Further Note: I figured out how to do cool font/text thingies! Yes!
Further Further Note: I think that I am guilty of using the same sarcastic rant technique that I criticised Levin for using. In my defense- I think his argument is idiotic and that makes me angry.
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I would have to disagree with the point Michael Levin makes in 'A Case for Torture'*. I'll admit I disagreed with his point of view as I read the article, so my opinion is probably biased against him.
His arguments are full of fallacies. For one thing, he continuously repeats that there are no good grounds for not torturing his hypothetical terrorist, and that the strongest argument against torturing said terrorist is that it's a supposed infringement of human rights. That is completely untrue. The reason why torture has been discarded as a reliable way of retrieving information is because it is easy for the victim to lie about the information. Take a look at the history of torture. Let's look at King Henry VIII and the case of Mark Smeaton. Henry VIII tortured him in order to secure a confession that he had participated in an affair with Henry's wife, Anne Boleyn. He duly confessed (and revealed other 'information'), though the evidence that the affair had actually occurred was minimal. There was no reason for Smeaton to actually say that he had been involved in what was considered treason- he knew very well that that would lead to his execution (which in medieval times was almost as bad as torture, which says something). It would seem to be obvious that he would tell the truth to spare his life. But he did not. He wanted the torture to stop so badly that he, in effect, signed his own death warrant, preferring death to continued torture. He wasn't even involved in some grand idealistic scheme.**
Would a tortured terrorist today not do the same? Would they not agree that they were involved in terrorism, confirm whatever misguided notions the investigative force had about terroristic activities, etc., in order to simply stop the torture? Or if, by some chance, the police/FBI/CIA/whatever accidentally caught the wrong man and tortured him, is there not a chance that he would agree to his guilt, despite his innocence, in order to stop the torture? And a false confession/information does us no good if we, following Levin's analogy, wish to save innocent lives.
Another common lie is false information. Say, for example, that you are a terrorist. (I know it's difficult to put yourself in place of someone you (supposedly) hate, but try.) You have planted a bomb on the fourth floor of a building. The police force (or whoever) has caught you and wants to know where the bomb is so that it will be defused in order to save the building (which for some reason is unable to be evacuated). You are viciously tortured. Now, you want the torture to stop, but you also do not want to reveal the location of the bomb. So you lie and say the bomb is on the third floor. The FBI or whoever goes and finds no bomb and tortures you some more. You lie again and say the bomb's on the eightieth floor. And this goes on and on until time runs out and the bomb blow up. By then, all reason for torturing you has ended- to continue would be punishment, which Levin agrees is inhumane and useless, since it will not do anything but avenge the dead. So you aren't tortured any more. True, you're probably executed, but your mission is accomplished and you will no longer be tortured.
The best-known (albeit fictional, though I'll use it because it's well-known) example of such a thing happening is Leia's dilemma in Star Wars: A New Hope. After refusing to reveal any information under torture (another possibility- what if torture is ineffective because your hypothetical terrorist has been conditioned against it?), she is faced with a choice under the influence of what is termed 'mental torture': Give up some information, or something she cares about will bite the dust. If we put this into terroristic terms- it means divulge the location of the bomb, or be tortured (mentally or otherwise). Leia does neither- she gives false information. In terroristic terms, the terrorist says the bomb is on the ninety-first floor instead of the fourth. And we can only hope we are not as cruel as the fictional villains- who 'torture' her anyway after she gives information. (False or otherwise- they believe that it's true so there is no 'ethical' reason to torture her more.)***
The second to last argument of Levin poses these questions and 'answers' them: 'Ah, but how can the authorities ever be sure they have the right malefactor? Isn't there a danger of error and abuse? Won't 'WE' turn into 'THEM'? Questions like these are disingenuous in a world in which terrorists proclaim themselves...'
His first question can be answered thus: we cannot be sure and therefore should restrain ourselves from torturing innocents. Yes, there is a danger of BOTH error and abuse- a high one. Where are the limits? If one terrorist has one hostage, is the hostage more important than the terrorist? Why? If the hostage is a murderer? If you personally don't like the terrorist (or hostage)? Are we on a slippery slope- best explained by the oft-quoted phrase: 'The road to hell is paved by good intentions'? We might turn into them, we might already be them, or they might be us. But what I mean about all of this is that the terrorists DO NOT PROCLAIM THEMSELVES. Yes, as Levin points out, if you see masked gunmen on the news, then you know that they’re guilty. But if a terrorist leaves a bomb planted somewhere, they don’t stand out in the middle of the street and scream ‘I’M A TERRORIST, COME TORTURE ME!’. Suicide bombers may proclaim their identity, but by then it is too late, or irrelevant for torture. Even terrorists are human and try to protect their lives to the obvious extent of not walking around with a sign that says ‘Kick me, I’m a terrorist’ on their backs. (Metaphorically). And when he says ‘torture only the obviously guilty’- how do you define that? And why is he ignoring, as he himself puts it,- ‘…hard cases where the situation is murkier’?
Now, the examples above are mostly not about one painful life vs a lot of innocent dead. But they do illustrate possible ways of why torture is ineffective. Torture is torture, no matter the underlying motives. It either works or it doesn't. Michael Levin's thesis is that it does and so it should be used for good. Mine is that it doesn't work (or has a very low rate of success and a high rate of catastrophic failure) and so is useless for the cause of good.
Such scenarios are why torture was abandoned as an effective means of securing factual information.**** Indeed, the case can be made that other, legal, methods of supplying information are much better.
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Alright, now that I've written why torture is useless and ineffective, I'll proceed to disagree with Levin on a minor point that he made, and one that has been brought up a few times. That point is the assassination of Hitler.
Unlike what some people say, Levin does agree that, had it been possible, the Allies would have assassinated Hitler and did assassinate Heydrich. His wording is a bit blurry, I admit, but this sentence shows this (underlines are my own): 'No Allied leader would have flinched at assassinating Hitler, had that been possible. (The Allies did assassinate Heydrich.)'. His next few sentences are what confuses people- ‘Americans would be angered to learn that…could have had Hitler killed in 1943…but refused on moral grounds’ which implies that this scenario did happen. As a matter of fact, it did not. Roosevelt, it could be argued, was in fact one of the minority who believed in violence/war against Hitler from the start, but since America did not wish to enter the war, he could not go against Hitler directly. If you look at a history of WWII, there were many things England, France, etc., could have done to stop WWII before it began, but did not. No matter what case you look at, Roosevelt definitely did not refuse to assassinate Hitler. Especially in 1943, when the war had been ongoing for 3 years and 3 months.*****
And it’s also ridiculous to apply assassination/pre-emptive attack to his torture case. Keep in mind that I’m not arguing that torture is immoral. (Even though I do believe that, that’s not what I’m trying to prove.) I’m trying to prove that Levin’s argument is invalid.
Levin’s reasons for advocating torture are that it would provide information/relief for the larger good. Pre-emptive attack does not provide information. A scouting mission might, but that’s not what he’s talking about. And, since Levin is being wonderfully patriotic here, so I’m assuming he means that we have the right to pre-emptively attack them. But what if we were planning on wiping out another country, by what was perceived as unprovoked by them? And they got wind of that fact and wiped out our military first? Would Levin still be in agreement that they were justified, even if their/our viewpoints differed over the provocation?
Assassination does not provide information. Dead people tell no tales, it is said. And it provides no relief. For example, if we had assassinated Hitler early on, the German people, in adoration of their ‘beloved leader’ and furious at his death, would simply have accelerated hostilities. Hitler was not the only war-mongering monster among the Nazis. True, if we had assassinated Hitler as an infant, WWII might not have happened. But how could we have known that baby Hitler would kill millions? And let’s keep practicality in mind and rule out time travel. In our time, with our capabilities, with what applies to us, how can we know in advance who will be a killer and who will not?
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I find Levin’s argument that idealism is uncivilized very strange. Idealism is defined as: the practice of forming ideals or living under their influence.****** Ideals are: a standard of perfection, beauty, or excellence. So, he criticizes people who believe that something is perfect/excellent (and therefore right and moral) and follow through on their belief as uncivilized, barbarous, uninformed, ignorant? Since Levin obviously believes that his cause for advocating torture is right and excellent and so should therefore be followed out on, is he not an idealist? Doesn’t that mean he is accusing himself of being uncivilized?
As for his writing style, I find it full of tricks to make us believe in his argument. He pushes on the offensive throughout the whole thing, using sarcasm to bait and insult those who believe differently in attempt to send them on a guilt trip. He never presents the other side clearly and ignores obvious issues- like the ineffectiveness of torture, which has been written about by intellectuals like Cesare Beccaria. He uses deliberately vague phrasing, quick input of ideas without reflection and relies on statistically unsound information. Take for example his ‘poll’. He surveyed four people. Even the amateur statistician******* should know that four is not a factually convincing or accurate number. He also uses far too many assumptions that you are indeed believing him. His argument, in fact, is designed to convince those of his flawed thinking that they are incontrovertibly right and that others not of that thinking are immoral and wrong. Anyone who is willing to examine his argument thoroughly and with a certain amount of bias will find that he has not made any sense whatsoever.
I do believe that it is ethical to put the lives of the many before the one. I do not believe that Levin’s ideas of implanting that moral idea are workable or well-thought-out. His ‘case for torture’ is weak, flawed and full of hot air. His argument is full of holes. I cannot take him seriously when his point is irrelevant to the greater ethical issue behind it.
To clarify: if torture were an effective instrument of procuring information that would benefit the greater good, if Levin's points were valid and made sense, if what he wrote was thoughtful, unbiased and a good argument that relied on fact, not ranting accusation, then I would agree. But torture is not effective or reliable, Levin's points are invalid and do not make sense, he was not thoughtful, unbiased and he most certainly did not rely on fact. I therefore feel obliged to disagree with him.
A few people might say that an effective method of securing the truth is through the use of truth serums. In fact, such serums do not work. They only release inhibitions against speech- they do not force people to tell the truth. Indeed, some people, feeling compelled to speak, will lie, will relate events that never happened, will agree and condemn themselves if they are innocent, etc. ********
I really could go on with this, but I’ve criminally exceeded the word limit for these things by over 2,000 words, so I’ll stop writing here. In conclusion, though, I believe that Levin is seriously misinformed, has not stopped to think things through the entire way and deliberately uses clever, though not reliable (which isn’t the word I’m looking for here, but oh well) tricks to convince people who want to believe in the many over the one principle, but who cannot see how flawed his reasoning is.
***************ASTERISKS*************ARE***********COOL************
* “A Case for Torture” by Michael Levin. Printed in Newsweek in 1982. You probably knew that.
**For information on Mark Smeaton, go look up Anne Boleyn on Google, the library, etc. I forgot to keep a list of my sources.
***I could totally expand upon the reasons why the Star Wars good guys are terrorists and how good and evil in that universe are just analogies for the harder truths in our own and how we actually do support terrorists...but that has very little to do with what this reflection is supposed to be about, so I won't. XD
****This page's Q&A section is an excellent place to look at. These three sections especially:[ Are there any situations in which torture is permitted?; Shouldn't torture be permitted if its use will save lives?; Does the U.S. lose valuable information if torture is prohibited? ]: prove my point better than I can write it. It, in my opinion, completely knocks Levin off his soapbox, as well as raising a few other excellent points against the supposedly 'ethical' implementation of torture, most of which I agree with. I suggest you go check it out. It's also a less offensive and more factual way of looking at the issue than either I or Levin provided.
*****Go look it up. Really. I did because such an accusation was ludicrous. And WWII started in September, 1939. The US entered the war in Dec. 8, 1941, after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Roosevelt had been trying since the war began to get the US involved in the war against Hitler, but couldn’t, since the people did not want to fight. And the US only declared war on Hitler because he was affiliated with Japan, which was behind Pearl Harbor.
****** Dude, this is way too many asterisks. Anyway, I used this dictionary: Merriam-Webster Online
******* I feel so smart for using that word….ahahahahahahahhaha
******** U.S. courts have generally ruled the use of truth serums is not a "trustworthy truth-extracting procedure" and have held evidence thus acquired is inadmissible, regardless of whether the drugs were administered voluntarily or involuntarily. E.g., Lindsey v. U.S., 237 F.2d 893, 897 (9th Cir.1956). This is from here. A confirming source is here. Or go look it up.
