be rejected by any nation that purports to support morality, freedomor basic human rights.
Before considering how torture is ultimately condemned by the ethical theories described above, it is necessary to define torture more clearly. The United Nations Convention on Torture defines it as: Any act by which severe pain or sufferingwhether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person, information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person […], but only in situations where the torturer is acting in essays on torture official capacity.
Other texts define it slightly differently -- for example, including the stipulation that the victim must fear for his or her life -- but the United Nations' definition is useful for this study for two reasons. Firstly, it begins by defining torture as pain or suffering inflicted with the express purpose of extracting information, which is precisely the context in which the United States has used and attempted to justify torture Annas,p.
Secondly, it includes the requirement that essays on torture torturer be acting in an official capacity, which is useful because it allows one to narrow the discussion of torture to those contexts in which it is most relevant.
In other words, it allows this study to continue with a clear definition of torture in mind which excludes colloquial uses of the term but includes those situations which are most important to contemporary debates regarding torture. There is one more minor detail that must be noted before proceeding, if only because there is a small but vocal contingent of commentators who argue that the United States has not tortured anyone over the course of its War on Terror.
While this flagrant disregard for reality does not actually influence the veracity of this study's argumentit is nevertheless necessary to rebut this fanciful notion before proceeding, if only to essays on torture the usual misdirections and faulty counterarguments that arise in response to condemnations of torture, and condemnations of the United States' use of torture in particular.
Put simply, the United States has tortured thousands, if not millions of people in its history, and continues to torture thousands more at this very moment.
This is because, in addition to soldiers who "forced prisoners to strip naked, leashed them, and made them crawl like animals " in military prisons, essays on torture, and CIA interrogators who waterboarded a wide variety of terrorist suspects, at any given time the United States is holding thousands of individuals in solitary confinementessays on torture, which is definitely torture according to the United Nations' definition and is most likely torture according to any other reasonable definition of the word Angell, essays on torture,p.
Torture is not an abstract concept that exists only in history or select "black sites" across the world ; there are thousands of people enduring ongoing, sometimes indefinite torture at the hands of the United States government every minute of every day. Ontological Ethics Having provided a useful definition of torture and preemptively dealt with a particularly annoying side-argument, it is now possible to effectively demonstrate why torture is unethical according to theories of ontological, deontological, utilitarian, and natural law ethics.
Ontological ethics concerns itself with a mode of ethics based on the centrality of being, and as such pays particular attention to the " dialogue between autonomous peers," which regards each individual being as an autonomous agent Capurro, essays on torture,p.
While ontology itself grapples with the concept of being as such, in the case of ontological ethics one may consider being to be the object of ontological study; that is to say, when one talks about the interactions between autonomous beings, one is using the term "being" as a kind of textual constant in the mathematical sense ; it represents a useful idea that there is a word for, but which has not yet been fully defined in human thought.
In this case one could quite essays on torture argue that torture is unethical according to an ontological interpretation, because it violates the autonomy of the individual above and beyond what has been agreed to within the explicit and implicit contracts individuals make as part of a society. Deontological Ethics In deontological ethics, essays on torture, the metric by which one may determine if something is ethical or not is to consider whether or not it treats autonomous individuals as a means or an end.
To treat an autonomous being as a means, rather than an end in itself, is to essays on torture that being of its autonomy. In this context, torture becomes almost obviously unethical, essays on torture, because it treats the victim and his or her suffering as a means to an end.
The most likely essays on torture would be to suggest that if torture is used in the service of a greater good than it is ethical, essays on torture, because, for example, if the victim is withholding information regarding an imminent attack, then protecting the autonomy of the intended victims of the attack would justify violating the autonomy of the torture victim.
According to deontological ethics, however, even "legitimate ends essays on torture make up for illegitimate means," and so the desire to save imminent victims does not justify torture Haque,p, essays on torture.
Even beyond this, however, it is essays on torture to demonstrate even this example in unethical, because it proposes a kind of three-way circle essays on torture ethical responsibility, whereby the torture victim's disregard for the victims of the imminent attack justifies the torturer's disregard for the torture victim; even this justification is shown to be unethical, because the torturer is actually using the autonomy of the attack victims as a means to justify an end, namely, essays on torture, the use of torture.
Utilitarian Ethics Utilitarian ethics determine ethics according to the idea that ethics should produce, essays on torture, for lack of a more precise essays on torture, the most good for the most people. In this sense they differ from ontological and deontological ethics, because they do not posit any universal standard of ethics, but rather argue that ethics should have a specific goal and proceed to develop essays on torture from there.
In the case of torture, one might attempt to argue that utilitarian theory would actually permit torture in the kind of ticking-clock scenario described above, because the "bad" inflicted on the torture victim vastly outweighs the "good" of saving all the victims of an imminent attack. However, this represents a reductive conception essays on torture utilitarianism, because more than anything, it relies on having a much broader view of any situation than most people are accustomed to.
For example, essays on torture, in the aforementioned scenario, essays on torture, one cannot merely consider the effects of torture on the torture victim and attack victims, essays on torture, but also the more diffuse effects authorizing torture has, on the specific organization, the government, essays on torture, and society as a whole. When considered along these lines, essays on torture, it becomes clear that torture is not permissible within utilitarian ethics for a variety of reasons.
Firstly, it does not provide accurate information, so there is no reason to believe that the information gleaned from torture in a ticking-clock scenario would actually prevent the deaths of others Arrigo,p.
Secondly, the authorization of torture by a government marks the beginning of a process of ethical degradation, which causes "breakdowns in key institutions […] independent of the original moral rationale" Arrigo,p. Put simply, when considered from the perspective of utilitarian ethics, torture is just not useful, essays on torture. Natural Law Perhaps more than any other ethical theory, ethics based on notions of natural law must condemn the use of torture, because it rests upon the dual recognition that there are certain "natural essays on torture governing the behavior and experience of humans, and furthermore, that human reason can ascertain the best means of gleaning a standard of ethics from these natural laws.
In other words, "human beings share significant common characteristics in virtue of which some conditions and practices are bad for every human being and some other conditions and practices are good for every human being," and one…. References Angell, J, essays on torture.
Ethics, torture, and marginal memoranda at the DOJ office of legal counsel. The Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics, 18 3 Annas, G. Unspeakably cruel - torture, medical ethics, and the law. The New England Journal. However, in truth, such incidences are rare and hence based on this pretext there is every danger that torture might become an administrative practice.
There is essays on torture possibility that torture might become a systemic abuse tool. Thus only if morally permissible conditions prevail can torture be pursued. Another popular perspective is that bringing torture under a legal prism would make it essays on torture more effective tool as officials would only. Guantanamo Bay and the United States History of Guantanamo Bay, and the U.
Involvement with Guantanamo Bay The Legality of the U. Occupation essays on torture Guantanamo Bay Why Do the U. Hold Guantanamo Bay? The Legal Position Regarding the U, essays on torture. Being in Guantanamo Bay Recent Events at Guantanamo Bay: Camp X-Ray and Camp Delta The Legal Position Regarding Events at U. Camps in Guantanamo Bay The Geneva Convention and Guantanamo Bay In the last two years the U.
In most cases thus the violated woman soldier prefers to suffer silently and try to get over it as one of those things that happen in life.
There is also the issue of military culture that demands that soldiers suffer in silence and never let their pain and suffering become an object of public pity that prevents from female soldiers from coming out of their closets and reporting the.
Whatever happened you vanished, and neither you nor your actions were ever heard of again" Orwell,p. Capitalism Principles of mass production are very clear in the novels. Huxley for instance, applied the idea of mass production in human reproduction, since the people has abandoned the natural method of reproduction, essays on torture. Mass production as the conventional feature of capitalism and Huxley's novel reinforces such. He talked about the requirement of the. The stereotype that "the exotic is the erotic" has fueled the demand for foreign women to enter prostitution, further inflating the demand for trafficked essays on torture. This has been a traditional marketing angle in the sex industry, dating back to Roman times when the hetaerae, essays on torture, or foreign women, commanded the highest prices for sexual services.
Today, there is an even broader selection of source countries for recruitment. War or a military conflict. During the 's and 's, violent contact with the police, resulting in force occurred during anti-war, labor and civil rights demonstrations, during a politically tumultuous time. It is safe to conclude that excessive force was used during these clashes. Deaths and injuries were the results of political clashes at the Republican Convention in Chicago, during campus riots held at several universities, during political demonstrations held in public places and in.
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Human Torture Essays. Society claims to be pro- human rights, yet the same individuals amongst society are prone to torture others. Torture is an act of giving one excruciating pain, either physically or physiologically, in the means of getting information or simply being cruel enough to feel pleasure by someone else’s pain. Torture is an act that was used many hundred years ago by empowers who Jul 03, · Torture Essay Exclusively available on IvyPanda Updated: Jul 3rd, A former top adviser to President Bush in Iraq, Robert Blackwill, who was a national security adviser during Bush’s first term, once said that torture should never be totally ruled out Essay. Words4 Pages. Torture is the process of inflicting pain upon other people in order to force them to say something against their own will. The word “torture” comes from the Latin word “torquere,” which means to twist. Torture can not only be psychologically but mentally painful
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