My Paper

Submitted By Rishab-Rege
Words: 938
Pages: 4
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How is Torture generally defined? According to various definitions, most forms of torture include the infliction of extreme physical pain. According to a recent article by Seumas Miller from Stanford University, “torture is (a) the intentional infliction of extreme physical suffering on some non-consenting, defenceless person; (b) the intentional, substantial curtailment of the exercise of the person’s autonomy (achieved by means of (a)) ; and (c) in general, undertaken for the purpose of breaking the victims will.” However, morality weighs the good against the bad. Therefore, is torture truly acceptable? Can it ever be morally justified? According to my opinion, torture can be morally justified in extreme situations but otherwise, it is a heinous act and should not be legalized or made permanently permissible. However, before moving towards the question of the moral permissibility of torture, it is important to truly understand what torture is and what is so morally wrong with it? Like defined earlier, torture is the intentional infliction of extreme physical pain on some defenceless person in order to break his/her will. A torturer’s motive is to test the will of the victim and to make him/her go through so much pain that the victim begins to spit out accurate information. As compared to murder, is torture truly wrong and morally fallible then? Some say that torturing an individual is much worse than killing, and perhaps even much more unethical than the act of murder. However, torture is still not the same as murder because it does not involve the killing of the victim! On the following points of torture, I move on to make the following points. First of all, how do we determine whether an act is morally permissible or morally required? What particular set of facts or principles would actually support such a heinous act as torture? According to consequentialism, an action is morally required just because it produced the best overall results. Now, how exactly can it be determined that this certain action produces the optimal result? Using the five-step process, we must identify what is intrinsically good about the action and what is intrinsically bad. Then, we must determine all of the options and determine the value of each result. It is necessary to weigh the good against the bad and finally pick the action that yields the best balance. Therefore, in order to understand if torture brings value to society or not, certain questions must be looked into. Is torture truly the optimal choice and do the benefits of torture actually outweigh the costs? Those against the action of torture must be ever ready to answer the challenge of the ticking bomb terrorist, one that knows the location of a bomb powerful enough to kill thousands of innocent people. What happens if the terrorist is captured but refuses to reveal the bomb’s location? Basically, a terrorist group has planted a bomb with a timer and it is about to go off in the city. If this bomb is allowed to go off, it will kill thousands of innocent people and people may refuse to move to the city out of fear for many years. Fortunately, one of the terrorists has been captured by the police, and if he reveals the location of the bomb, then the appropriate police experts can disarm it and perhaps save thousands of lives. The police know that this terrorist is in charge of planning this strategy and is well known for hosting such attacks in the past. He is the leader of the group but is obviously refusing to talk and time is passing by swiftly. However,
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