Whenever I’ve heard that argument given, I’ve always feel uneasy around the people who give it. What constitutes torture? Whose lives are they concerned about? Whose lives are expendable? Why do we have to objectify subjects, and when we do that, how can we say we support the dignity of the human person?
Slavoj Žižek rightfully took on Alan Dershowitz’s support for torture, showing how it leads to the justification of terrorism:
Just as one should torture a terrorist whose knowledge could prevent the death of many more innocent people, should one not fully condone terror, at least against military and police personnel waging an unjust war of occupation, if it could prevent violence on a much large scale?
-Slavoj Žižek, The Puppet and the Dwarf (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003), 37.
That sounds just about right. We find many who support torture also support other evils, like unjust wars, if they think it will save them from harm, without considering the values they have to destroy in the process to justify such action. No wonder they are the ones the terrorists look to and cite in order to justify their own evil.
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