When Can Someone Justify Torture?

History prompts the question of, when can you justify torture?  Throughout history, people have found ways to make torture more brutal and more complicated. Destroying minds and bodies torture leaves a path of destruction. However, does torture get answers from people that would not have given up secrets otherwise?

A prime example of the ethics of torture is the trolley problem. The trolley problem is a dilemma where there is a trolley moving on a track and will hit and kill five people who are tied up on the track. You have the ability to pull a lever which switches the tracks and the trolley would hit and kill one person. You could do nothing and five people will die or, pull the lever and one person will die. One can argue that you do nothing and you have no blood on your hands. The other argument would be that you have an obligation to pull the lever and save the five lives while killing the one person. Torture can be connected to this situation. The military can torture one person who has information about a possible terrorist attack and prevent it. Or, they could question the person without applying force and get little to no information and many people die in result of that. The answer to this seems straightforward, torture the one person to save the lives of many. However, in war, things are not so simple. There are rules and laws set in place to protect the enemy. In war there is a rule that people are told to follow, “Jus in bello” it “means justice in war, and has traditionally been concerned with the treatment of the enemy.” During war rules and laws get broken and lines get crossed, people make decisions on behalf of others and many people suffer.

Another issue with torture is the person that you are torturing. If the person who is the victim of torture is someone who has committed heinous crimes the morality of torture becomes easier to deal with. However, many times during war when dealing with torture it is innocent civilians who are tortured and who suffer. Red Cross is a protective organization for victims of war, on the red cross website they write “a neutral protective sign for those helping the victims of conflict was adopted; a red cross on a white background, the exact reverse of the Swiss flag.” When a story comes out about a civilian being tortured all arguments for torture goes out the window. There is an uproar of anger and the military is the antagonist.

Torture also happens in the field between a soldier and a civilian. Chris Hedges a pulitzer prize winner and anti-war activist writes “I think for those who are in combat, it very swiftly can become an addiction. War is its own subculture. It can create a landscape of the grotesque that is, perhaps, unlike anything else created by human beings. There is that rush of war.” Soldiers get carried away and forget what they are supposed to do. Civilians become the victims of a gruesome war that they take no part in.

As the world becomes more humanitarian, acts of torture are outlawed. Waterboarding is one of the most known outlawed forms of torture.  It is a devastating act that destroys a human being. So to answer when can you justify torture one has to look at the specific action at hand and decide whether or not torture in that circumstance is justified. To those who wish to outlaw all forms of torture, look at the events where torture prevented terrorist attacks. To those who wish to legalize all forms of torture; look at the lasting effect torture leaves on millions of people all around the world.

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Emba, Christine. "Opinion | Just War Theory: A primer." The Washington Post. November 30, 2015. Accessed March 16, 2017. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2015/11/30/just-war-theory-a-primer/?utm_term=.52908b130ad2.

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