How to Justify Torture

How to Justify Torture PDF

Author: Alex Adams

Publisher: Watkins Media Limited

Published: 2019-09-10

Total Pages: 137

ISBN-13: 191224859X

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From Batman Begins to Tom Clancy, How to Justify Torture shows how contemporary culture creates simplified narratives about good guy torturers and bad guy victims, how dangerous this is politically, and what we can do to challenge it. If there was a bomb hidden somewhere in a major city, and you had the person responsible in your custody, would you torture them to get the information needed to stop the bomb exploding, preventing a devastating terrorist attack and saving thousands of lives? This is the ticking bomb scenario -- a thought experiment designed to demonstrate that torture can be justified. In How to Justify Torture, cultural critic Alex Adams examines the ticking bomb scenario in-depth, looking at the ways it is presented in films, novels, and TV shows -- from Batman Begins and Dirty Harry to French military thrillers and home invasion narratives. By critiquing its argument step by step, this short, provocative book reminds us that, despite what the ticking bomb scenario will have us believe, torture can never be justified.

Torture and the Ticking Bomb

Torture and the Ticking Bomb PDF

Author: Bob Brecher

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2017-04-24

Total Pages: 136

ISBN-13: 1119431360

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This timely and passionate book is the first to address itself to Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz’s controversial arguments for the limited use of interrogational torture and its legalisation. Argues that the respectability Dershowitz's arguments confer on the view that torture is a legitimate weapon in the war on terror needs urgently to be countered Takes on the advocates of torture on their own utilitarian grounds Timely and passionately written, in an accessible, jargon-free style Forms part of the provocative and timely Blackwell Public Philosophy series

The Torture Papers

The Torture Papers PDF

Author: Karen J. Greenberg

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2005-01-03

Total Pages: 1306

ISBN-13: 9780521853248

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Documents US Government attempts to justify torture techniques and coercive interrogation practices in ongoing hostilities.

Why Not Torture Terrorists?

Why Not Torture Terrorists? PDF

Author: Yuval Ginbar

Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand

Published: 2008-03-27

Total Pages: 449

ISBN-13: 0199540918

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The book addresses a dilemma at the heart of the 'War on Terror': is it ever justifiable to torture terrorists in order to save the lives of innocent civilians; the so-called 'ticking bomb' scenario?The book first analyzes the ticking bomb dilemma as a pure moral one, facing the individual would-be torturer. A 'never-say-never' utilitarian position is pitted against a 'minimal absolutist' view that some acts are never justifiable, and that torture is one such act.It then looks at the issues that arise once a state has decided to sanction torture in extreme situations: when, how, and whom to torture; the institutionalization of torture; its effects on society; and its efficacy in combatting terrorism in the shorter and longer runs.Four models of legalized torture are next examined-including current ones in Israel and the USA and the idea of torture warrants.Finally, related legal issues are analyzed; among them the lawfulness of coercive interrogation under international law and attempts to allow torture 'only' after the fact, for instance by applying the criminal law defence of necessity.A 'minimal absolutist' view - under which torture, whether by private individuals or by state officials, must be prohibited absolutely in law, policy and practice, and allowing no exceptions for ticking bomb situations - is defended throughout.

Terrorism, Ticking Time-Bombs, and Torture

Terrorism, Ticking Time-Bombs, and Torture PDF

Author: Fritz Allhoff

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2012-07-24

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 0226014827

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A provocative philosophical investigation into the ethics of torture, The War on Terror, and making tough choices in exceptional circumstances. The general consensus among philosophers is that the use of torture is never justified. In Terrorism, Ticking Time-Bombs, and Torture, Fritz Allhoff demonstrates the weakness of the case against torture; while allowing that torture constitutes a moral wrong, he nevertheless argues that, in exceptional cases, it represents the lesser of two evils. Allhoff does not take this position lightly. He begins by examining the way terrorism challenges traditional norms, discussing the morality of various practices of torture, and critically exploring the infamous ticking time-bomb scenario. After carefully considering these issues from a purely philosophical perspective, he turns to the empirical ramifications of his arguments, addressing criticisms of torture and analyzing the impact its adoption could have on democracy, institutional structures, and foreign policy. The crucial questions of how to justly authorize torture and how to set limits on its use make up the final section of this timely, provocative, and carefully argued book.

The United States and Torture

The United States and Torture PDF

Author: Marjorie Cohn

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 2012-04

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 0814769829

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Torture has been a topic of national discussion ever since it was revealed that “enhanced interrogation techniques” had been authorized as part of the war on terror. The United States and Torture provides us with a larger lens through which to view America's policy of torture, one that dissects America's long relationship with interrogation and torture, which roots back to the 1950s and has been applied, mostly in secret, to “enemies,” ever since. The United States and Torture opens with a compelling preface by Sister Dianna Ortiz, who describes the unimaginable treatment she endured in Guatemala in 1987 at the hands of the the Guatemalan government, which was supported by the United States. Following Ortiz's preface, an interdisciplinary panel of experts offers one of the most comprehensive examinations of torture to date, beginning with the Cold War era and ending with today's debate over accountability for torture.

Talking About Torture

Talking About Torture PDF

Author: Jared Del Rosso

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2015-06-09

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 0231539495

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When the photographs depicting torture at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison were released in 2004, U.S. politicians attributed the incident to a few bad apples in the American military, exonerated high-ranking members of the George W. Bush administration, promoted Guantánamo as a model prison, and dismissed the illegality of the CIA's use of "enhanced interrogation." By the end of the Bush administration, members of both major congressional parties had come to denounce enhanced interrogation as torture and argue for the closing of Guantánamo. What initiated this shift? In Talking About Torture, Jared Del Rosso reviews transcripts from congressional hearings and scholarship on denial, torture, and state violence to document this wholesale change in rhetoric and attitude toward the use of torture by the CIA and the U.S. military during the War on Terror. He plots the evolution of the "torture issue" in U.S. politics and its manipulation by politicians to serve various ends. Most important, Talking About Torture integrates into the debate about torture the testimony of those who suffered under American interrogation practices and demonstrates how the conversation continues to influence current counterterrorism policies, such as the reliance on drones.

Torture and the Twilight of Empire

Torture and the Twilight of Empire PDF

Author: Marnia Lazreg

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2016-12-13

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 0691173486

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Torture and the Twilight of Empire looks at the intimate relationship between torture and colonial domination through a close examination of the French army's coercive tactics during the Algerian war from 1954 to 1962. By tracing the psychological, cultural, and political meanings of torture at the end of the French empire, Marnia Lazreg also sheds new light on the United States and its recourse to torture in Iraq and Afghanistan. This book is nothing less than an anatomy of torture--its methods, justifications, functions, and consequences. Drawing extensively from archives, confessions by former torturers, interviews with former soldiers, and war diaries, as well as writings by Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and others, Lazreg argues that occupying nations justify their systematic use of torture as a regrettable but necessary means of saving Western civilization from those who challenge their rule. She shows how torture was central to guerre révolutionnaire, a French theory of modern warfare that called for total war against the subject population and which informed a pacification strategy founded on brutal psychological techniques borrowed from totalitarian movements. Lazreg seeks to understand torture's impact on the Algerian population--especially women--and also on the French troops who became their torturers. She explores the roles Christianity and Islam played in rationalizing these acts, and the ways in which torture became not only routine but even acceptable. Written by a preeminent historical sociologist, Torture and the Twilight of Empire holds particularly disturbing lessons for us today as we carry out the War on Terror.

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