This is nearly a year old, but still worth flagging. In an attempt to provide a respectable veneer to its pro-torture gloss, the National Review convened a panel of “experts” who decided – surprise, surprise – that American-style torture is OK. The sad thing is that some of these experts are Catholics, based at Catholic institutions. Read it for yourself. I’ll give you a few highlights.
Gerald Bradley (University of Notre Dame) – like Spock in Wrath if Khan who said that “logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few” (the epitime of cold hard consequentialism) – “the requirements of justice really do vary with the severity of the circumstances facing the decision maker, so much so that one may — justly — cause the death of many to save an even greater number….Figuring out what is fair in this way calls for very clear-headed, and even cold-hearted prudential judgment. By “cold-hearted” I mean that we must not let sentiment or queasiness deter us from doing what should be done.”
E. Christian Brugger (St. John Vianney Theological Center, Denver) – a little bit of torture goes a long way – “the definition is [in the UN Convention Against Torture] too broad for my liking. Although I think some forms of severe pain and suffering are always wrong to inflict on prisoners, the infliction of pain per se is not wrong, since pain in itself is not an evil (nor pleasure a good). So under, say, a “ticking time-bomb” scenario, pain threatened or inflicted as an incentive to give information that is unjust to withhold can, it seems to me, be justified.”
Christopher Eberle (United States Naval Academy) – the bad guys have only themselves to blame if they get tortured – “fairness in distributing harms would permit us to waterboard KSM. Given that he had forced us to choose between his well-being and the well-being of many innocents, we could “distribute” the harm to him, not them.”
Patrick Lee (Franciscan University of Steubenville) – pain is good, so go for it! – “intentionally causing pain in order to provide the detainee with a motive to deliver information is not intrinsically immoral. Unlike bodily or psychosomatic integrity (which are violated in real torture), pain is not the deprivation of a basic human good. Indeed, pain often is part of the proper functioning of a human being as a sentient living being..”
Lee finishes with an adolescent rant about those damned “lib-uh-rals” who have only lately discovered the concept of moral absolutes. He fails to realize that he is engaging in the exact same kind of moral relativism. It’s incredible that a chaired professor at Franciscan University could deliver such a diatribe.
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