Torture's logic

In an essay from a new book excerpted in Britain's Prospect magazine and reprinted in the Sunday Star's Ideas section yesterday, Michael Ignatieff comes to this conclusion about torture:

We cannot torture, in other words, because of who we are. This is the best I can do, but those of us who believe this had better admit that many of our fellow citizens are bound to disagree. It is in the nature of democracy itself that fellow citizens will define their identity in ways that privilege security over liberty and thus reluctantly endorse torture in their name.

If we are against torture, we are committed to arguing with our fellow citizens, not treating those who defend torture as moral monsters. Those of us who oppose torture should also be honest enough to admit that we may have to pay a price for our own convictions. Ex ante, of course, I cannot tell how high this price might be. Ex post — following another terrorist attack that might have been prevented through the exercise of coercive interrogation — the price of my scruple might simply seem too high. This is a risk I am prepared to take, but frankly, a majority of fellow citizens is unlikely to concur.

Ignatieff, now running for the leadership of Canada's federal Liberal Party, is saying that no rational person can endorse torture, because once you allow it on even the smallest scale, countries will use it on the much larger scale of, say, Abu Ghraib. That said, he thinks there is a cost that goes with this moral stance, i.e. terrorist killing more innocent people because the Jack Bauers of the world aren't allowed to cut off suspects' fingers one by one to get them to cough up WHERE THE BOMB IS.

As pointed out in a piece that ran with the Ignatieff article, the repatriated Canadian philosopher does not openly acknowledge the shitstorm he caused in the human rights community when he endorsed mild forms of coercion in his book Lesser Evils -- even though his new argument has clearly been influenced by the criticisms lobbed his way last year.

Your thoughts?

Comments

[Sto-oa]

The flaw with Ignatieff's framework can be articulated with the help of an example. Let us take his idea of a conscientious offender: a person who uses torture to save lives. Now, imagine a situation where the world is threatened by a world wide nuclear disaster. A terrorist group will launch several bombs simulateneously. If there was a suspect who had information and was then tortured in order to save the lives of millions, in Ignatieff's world, the torturer would be a conscientious offender, who would be acquited since the act saved millions of lives.

Let us accept the situation as it is. That the danger was indeed imminent: that drastic action was called upon. Now imagine, a government official who says 'No. I'm not going to torture that person regardless of the danger'. In contrast to Ignatieff's conscientious offender imagine a moral idiot: a person who abides by the moral law at the expense of civil society. In the realism of Ignatieff's world, this person would idiotic, since his act costs the lives of many, in that rational political action is one that protects and saves lives. Only an idiot would act morally in moments of peril: since his ethical obligation belongs to others and not to a principle. What would be his reason to do what would be tantamount to doing nothing? Under what grounds would he refuse to use an effective means of gathering information that would save millions, in order to uphold a general principle? And yet, if he were to act according to Ignatieff's prescription of robbing a person of their dignity for the sake of the public, he would contradict that principle of humanity which makes lives worth saving in the first place. The moral idiot responds by rhetorically asking: 'What is the point of saving many when I cannot recognize the humanity in one?'

If we accept the possibility of a conscientious offender, and reject moral absoluteness, our claim to why human life as worth saving becomes vulnerable to the extent that the claim loses its consistency. To be fair, I think Ignatieff is well aware that most people would rather have a conscientious offender--he is honest to admit that that most people are far moral perfection--and it is better to act with a view of the world that is less than perfect.

Although Ignatieff seems to forget: just because we are thrown in inconsistent situations does not mean we have the right to be inconsistent.