2.1.1: What is torture?

In 2002 the media began to carry stories that U.S. military officers were engaging in torturing a large number of prisoners at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base. At first, the American government denied that torture methods were being used, but soon they had to admit that some torture was used as “an enhanced interrogation technique” to obtain information in the war on terrorism (Fletcher et al., 2008:4). In 2004, The Justice Department advised the White House that torture “may be justified” for interrogations conducted in the war on terrorism.

Torture is defined in part as the deliberate infliction of extreme suffering. Torture is prohibited by the United Convention against Torture (Torture Convention) and is a universal human right that is grounded in the habeas corpus right; the “right to have the body”. The Torture Convention is derived from the prohibition on torture as stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. During war time, the jus in bello (“justice in war”) or the International Humanitarian Law is in place to “regulate how wars are fought, without prejudice to the reasons of how and why they had begun” (Luban, 2014). The 1996 War Crimes Act particularly prohibits willful killing, torture and inhumane treatment at all times.

The various national and international conventions and laws against torture make a distinction between torture and inhumane treatment. Some forms of mental suffering for example are not considered as torture because it does not cause severe physical suffering.

All of the practices of torture presuppose that the torturer has control over the victim’s body. Torture as such is the intentional infliction of extreme physical suffering on a non-consenting and defenseless person (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). The definition should exclude acts that are considered as acts of self-defense; torture is, contrary to acts of self-defense, aimed at undermining the victim’s autonomy.

Generally speaking, torture is the intentional infliction of extreme physical pain either for personal pleasure, interrogational, punitive or terroristic purposes (Stanford University of Philosophy). These motives are not mutually exclusive insofar as acts of torture might be motivated by several of these purposes. For example, torturing a criminal might have a punitive purpose as well as a terroristic purpose to deter future acts of crime.

Intentionally inflicting physical pain on a non-consenting and defenseless person is a moral evil that particularly undermines our liberal (in the sense of liberty) values. Yet even actions that are inherently morally wrong might be morally justified in extreme circumstances. What if we can save 1000 of lives when we torture a terrorist who can tell us how to dismantle a bomb?

Torture is an interesting philosophical topic, not only because it is grounded in some account of human rights, but more because the justification of torture frequently relies on some version of the “ticking time bomb” scenario. This philosophical experiment is used to justify torture as an exception to forestall a future catastrophe.

In this chapter, I will present some perspectives on torture from philosophers such as Aristotle, Hegel and Bentham. These perspectives show us that philosophers are concerned with the questions of if and when we can justify the use of torture. There are those such as Beccaria, who argued that torture should not be used because it is against the principle that someone should not be punished until he or she is proven guilty in court of law. Aristotle raises the question whether torture leads to “true knowledge”. The only philosopher who argues that torture is justified in extreme cases is Jeremy Bentham. We will relate Bentham’s argument to the ticking time bomb scenario, because justifying torture often relies on some form of consequentialism.