Transcript Chapter 12: War, Terrorism, and Torture

Chapter 12: War, Terrorism, and
Torture

Richard A. Wasserstrom, “Does Morality Apply
to War?”
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Moral nihilism: the view that, in matters of war,
morality has no place
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Descriptive reading: in fact, decisions related to
war are uniformly made on grounds of national
interest
Prescriptive reading: decisions related to way
should be made on grounds of (say) national
interest—rather than on moral grounds
Analytic reading: it does not make sense to talk
about the morality of war
Chapter 12: War, Terrorism, and
Torture

Richard A. Wasserstrom, “Does Morality Apply
to War?”
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“A less absolutist argument” for the analytic
view:
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The moral prohibitions on the conduct of war are
so insignificant (i.e., the context of war allows so
much) that they can be ignored.
Response: We need to distinguish the question of
what is moral in war from that of the morality of
war.
Chapter 12: War, Terrorism, and
Torture

Richard A. Wasserstrom, “Does Morality Apply
to War?”
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An argument for the prescriptive view:
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Public servants (like the President) have a special
obligation to pursue the national interest.
Response: Public servants may, like parents,
have special obligations to certain individuals—
but they still also have the ordinary moral
obligations that all people have.
Chapter 12: War, Terrorism, and
Torture

Haig Khatchadourian, “Terrorism and Morality”
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Terrorism involves “acts of coercion or actual
use of force”
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Four kinds of terrorism:
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1. Predatory
2. Retaliatory
3. Political
4. Moralistic/religious
Chapter 12: War, Terrorism, and
Torture

Haig Khatchadourian, “Terrorism and Morality”
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Predatory and retaliatory terrorism are “patently
wrong”, so K. focuses on arguing for the
wrongness of the other two sorts of terrorism.
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All forms are wrong from the perspective of justwar theory.
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Principles of necessity, discrimination, and
proportion are violated.
Also all wrong from the perspective of human
rights
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Terrorism “violates...its targets' right to be treated
as moral persons.”
Chapter 12: War, Terrorism, and
Torture

Michael Walzer, “After 9/11: Five Questions
about Terrorism”
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What is terrorism? “Terrorism is the deliberate
killing of innocent people, at random, in order to
spread fear through a whole population and
force the hand of its political leaders.”
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How should we explain the existence of
terrorism? “We need a combined culturalreligious-political explanation that has to
focus...on the creation of...a whole group of
people who are ideologically or theologically
degraded so that they are available for murder.”
Chapter 12: War, Terrorism, and
Torture

Michael Walzer, “After 9/11: Five Questions
about Terrorism”
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How is terrorism defended? Two excuses: (1)
the terrorists were desperate, and (2) we asked
for it.
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How should we respond? Three elements of
response (in order of importance):
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1. Police work
2. Covert action
3. Diplomacy
Chapter 12: War, Terrorism, and
Torture

James P. Sterba, “Terrorism and International
Justice”
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Nonviolent pacifism: any use of violence against
other human beings is wrong
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Nonlethal pacifism: any legal use of force
against other human beings is wrong
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Just-war pacifism: only very rarely will
participation in the massive use of lethal force in
warfare be morally justified
Chapter 12: War, Terrorism, and
Torture

James P. Sterba, “Terrorism and International
Justice”
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Sterba argues for just-war pacifism.
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“[H]arm to innocents can be justified for the
sake of achieving a greater good when the
harm is...nonreparable but greatly outweighed
by the consequences of the action.”
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His recommended response to the terrorism
behind the 9/11 attacks: (1) encourage Israel to
reach an agreement with the Palestinians, (2)
modify the sanctions against Iraq, (3) bring Al
Qaeda before a U.S. or international court.
Chapter 12: War, Terrorism, and
Torture

Henry Shue, “Torture”
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Terrorist torture: torture performed for the
purposes of intimidation or deterring dissent
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Interrogational torture: torture performed for the
purposes of extracting information
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Terrorist torture cannot satisfy the constraint of
possible compliance. This principle has three
parts:
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1. Purpose of torture must be known to victim
2. Purpose must be performance of some action
the victim can perform
3. The performance of this action must
permanently end the torture
Chapter 12: War, Terrorism, and
Torture

Henry Shue, “Torture”
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Can interrogational torture satisfy the constraint
of possible compliance?
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Shue says it possible, but very unlikely
Cases of “purely interrogational torture” might
satisfy this constraint, but these will likely always
be hypothetical cases.
On the use of hypothetical cases
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Not useful for practical application
Say nothing about the legality of torture (even if
such cases are possible, laws should prohibit all
torture)
Chapter 12: War, Terrorism, and
Torture

Alan M. Dershowitz, “Should the Ticking Bomb
Terrorist Be Tortured?”
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Answer to the title question: Yes
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Why? “The simple cost-benefit analysis for
employing nonlethal torture [in cases like this]
seems overwhelming...”
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This is an application of act utilitarianism.
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Dershowitz mentions the risk of a slippery slope
whereby act utilitarianism is used to justify
intuitively wrong actions.
Chapter 12: War, Terrorism, and
Torture

Alan M. Dershowitz, “Should the Ticking Bomb
Terrorist Be Tortured?”
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To avoid the slippery slope, Dershowitz
suggests we respect certain constraints, such
as limiting torture to “convicted terrorists who
had knowledge of future massive terrorist
attacks.”
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Dershowitz also argues that the existing law
should allow for torture in particular cases, and
he proposes a system of judicial “torture
warrants” as a way to do this.