Distorted moral judgments
Sometimes I think academics write papers simply to attract media attention. Yes, I’m talking about the unpublished but much-discussed paper by Deakin law school’s Mirko Bagaric and Julie Clarke. The pair has jumped on the “torture warrants” bandwagon, arguing in favour of legalised torture.
If the summary of their argument published in the Sydney Morning Herald is anything to go by, the article is little more than a rehash of Alan Dershowitz’s ideas. They claim that because torture occurs against the law, the problem can be solved by legalising it. They suggest that they might just be playing devil’s advocate, because the public needs to “think more carefully about moral judgements we collectively hold”. They even apparently share Dershowitz’s enthusiasm for jamming sharp objects under people’s fingernails.
However, Bagaric (and possibly Clarke, but I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt) appears to deviate from the Dershowitz position in a key respect. As far as I’m aware, Dershowitz has never defended the use of torture on innocent parties; Bagaric has no such qualms:
[I]n some extreme cases, where it is almost certain someone has information that could prevent many lives being lost and there is no other way to obtain that information, the mere fact that they’re not directly involved in creating that threat doesn’t mean they can wash their hands of responsibility. (My emphasis.)
In fact, Bagaric believes that it is permissible to kill an innocent person who “almost certainly” has information we would like:
In those circumstances you would start with a minimum degree of harm; if that didn’t work, you would escalate it. And if that unfortunately resulted in an innocent person being killed, in those circumstances that would be justified. I think as a society we would accept that one person being killed to save thousands is legitimate.
This seems to be entirely incompatible with his later comment that “[o]nly torture methods that did not cause lasting damage should be used” — what damage can be more lasting than death?
And what if we were wrong? What if, despite our “almost certainty”, the person had no knowledge of the possible future crime, and because they were unable to help us before we moved beyond playing with their fingernails, they died as a result of our torture? I’m afraid I can not so callously dismiss innocent life as Bagaric does.
Australia does not endorse the death penalty, even for the most heinous crimes, and even where the convict has been given a fair trial and exhausted a lengthy appeals process. We do not endorse the death penalty, even in those cases, because we recognise that mistakes are made.
Bagaric believes that the authorities should have a right to kill an admittedly innocent person for failing to offer up information that we can’t be sure they have. What’s more, he supports the right to kill them without charge, without trial, and without appeal.
It takes some nerve for a man holding such repugnant views to accuse others of making “distorted moral judgements.”
The man is a ghoul. If we followed his deadly prescription, the result would be nothing short of a tyrannical police state.
I think it is clear that this man has some information we need, say, the location of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, and thus, his techniques should be applied until he gives us the response that we want.
Human rights can be removed when people forget why they are there in the first place. Humanity continues to aimlessly move in cycles.
Fenech, eh? That sounds like a bit of a lebbo terrorist name.
Let’s kidnap you from your home in the dead of the morning, and jam pins under your fingernails (’cos who’s going to complain about us doing it? You’re a terrorist!) until you tell us where your lebbo terrorist compatriots have got their W’sMD hidden, eh?
I think Bruce was being sarcastic, Bruce.
Perhaps he could change his name to Mirko Ba[rb]aric
This person was appointed to the Refugee Review Tribunal by the Reactionary Forces, which is a testament to the latter’s utter coldness and lack of humanity. One doesn’t have to be Bertrand Russell to guess that they deliberately put a moral miscreant there to stack the cards against the suffering asylum seekers.
I believe his paper is a very sinister precedent in the Western World, where uber-reactionary governments have been ascendant all around. We should be alert and very alarmed.
So, these would be some of those cursed “liberal academics” that Australia’s universities are full of, then?
I would back him to the hilt, but I don’t think he goes far enough.
I propose the introduction of a torture lottery. We can draw birthdates out of a barrel every week and torture the winners until they tell us everything they know about everything.
After a couple of years of this people would go out of their way to know as little as possible about anything.
Better safe than sorry.
I remember that the use of torture was one of the reasons used to justify the invasion of Iraq. Saddam authorised the use of ‘hot spoons’ to sear the skin. ‘How barbaric!’ they said.
What a convoluted world we live in.
Belated trackback.
The scary thing, from my point of view, is that it kinda makes sense. The logic is no different from that which Peter Singer uses to extend moral consideration to animals - Bagaric and Clarke just take it in the opposite direction. Instead of extending the circle of consideration, they’re contracting it on the basis of who can be best used as a means to an end. The majority will benefit from all of this. Society must be defended.
Mark - Torture is not only morally and legally wrong, but studies have shown that it DOES NOT WORK. It is a violent and humiliating process for producing confessions - often false confessions by people who simply do not have the information that is being demanded of them.
Professor Bagaric has also got his utilitarian maths wrong - in countries where torture has been legitimised, it is not just used in the “one life to save thousands” situations, but becomes a routine method of punishment without trial. Bagaric also fails to count the cost on a society’s general wellbeing when people have to live under the constant fear that they can be dragged into an interrogation room and tortured at any time.
While he continues to profess such disregard for basic human rights and the rule of law, I’d support the calls for Professor Bagaric to stand down from his positions at Deakin University and on the Refugee Review Tribunal.
Well, I’d say if you did it right and didn’t let anyone know the torturings were going on, it would work and be consistent with at least some versions of utilitarianism. The point is, of course, that it is wrong, despite being self-consistent.
As for him standing down, I don’t know why that would be necessary. He’s written a challenging paper. So what?
Actually, as a means of terror and domination over an oppressed population, torture is remarkably successful. Torture is more often used by dictators and totalitarian governments to control a subjected people than it is as an information gathering tool.
It’s ridiculous that someone who supports torture be considered trustworthy enough to help judge the rights of asylum seekers. I think he should step down.
However, academics shouldn’t be asked to give up their jobs simply because they write “a challenging paper”. Otherwise we’d be doing to right-wing academics what the loony Right in the USA are trying to do to left-wing academics.
Certainly not, Mark. But this appears to be a shallow, illogical argument that has been made for (1) argument’s sake, or (2) notoriety. I’m not sure that either is a worthwhile excuse for its publication.
Dogwhistle?
I mused to a friend on Saturday that the paper was written for American consumption, where they are already coming up with legal justifications for abrogating the Geneva Convention, ignoring human rights and getting around domestic laws against torture.