TORTURE

Connor Newlin
While I do not necessarily disagree with torture, I still find some problems with the articles that argued for it. Their primary defense is that innocent lives are saved when we get answers using torture, however this is not always the case. Torture has been unsuccessful before in some cases where a man or woman was subject to extreme pain and anguish only for the torture to finish and the person doesn't know anything. This is hard to justify when one is pro torture which raises a new question: Is it morally permissible to torture someone for a CHANCE of saving innocent lives? "Life-saving torture is not cruel. It is motivated by a compassionate desire to avert moral catastrophes" this wording seems rather romantic for a method of extracting information by pushing the limits of human pain tolerance. In any case torture is not always effective and it makes me wonder if I went through some sort of torture, would I still find it okay as I do now? One article I thought also raised a good point in saying it is not right to fight terrorism with torture because that makes us no better than terrorists. This takes the type of saying we all hear as kids and applies it to the real world and really makes me wonder if torture is for the greater good.