Torture

In reading these articles about torture the one that drew my attention was the article entitled A Case for Torture by Mirko Bagaric. More specifically, I took an interest into his rejoinder to one of the three counter arguments to his point. This counter argument was the one that he labeled as the slippery slope argument and stated, that if you began to allow torture in a limited context then the situations in which it would be used will increase.

While Bagaric labeled this as a slippery slope argument and claimed that it was unsound, I think that it is an argument that has potential truth to it. Although there is no way to know for sure until it actually happens, a point that I would raise to support this counter argument is that if torture became an option that could be used in providing a solution to potentially extreme situations, then there is a possibility that, over time, the decision to approve the use of torture would become less and less difficult to do. One reason is that if it became possible for allowing the use of torture to be considered as a method to aid the process of providing solutions to different situations, then it could also be possible that the potential for it to be approved would grow as it's use is discussed more and more. Another reason is that if it became a legitimate option that could be allowed, then as the people who have the ability to approve its use change over time, their personal interpretations and opinions of what constitutes the use of torture in a situation would likely change as well. While that could very likely make it more difficult to approve torture, it also would allow the equal possibility that it becomes less difficult for its use to be approved. The last reason is that as it becomes more and more permissible in certain situations over time, then the moral perception of torture as something that is "bad", could very likely diminish throughout the world.

That may be a slippery slope argument as well, but it seems a potential possibility that should be in consideration in the discussion of the morality of torture and whether it should or should not be allowed in certain situations.