Should torture be abolished?
Yes.
Side Score: 7
|
 |
No.
Side Score: 5
|
|
|
|
|
1
point
1
point
I am not even sure what people mean by the term torture anymore. The definition used to include only what physically damaged people. Now however, people use it to include withholding opportunity to sleep, waterboarding, scaring with dogs, humiliating, etc., which, however unpleasant, are not physically damaging. People have even insisted that putting a Quran in the toilet (which happened in Guantanamo). OLD DEFINITION If we are using the old definition, the answer is an unmitigated yes, abolish torture. Physically Damaging Torture There are some obvious reasons to abolish it. - It encourages the enemy to torture your own people. - It is unreliable in producing reliable intelligence. People will say ANYTHING they think you want to hear just to get it to stop. - It brings out the worst traits in the torturers on your own side. You cannot afford to let these folks loose in society again, so what do you do with them? NEW DEFINITION By the same token, if we are using the new definition, the answer is a qualified no. Sleep Deprivation About 99% of people will break down and tell whatever you want to know after a few days of no sleep. This is because lack of sleep breaks down emotional and psychological defenses, making people vulnerable to things like minor kindnesses, or even simple, direct questions. It even makes it harder to lie. As soon as they sleep they are as good as new. No harm, no foul. Fear Responses These are not a good idea for some obvious reasons. - It is unreliable in producing reliable intelligence. People will say ANYTHING they think you want to hear just to keep from suffering the reality implied by the fear stimulus. At least in this case there is the opportunity to recheck with the subject. - Methods based on fear response (heights, dogs, etc.) depend on the belief that real damage will occur if they do not comply. This increases the danger of having to do real damage to assure the subject that the danger is real, which gets us to the original definition of torture, and all its problems. Not good. Waterboarding Waterboarding is a hybrid. The whole method is based on artificially stimulating a fear response deep in the reptilian brain that triggers the "drowning panic". It causes no physical damage, but is risky. It is insanely unpleasant, but physically harmless unless done wrongly. My biggest problem with waterboarding is that it has the intelligence limitations that physical torture has: people will say ANYTHING they think you want to hear in order to get it to stop. That means the likelihood of getting reliable intelligence is functionally nil, so there is no point. Ethical Issues Most of these issues are null in the case of war and trying to avoid war. The question inevitably devolves to What are we willing to sacrifice in order to ensure our own survival? Even when people introduce the question *Do we want to be the kind of people who torture? is subject to the need to survive. What is right when there is no direct cost to us is obvious. What is right is less obvious when something wrong WILL happen to somebody, and the question is only about who it will happen to. Side: Yes.
1
point
2
points
Look it up before you answer, and everyone knows what torture is. It cruel and unusual punishment. Everyone? Really? THINK a moment. Your definition, "cruel and unusual punishment" is extremely vague and mutable. Cruel What counts as cruel is relative, at least on the edge of the bell curve. Obviously having one's arm hacked off is cruel, but what about being left out in the sun for a couple of hours to get a sunburn the equivalent of what tourists get in an afternoon on a Florida beach? I have been sunburned before. I definitely would not call two-hours worth of sunburn cruelty, but there are people out there who would. Unusual Unusual is a sliding scale, based on NOTHING more than how common it is. All that is required to disqualify something from your definition is to do it more often, thereby making it usual. . So, we can see that your definition of torture is useless because it is exactly that sort of sloppy vagary that causes changes in what is considered torture. Legal Definitions For years waterboarding was excluded from the US government definition of torture. In fact, when Gina Haspel was in Thailand, waterboarding was NOT defined as torture under US law or International law. That has changed. It changed in international law in 2008, and in US law in 2006. Consider also: Article 1 of the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment is the internationally agreed legal definition of torture: "Torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions." Here also we are met with a changing interpretation. The problems are the terms severe pain or suffering and lawful sanctions. Lawful Sanctions We already know that the law has changed regarding waterboarding. Severe What counts as severe changes depending on the basis of comparison. I have seen medieval torture devices, and read about how they were used. That basis of comparison disqualifies from the definition of torture things like sleep deprivation, waterboarding, and dangling someone over a cliff threatening to drop them. Compared to drawing and quartering, they are not severe. They are not even close. However, if your basis of comparison is being publicly shamed at school for wetting the bed at 15 years old, or being grounded from your video games and smartphone, then sure, sleep deprivations, etc. is torture. Reality No, not everyone knows what torture is because not everyone agrees on the definitions and practical markers for cruel or severe, and what counts as unusual or lawful changes. Side: Yes.
|
No arguments found. Add one!
|
