Maybe, Ramesh. (And again for the record, I’m horrified by the idea that we would pluck anyone’s eyes out). And I agree with you that intent matters a great deal. There’s a reason you’ve had to spend so much time dealing with the ticking time bomb scenario — because a scenario involving torturing someone for the fun of it is unpersuasive on its face.
But again, what is it specifically about torture that is demonstrably more evil than all these other things no matter what the context? I understand that aesthetically torture shocks the conscience. But so do thousands of maimed children from, say, the Dresden bombing. We all have access to the moral arguments — just war, etc — that help us accomodate the gruesome realities of war. But nobody has put forward a similar argument about torture, at least not that I’ve seen.
I have one partial explanation. The rights explosion. We have come to accept that human beings — all human beings — have certain immutable rights. This isn’t new or bad. But what is new is that for some these rights cannot be forfeited based upon the actions we take. I have a right to life and free movement. If I murder someone, I forfeit my claim to those rights. But more and more it seems the idea that you can forfeit rights is falling out of favor.
Some pro-lifers take this view toward the death penalty. They argue that it simply doesn’t matter what a person has done, the state has no right to execute him. I disagree, obviously, but it’s an honorable position. It seems that torture is a stowaway in this worldview. Again, I am open to the argument that torture (real torture) deserves to be off limits but I want to know why. Is it because of the essential dignity of all life? Is it because cruelty — even when the intent is to prevent greater cruelty — is always wrong? Is it because in the long run it will corrupt our natures?
There’s a bit of an echo to the animal rights debate here, I think. Animal rights activists want to argue that animals have inviolable right to certain humane treatment. Many of us sympathetic to the plight of animals still reject the idea that they have rights. Instead we’ve argued that animals don’t have rights but humans have obligations. A decent person is not needlessly cruel to animals because cruelty to animals is at odds with our conceptions of decency.
I don’t know about others, but this is where I’m most persuadable on the issue of banning torture always and everywhere. I don’t think Osama Bin Laden has any rights. There isn’t an ounce of kindness the man deserves. He doesn’t deserve fair treatment under the Geneva Convention or any other custom of law because he’s rejected those customs willy-nilly. Our rules are set up to protect the innocent, not the guilty. If we had some sort of God-given super-computer which could tell us with 100% who was guilty of murder, there would be no need for trials.
But, what Bin Laden and other murderers deserve isn’t the issue. It’s what we owe to ourselves and the kind of civlization we want to have. That’s why I favor all sorts of things which on a practical level might make war — and law enforcement — more difficult. That gets me pretty close to your position. But that still doesn’t quite get me to thinking it’d be wrong to waterboard Bin Laden all day long if that was the only way to prevent the next 9/11 — or worse.