torture is wrong

I include the video below only because I started thinking about this topic due to watching this tonight.



One of the bigger recent news stories has been of the fact that details of how the CIA interrogated (or tortured, depending on who you ask) combatants captured in the war on terror.  In the video above John McCain argues that he agrees with the Senate committee that released the details and also argues against the use of such interrogation techniques.

I for one do not know whether releasing the information was a good or a bad thing.  I do not really intend to argue one way or the other because I do not have enough information to take an informed position on that.  I do believe that I have enough information to take a position against the use of torture, however.

For a while I held the position that, while torture is a bad thing, it should be allowed in serious circumstances.  If we believe that a bomb is going to go off in a city center, for example, and someone has information that could keep that bomb from going off, then I figured that torturing that individual should be an option on the table.  This presents a few problems, though.

First, once Pandora's box is open where and how do you draw the lines?  What is allowed and not allowed?  How urgent is urgent enough?  Is a bomb that threatens five people below the threshold but one that threatens twenty above it?  Ultimately, in any scenario where the lines cannot be clearly drawn and where proper oversight is impossible the envelope will continue to be pushed until torture is allowed in scenarios that were never intended.

Second, I have heard multiple sources, including Senator McCain above, claim that torture does not produce useful information.  While this may not be entirely true, I do believe its usefulness is more limited than most people realize.  Is torture worth the moral cost if the information it gleans is minimal?

Third, the rationale I always used was an economic one, and that is not appropriate when dealing with moral issues.  The thought went that if the action saves enough lives it is worth the moral cost of abusing someone else (who may or may not have it coming to them).  Lives are not measurable units, however, and neither is the abuse something that should be measured against the value of lives.  Certainly, if my family are the people threatened by the bomb I would probably be the first in line to extract the information to diffuse the bomb through abuse, and maybe in that it could be an act of love, but more of that is a confession of my sinful nature than I would like to admit.

In going along with this thought, I watched the movie Unthinkable about a year ago.  From a philosophical standpoint the movie is interesting, but I would warn anyone who wants to watch it that it is not an enjoyable watch for a normal person.  It deeply disturbing and very difficult to watch because it directly addresses the question of what torture is acceptable by presenting an extreme situation where millions might die, someone who has information to address the extreme situation, and a torturer whose job it is to extract that information.  The movie is named by the fact that the torturer feels compelled to resort to unthinkable means of extracting information from the subject near the end of the movie, and the question in the viewer's mind is supposed to be whether he should take those truly disgusting steps in the name of saving so many lives.

I would argue that God does not calculate moral decisions based on the number of lives at stake.  Therefore, something that is immoral to save one life is immoral to save a million lives.  Again, if it is my family's lives, of course I am going to turn into a hypocrite, change my tune, and advocate whatever it takes.  I am only a sinful human.

Finally, this may sound like a rehash, but I see no support for torture in Scripture, and rather an indication that it is Christians who should expect torture instead of dealing it out. Sure, we see that governments are given power to enforce justice (Rom 13:4), but we also see that God stood in judgment of nations and people who abused that power (Is 47:5-11).  Further, we see no indication that Christians as individuals are permitted to do anything but respond to ill treatment by actively being kind and respecting their abusers (Matt 5:38-47; Rom 12:17-21).  There was certainly violence that God commanded in the Old Testament, but I do not recall Him commanding torture.

Update (12/16/14):

I have two further notes I would like to make.

First, I am going to step away from political issues for a little while, so my next few posts should be largely apolitical.  Thanks for indulging me on these, though.

Second, I did not address the justification that I keep hearing for torture that the recipients of said torture deserve it.  Since I am addressing this from the perspective that it is unacceptable for Christians, I would point to the fact that, "they deserve it," is never a justification for doing something wrong to someone else for new covenant believers.  This was the whole point of the parable of the unmerciful servant.  The unmerciful servant was punished, not because he was unjust toward his fellow servant, but because he had no right to demand justice in the face of the mercy he had already been shown.