A little rough, but you get the point.

The sudden flare up in the debate over aggressive interrogation techniques has shed embarrassing new light on the incoherence of progressive moral philosophy as it exists today. This cognitive dissonance is captured in an unintentionally revealing article by Gary Kamiya from Salon.com. Kamiya contends that there are two philosophical camps in the torture debate: the Kantians who hold that torture is never justifiable, and the “Benthamites or utilitarians” who are willing to accept torture if it can be framed as the lesser of two evils (while the claim that there are a sum total of two valid philosophical approaches to this problem streamlines the discussion, Thomists, Pragmatists, Hedonists, and a few others might consider it a bit glib). By the end of the article, it becomes clear that Kamiya favors the Kantians in their principled stand against torture, asserting “no torture today, no torture tomorrow, no torture ever”. As moving a conclusion as this is, it is more of an emotional imperative than a categorical one. This uncompromising rejection of torture is coherent if one acknowledges along with Kant that people must always be treated as ends and not as means. However, as is so often the case with these passionate denunciations of the interrogation methods used under President Bush, there is such a lack of analytic rigor, prudential judgment, and basic honesty in the fulminations of Kamiya and many others that share his feelings, that is difficult to take their moral outrage seriously.

The first problem is equivocation in the use of the term torture. Kamiya lists the following techniques used by American interrogators as utterly unjustifiable: waterboarding, slapping, sleep deprivation, the withholding of pain medication, slamming prisoners into walls, [and] locking them in boxes with insects (in this case it was a harmless caterpillar). Notice that this list does not include things like finger nail extraction, dismemberment, electric shock, rape, and the brutalization of family members, all of which everyone seems ready to acknowledge should never be permitted. Even those who believe that everything on the former list should never be done would acknowledge a difference in degree from those latter practices. And yet, for many the reaction towards both lists is equally indignant. If an action is intrinsically wrong, then it can never be acceptable. If waterboarding is intrinsically wrong than it is equally unacceptable when done to our own troops as part of their training. Where is the outrage over that common practice? A few commentators have seemed to imply that no physical contact is ever allowable during an interrogation. If so, then any sort of physical parental correction, punitive running at football practice, and a vast array of practices at every jail and prison in our country are similarly morally offensive. If these commentators are serious, then hurrah for the coherence of their naivety; the rest of us are not bound to live by their false, utopian view of the world. This does not discount the legitimate concerns of Kamiya, but it would be nice if someone on the left would be willing to establish some basic principles that everyone can assent to, like the right to self defense of the individual as well as the local and national community. Only then can there be a fruitful debate.

The second problem is the refusal to offer a meaningful alternative to harsh interrogation. Let’s assume that Kamiya is correct and that every method he identified qualifies as torture. What is to be done? As usual, no answer is given. He makes the usual exception for the ticking time bomb scenario, but says that this never actually occurs. In fact, if torture is always wrong than the ticking time bomb scenario is not a justifiable exception. It doesn’t change the nature of the act. In the event that every interrogation method beyond asking a question is wrong, here is my proposal for how to procede:

Islamic terrorists represent the antithesis of an ordered civic life. They prey upon innocents, even those of their own tribes, creeds, and countries; they acknowledge no check upon their brand of violence; they are utilitarians of the purest sort, considering any action that advances their goals as acceptable. The destructive capacity of these qualities is enhanced by their ability to exploit the principles and protections found within Western societies that acknowledge rights stemming from human dignity. Because terrorists do not believe in human dignity, or at least reject the idea that it presents any moral obstacle to their actions, they are able to subvert and destroy societies by perverting their own principles. If we cannot coerce any information from them when captured, then there is only one solution: kill them. Those charged with the defense of society have a grave duty to defend the common good, which is of course predicated on protecting individual rights, most importantly the right to life. There is no question that Jihadist terrorists will kill as many innocent individuals as possible as a means to achieving their theological/political ends. When a terrorist is caught in the act or in the wake of an attack, they should be given an option: tell us everything or face summary execution. This may seem like a dubious moral improvement over waterboarding, but it in fact, it is. If aggressive interrogation techniques are intrinsically wrong because they rely on the repeated infliction of mental, emotional, or physical pain and result in the dehumanization of both captor and victim, then they can never be legitimately employed, not even in the ticking time-bomb scenario. If this is the case, and captured terrorists cannot be coerced in any way, this does not remove the responsibility to defend the common good. As has already been demonstrated, the terrorist does not merit the special legal protections of a society that he or she is actively trying to destroy. It is therefore the case that in virtue of the responsibility to protect the innocent from attack, and the unreformable nature of the terrorist, (proven by the unwillingness to demonstrate remorse by relating any and all information to their captors), it the responsibility of those in power to quickly, without passion, and with as painless a method as possible, execute all terrorists upon a reasonable establishment of guilt. This is the only way to insure that torture does not occur and that the common good is truly protected from the dedicated destroyers of life and society.

This assumes that no interrogation techniques are morally acceptable. If some are allowed, then it does not violate the state’s duty to the common good to incarcerate and interrogate in order to glean information needed to save lives and defeat evil. Human dignity must be essentially respected throughout, but this respect does not demand kind and gentle treatment. These are not innocent people. They retain their essential humanity and cannot be treated as mere instruments, but they do not have a claim to special consideration, politeness, or leniency. They have chosen a life of complete animosity towards Western, Democratic, and Judeo-Christian societal norms. They are not entitled to any rights beyond the most basic protections against truly inhuman treatment. As far as the specifics of what was actually done under President Bush, I am open to the possibility that some things did fall into this inhuman category, but you have to argue the point, not just wring your hands, while breathlessly yelling “torture, torture!”.