PHILOS 1B03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: United Nations Convention Against Torture, Immanuel Kant, Categorical Imperative
1 Sep 2016
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Wednesday, October, 7, 2015
Philosophy 1B03
Torture
Historically used as:
•Means of terrorizing civilian populations
•Form of criminal punishment
•Method of religious conversion
•Method of extracting confessions in legal systems
•Reward for military victors over vanquished enemies
•Means of extracting information, e.g., to further military objectives, prevent terrorist activity
Amnesty International (1973)
“Torture is the systematic and deliberate of acute pain by one person on another, or on a third
person, in order to accomplish the purpose of the former against the will of the latter.”
The United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading
Treatment or Punishment (1987)
“…any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted
on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a
confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of
having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on
discrimination of any kind….”
Torture: Main Questions
1. Is torture ever morally permissible?
2. If not, why not?
3. If sometimes morally permissible, then when?
4. Should torture ever be legally permissible?
5. If not, why not?
6. If torture should sometimes be legally permissible, then when?
Terminology
Interrogational Torture
•Deliberate infliction (or threat) of psychological or physical pain
•For purposes of extracting information
•E.g., military intelligence; terrorist threat
Consequentialism
•Actions, policies, laws judged in terms of good&/or bad consequences
•Overall balance of good and bad consequences
Deontology
•Inherent or intristic goodness or badness of act can count too
•e.g., promise display of gratitude
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