From the wars to our today’s life, torture is used as a mean of self-defense or other-defenses to against unlawful actions. There are many different views regarding whether torture can be justified. In my opinion, torture cannot be justified during wars amongst the army but it can be justified in today’s life if someone makes imminent threat towards one’s life. First of all, there is no law or rule to be working during wars. In spite of the fact that every soldier is fighting for their survival and tortures the enemies for gaining important information in order to save someone’s life, this threat is applied bidirectional.
Walzer distinguishes between guerilla warfare and terrorism, arguing that the latter’s conduct is not justified according to the established rules of war. While guerilla warfare and terrorism share similarities with respect to the foreseeable killing of noncombatants, terrorism is never justified firstly because of the random nature of its targets. Second, the fact that terrorism is a useful tactic for avoiding engagement with an enemy’s military makes it far more dangerous for civilians than guerilla warfare. Finally, terrorism’s lack of moral limitations and restrictions on killing make it rather difficult for any compromise or reconciliation to be possible. While the element of surprise is one of the key tactics employed in both guerilla warfare and terrorism, it is the latter’s employment of this tactic that Walzer takes issue with.
Is Torture Ever Justified? Terrorism and Civil Liberties The Economist In this piece “Is Torture Ever Justified?” the issue of torture being used on enemies during interrogation is the focus and it seems to me the author argues that it is not justifiable but only in certain circumstances. I would argue with him on his claim, I do not feel that torture is ever justifiable regardless of how dire the situation. According to this article torture is banned from almost everything. There are treaties set in place such as the Geneva Conventions, the UN Convention against Torture that are against it “consider it along with genocide, torture is the only crime that every state must punish it no matter what”.
Communism is horrible because the government controls every move you make and you have no say in what happens in your life. Such as no right to vote, no freedom of speech, no right to a fair trial, etc. This is what the United States was trying to protect South Vietnam from. Communists used terrorism, murdered and subversion to destabilize countries. Just this alone was a just cause for the United States to get involved in the Vietnam War.
It is not acceptable to go beyond legal, moral, and/or ethical boundaries when the nation is at a risky time of war, but only on certain conditions. Some issues discussing this are the neutralism of U.S., the Executive Order #9066 declared by FDR, and the decision to drop the bomb. These issues greatly impacted America’s standing in the world and history immensely. It was recorded into history for the mistakes that we did and the damage we caused. The U.S. struggled with each issue and did what they thought was right, even if damage was caused.
The Patriot Act authorizes unethical and unconstitutional surveillance of American citizens with a negligible improvement in national security. Free speech, free thinking, and a free American lifestyle cannot survive in the climate of distrust and constant fear created by the Patriot Act. The words that Bush once said about protecting civil liberties have been forgotten. Undoubtedly, The Patriot Act takes away individual privacy rights and liberties from American citizens in exchange for the “greater good” of the country. The first reason of how the Patriot Act negatively affects our society is by taking away freedom of speech and the right to express and communicate ideas.
The Use of Torture Can Never Be Justified As a preliminary working definition sufficient for my purposes here, I agree with Michael Davis who describes torture as “the intentional infliction of extreme physical suffering on some non-consenting, defenseless, other person for the purpose of breaking their will, (Michael, Davis, 2005). Thus, a person might have been tortured, even if in fact their will has not been broken; the purpose of the practice of torture is to break the victim’s will, but this purpose does not have to be realized for a process to be an instance of torture. Is The Use of Torture Ever Justified? The question tends to provoke a "yes" or "no" answer. The use of torture is always based on the “TICKING bomb theory.” This theory describes a fictional scenario in which a massive weapon is set to go off, a prisoner in custody is known to have information on the attack that he refuses to give, and U.S. forces are faced with the question of whether to torture the prisoner or to allow untold millions to die.
Contemplating the Moral Permissibility of Torture This paper is an evaluation of a work by Henry Shue in which he writes about torture. Shue points out that while torture is a violation of most international law, it continues to be used extensively throughout the world and that its use may actually be on the rise. Governments are in effect “talking the talk” in their condemnation of torture but the reality is that they are not “walking the walk” as they institute the use of torture for various means of self preservation. Shue’s primary goal seems to be to show that torture is a special entity that is far worse than even death because it is an assault against the defenseless. Shue does not necessarily attempt to show that torture is never justified.
The Unjust of Just law Ethics 110 22 Jun 2010 In a democratic state it is in never within our rights to break the law. Breaking the law leads to lawlessness and disobedience from the democracy that we have worked, or have been born into. If the law is unjust, then it might be fair to break that law as long as you are willing to suffer the consequences of punishment set aside for that particular unjust law. Failure to adhere to the punishment is unjust as well, for failure to adhere to the punishment of the law is a statement that you do not respect the laws of your society. Martin Luther King Jr. states “Oppressed People cannot remain oppressed forever.” (Cahn, 2009 p. 387) As we have seen throughout history, this is a true statement.
The use of torture as a deterrent is a technique commonly used in counterinsurgency. It is intended to intimidate and frighten adversaries into compliance. The persons being tortured need not have any particular information; their value is to serve as an example to others and promote fear. Political uprisings are often violent, and torture of a few rebels to prevent further outbreaks of bloodshed at first seems like a worthwhile trade. Yet a recent study on combating insurgency shows that "...torture is ineffective for reducing killings perpetrated by insurgents both because it fails to reduce insurgent capacities for violence and because it can increase the incentives for insurgents to commit future killings" (Sullivan 402).