Morality & Torture

Laurence Vance has an article up at LewRockwell.com called, "The Morality of Torture," in which, among other things, he asks questions of those who support torture. Since I strongly support torture as an option for known terrorist leaders, I thought I'd answer some of his questions. [numbers are mine]

If it is morally permissible to torture a suspected terrorist in an attempt to gain information that may save American lives, then:
[1]Is it morally permissible to torture a suspected terrorist who is a child in an attempt to gain information that may save American lives? If not, then why not?
[2]Is it morally permissible to torture a suspected terrorist who is a woman in an attempt to gain information that may save American lives? If not, then why not?
[3]Is it morally permissible to torture by any means a suspected terrorist in an attempt to gain information that may save American lives? If not, then why not?
[4]Is it morally permissible to torture a suspected terrorist even if it results in his permanent disability in an attempt to gain information that may save American lives? If not, then why not?
[5]Is it morally permissible to torture a suspected terrorist even if it results in his death in an attempt to gain information that may save American lives? If not, then why not?

[6]Is it morally permissible to do any of the above if it may save just one American life? If not, then why not?

My answers: 2-6 yes. 1, probably not. We recognize that children aren't held responsible for their actions in the same way as adults.  Subjecting a child to extremely harsh treatment like torture is a different matter than doing so to an adult.

Vance continues:

what about torturing American citizens who might know about American lives being in jeopardy? Is it morally permissible to torture a suspected terrorist who is an American in an attempt to gain information that may save American lives? If not, then why not?

No. American citizens have Constitutional rights which should not be violated by their own government. Hostile alien terrorists have/should have no rights. They are a different category by definition. Vance goes on to pose more extreme questions about torturing Americans citizens. All can easily be answered by the same statement I gave above.

I don’t think that many Americans who say that torture is justified under certain circumstances if it may save American lives really believe what they are saying.

He might want to rethink that. Some of us have very specific, well-thought out reasons why we feel torture is sometimes justifiable. And I guarantee him that we believe what we are saying. Vance then unveils the huge strawman that is often used by torture opponents.

If you really want to get a terrorist to talk, there are ways to do it without laying a finger on him. Here is one: Take his wife and son and, in front of him, rape her, crush the boy’s testicles, and sodomize them both. That will get him talking more than anything you could ever do to him. If the end is gaining information that may save American lives, then why not?

Why not? Because we make a distinction between the guilty and the innocent. Torturing a known terrorist is not morally equivalent to torturing the innocent. His argument is not only a strawman but illogical. No one supporting torture of terrorists is making an unrestricted utility argument. We can argue in favor of imprisoning criminals because it deters crime. That doesn't mean we have to support imprisoning their innocent relatives too, because it would deter crime even more. All arguments favoring torture are restricted in scope. 

And how credible is information obtained via torture?

That's a different topic, which I've covered extensively before. Information is information. It can be good or bad.

even if credible information could be obtained through torture, it is still immoral, barbaric, and un-American.

It's not immoral. See how that works? He says it's immoral; I say it isn't. Questions of morality are based on opinion. How about barbaric? Sure. So what? War in general is barbaric. How about un-American? Nonsense. Torture has been used at various times throughout American history and will be used again. Many things that go on within our own prison system could be characterized as torture. There's nothing un-American about it. The rest of his article is basically an ad-hominem against anyone who disagrees with him or his foreign policy views, so it can safely be ignored.