ANDREW FIALA: The recent debate about Michael Mukasey's views of "waterboarding" points us toward the bigger question of whether any form of coercive interrogation -- from the use of stress positions and sleep deprivation to electric shock and amputation -- is permissible. Most moral philosophers tend to think that torture is wrong.
The basic argument in favor of using torture is utilitarian. If torture provides us with information that will bring about good consequences, then we need to use it. The fear of terrorism has made us sympathetic to the idea that torture should be an option that can be used to elicit information about potential terror attacks.
There are, however, utilitarian arguments against torture. For example, information offered under torture is not reliable. Torture victims will say anything to please the torturer and get the pain to stop. Moreover, in a "ticking bomb" situation, there is no guarantee that pain will produce a confession in time to defuse the bomb.
The more important argument against torture has to do with justice and human empathy. Justice requires us to make sure that those we punish are actually guilty. But in almost any conceivable ticking-bomb scenario, no court would have had the time to establish that the accused is guilty. Rather, the authorities would assume guilt and hurry to apply torture to elicit information. But we know that the authorities make mistakes, which is why our legal system presumes that those accused of crime are innocent until proven guilty.
If one were persuaded by the utilitarian argument, the question of innocence or guilt would not be very important. As long as the good outcome of preventing a massive terror attack is obtained, it wouldn't matter if innocent people were tortured. The equation is simple: torture a few -- maybe even a few innocent people -- in order to save thousands.
According to this way of thinking, it might be useful then to torture the family of the accused, since a terrorist may be more sensitive to the pain inflicted on his mother or child than he is to his own suffering. But this shows us why torture is morally suspect. If it is wrong to torture an accused terrorist's family, then it is also wrong to torture an alleged terrorist who has not yet been proven guilty in a court of law.
We should also consider the effects of torture on the character of the torturer. The torturer must dominate and invade his victim's body without concern for his suffering and without empathy for his screams.
Finally, torture runs counter to our ideas about human dignity. The body of the person tortured is at the disposal of the torturer. The victim is totally subjected to the power of the torturer, who manipulates his victim's body to control his victim's mind. The torturer creates suffering so that his victim will finally submit to his will.
There is something disturbing about the physical domination that occurs in torture. A nation that prides itself on liberty should resist the idea that anyone should have that amount of power over the body of another. And a nation that wants to defend the innocent should refuse to authorize the use of torture in interrogation.
Andrew Fiala, Ph.D., is an associate professor of philosophy at California State University, Fresno and the author of “The Just War Myth.”