This is a reply to
Derek's comment. Blogger won't allow me to post it as a comment because it is too many characters.
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You’re right, JMNR’s post doesn’t put forth a formal argument for why torture can never be justified. It assumes that “torture” is evil by definition, and then wonders whether the Bush Administration tortured. He says that many of the practices used by the administration “have been widely condemned as torture prior to their use”. He says the actions don’t pass the “smell test” and that John McCain (a man with first-hand experience with torture) condemns them. Then he says that if a “bipartisan and judicious examination” of the facts (calmly and fully disclosed) finds the acts as torturous, then the acts are condemnable.
That’s a position, if not something close to an argument.
And you don’t do any better. You’ve yet to cough up an argument for why torture may be justified.
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My post isn't an argument for the immorality of torture, so much as it is an argument for why we shouldn't torture (the fact that torture is immoral is just one reason why we shouldn't do it). I never meant to argue that because torture is illegal, it is therefore immoral.
Torture just happens to be one of those things that’s both illegal and immoral.
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You admit that torture is harmful to the souls of the individuals carrying it out, that it is illegal, and that it is harmful to the reputation of our country.
Yet you dispute that it is always immoral.
I think the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate that torture is ever morally permissible, since the majority position is that it is not (hence all the legislation against it).
But not only that, I also think you bear the burden of proof because non-violence should be our preferred default. We should be slow to conclude that intentional infliction of suffering on other human beings made in the image of God and for whom Christ died is ever warranted.
If you want to stand up for torture, you have to make your case. And it better be good.
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It isn’t clear whether you admit that torture is ineffective, or whether you understand how that fact is relevant. All you gave us is a “hmmm”.
But the fact that torture is ineffective for extracting reliable information, especially when contrasted with other means of interrogation, is hugely relevant.
I agree that there are occasions for doing things that happen to be illegal and harmful to the soul and reputation. But one is hard-pressed to find a reason why such an illegal and harmful thing might be justified if it's ineffective to begin with, and if there are far more effective alternatives!
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As for what you take to be the strongest case against the justification of torture is interesting, but isn’t really that much of an argument, so much as it is simply a (pretty coherent) position.
Nevertheless, you admit that it is persuasive, though you offer one counter-example (Just War).
It seems like someone wanting to maintain that torture is always evil could reject Just War theory, or, wanting to maintain a version of Just War theory, one could hold that war may only be justified as a means to self-defense (a scaled up version of shooting and regrettably killing an armed intruder in your house who obviously intends to kill you). Obviously wars run under this philosophy would look different than we might be used to.
As for Aquinas, I think he might be able to save his position as you described it, that war may be justified if declared by a legitimate authority (something I do not necessarily concede in this post), by being careful to define how an individual or group of individuals can obtain authority legitimately.
One might argue that in the case of the America Revolution, we were first justified in declaring independence and national sovereignty, which we did, and thereby obtained the legitimate authority to declare war against armed intruders, which we did.
Or, like Norman Geisler as I understand him, you can argue that violent revolution is never justified. He views America like an illegitimate child (he loves her, but not the way she was conceived).
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As for whether it’s true that “Intentional killing can be justified, in the absence of a legitimate authority, if the killing is done for the sake of securing a people’s natural rights.", I’m not sure. I for one am not prepared to go to war with you for stealing one of my books and refusing to give it back (though you might argue I have a natural right to my property).
As to whether a person who endangers the lives of non-combatants gives up their right to not be tortured, I am just not convinced. Even if it’s possible to forfeit certain rights to certain degrees (a claim I am not sure about), it does not follow that torture itself may be justified. There may still be lines that one should never cross.
