"English common law has regarded torture and its fruits with abhorrence for over 500 years"
Lord Bingham, British judge
"Torture is an unqualified evil. It can never be justified. Rather it must always be punished."
Lord Brown, British judge


Introduction
Torture involves deliberately inflicting physical or mental pain on a person without legal cause. This includes threats to family members and loved ones.

Before you object that there can't ever be a legal cause for inflicting pain, consider painful medical treatments, soldiers wounded in a legally declared war, or contestants in a boxing match.
Torture has been used as a punishment, to intimidate or control people, to get information or just to gratify sadistic impulses.

Governments have used torture to keep themselves in power, to enforce their particular political philosophy, to remove opposition and to implement particular policies.

Torture is wrong
Torture is regarded as wrong for several reasons (expanded later in this section):

It's cruel
It treats people as means rather than ends
It is not an effective way of obtaining information
Since the middle of the last century torture has generally been regarded as wrong, so wrong in fact that the UN Convention Against Torture allows no exceptions, even in circumstances such as war or while fighting terrorism.

British law bans torture and the UK is one of the signatories to the United Nations Convention Against Torture. The Foreign Office web site says "Torture is one of the most abhorrent violations of human rights and human dignity," and adds

"The Government's position on torture has always been very clear. We unreservedly condemn its use as a matter of fundamental principle. The UK is committed to combating torture globally, and continues to implement an active campaign to help eradicate it."

A poll in 2006 showed that 72% of Britons oppose torture in any circumstances – even where its use would save lives.

Torture and other inhumane acts causing severe pain or suffering, or serious injury to the body or to mental or physical health are also prohibited under international criminal law and can amount to crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Evidence obtained through torture is not admissible in British courts, although it is acceptable for police or security forces to act on information obtained by torture.

Torture is still widespread
Torture is still widely practised in the world - in 1996 it was said that torture was used, formally or informally, in one country out of every three.

Amnesty International states that there were reports of torture or ill-treatment by state officials in more than 150 countries on the period 1997 to mid 2000.

The ethical problem of torture
In recent decades the absolute wrongness of torture has begun to be questioned, following repeated terrorist acts and the fear that terrorists have access to weapons of mass destruction.

In this context some people argue that torture, while wrong, is the lesser of two evils, and that it should be allowed if it is the only way to prevent a greater wrong. For example, they say, it might be OK to torture a person to get information that would enable the authorities to prevent a bombing.

Others argue that it is a 'moral absolute' that torture is always wrong, and so can never be justified by any form of ethical 'cost-benefit analysis'.

History
For much of history torture was used quite commonly, and without huge outcry. Civilisations such as the Egyptians, the Persians, the Greeks and the Romans all used torture. Even the Church regarded it as an acceptable part of their armoury.

Torture was used as part of many legal systems in the West until the early 19th century.

Why is torture wrong?
The reasons why torture is wrong can be divided into reasons of pure principle and reasons based on the bad consequences of torture. Both sorts of reason are valid.

Reasons of principle
Torture treats the victim as a means to an end and not an end in themselves
it treats the victim as a 'thing', not as a person with all the value that we associate with persons
torturers often explicitly dehumanise their victims to make it easier to torture them
it uses the physical body of the victim not as a component part of a person of value, but as a tool to achieve the aims of the torturer

"[Torture] dehumanizes people by treating them as pawns to be manipulated through their pain."
Kenneth Roth, Getting Away with Torture, Global Governance, 2005

Torture is sometimes used to destroy the autonomy of the victim
some societies have used torture to suppress independent thought and convert people to 'right-thinking'. The individual is tortured until they abandon their own views and beliefs and adopt those of the torturers. The victim ceases to be an 'end in themselves' but becomes just another means to support the regime of the torturer
Torture violates the rights and human dignity of the victim, including
the legal right to remain silent when questioned

Consequentialist reasons why torture is wrong
Torture is a slippery slope - each act of torture makes it easier to accept the use of torture in the future
Torture is an ineffective interrogation tool
It may well produce false information because under torture a prisoner will eventually say anything to stop the pain - regardless of whether it is true
Because of this the interrogator can never be 'sure' that they are getting the truth and will never know when to stop
More effective methods of interrogation that don't involve torture are available
If a suspect is tortured it may be impossible to prosecute them successfully - British common law excludes involuntary statements or confessions on the ground that such evidence is inherently unreliable
Torture damages the humanity of the torturers
Those who carry out torture are likely to become brutalised by their acts, and desensitised to humanity
The more acts of torture a person carries out, the more likely they are to carry out torture
Torture damages the institution that carries it out
It damages the reputation and moral authority of the institution
Its use is likely to produce internal dissent and so damage the integrity of the institution
Using torture provides 'the enemy' with something they can exploit for propaganda

"History offers no modern examples of the strategic effectiveness of harsh interrogation techniques, but it is replete with examples of the negative strategic effects such techniques have on the counterinsurgency force."
Lou Dimarco, Losing the Moral Compass: Torture and Guerre Revolutionnaire in the Algerian War, Parameters, 2006

State-approved torture is bad for the state

"The use of torture is dishonourable. It corrupts and degrades the state which uses it and the legal system which accepts it"
Lord Hoffmann, British judge

"When the state itself beats and extorts, it can no longer be said to rest on foundations of morality and justice, but rather on force."
Mordecai Kremnitzer quoted in Marcy Strauss, Torture, New York Law School Law Review, 2004

"While the rest of the world is expected to abide by the UN Convention against Torture, for example, the Americans evaluate international law on the basis of whether it serves their interests."
Excesses of Sex and Violence, Der Spiegel, May 2004

Torture can create or strengthen opposition

"The interrogations, torture and socialization of prison turned most of the men rounded up by Mubarak into hardened militants, thirsty for revenge: they would become the foot soldiers of terrorism"
Gilles Kepel, The War for Muslim Minds, 2004

"Not only will torture create a dedicated core of anti-American jihadists, their stories will lose us the "hearts and minds" campaign with the larger Muslim population."
Jeannie L. Johnson, Exploiting Weakness in the Far Enemy Ideology, Strategic Insights, 2005

The 'ticking bomb' problem

The problem that even the most virtuous people face when thinking about torture is whether there is ever a case when a good result produced by torture justifies the evil act of torturing someone.

It's often illustrated by a version of the 'ticking bomb problem', which asks us to put ourselves in the position of a senior law officer facing a situation like this:

A terrorist group states that it has concealed a nuclear bomb in London
The authorities have captured the leader of the group
He says that he knows where the bomb is
He refuses to reveal the location
Torture is guaranteed to produce the information needed to ensure the authorities find and make the bomb safe
In fact torture is not guaranteed to be useful in producing accurate information, but please just accept this premise in order to focus on the points of principle
Is it ethically acceptable for you to have him (or his family) tortured to find out where the bomb is and thus save thousands of lives, or is it unethical to torture him, no matter how many die as a result?

This is not, in fact, a particularly realistic scenario but arguing through this problem can illuminate many of the issues involved in torture. It's important to acknowledge, however, that the problem may not be solvable in the terms in which it's stated above.

An answer which focuses on the reality of the ethical situation might say that:

it is unethical to torture the terrorist
it is also unethical to let your moral principles condemn thousands of others to an avoidable death
so in this case there is no ethically acceptable course of action - whatever you do is morally wrong
it is understandable (but still wrong) for the interrogators to torture the terrorist in this case to save lives
sometimes an ethically wrong act can be forgiven - in this case because it is a perfectly intelligible human choice to make
By the way: It's important to understand that this answer does not justify the decision to torture, nor does it argue that we are justified in choosing the least bad option. Instead it should be interpreted rather differently - here are a couple of ways of doing it:

Torturing the terrorist is unethical and can't be justified, but it can be understood, and it can be forgiven
Torturing the terrorist is unethical, but in those circumstances it is the 'right thing to do'
This is not intellectually satisfactory but it does acknowledge that hard cases can't always be solved in a neat way.

Testing the 'ticking bomb' argument

A sizeable majority of people around the world is opposed to torture even if its purpose is to elicit information that could save innocent lives from terrorist attack.

In 2006 the BBC conducted a worldwide poll to see if people thought the 'ticking bomb' defence - the argument that using some degree of torture may save lives - could ever be a justification for mistreating suspects.

The poll for the BBC World Service showed that 59% of the world's citizens say 'no': they are unwilling to compromise on the protection of human rights.

Opposition to torture was highest in Italy, where 81% of those questioned think torture is never justified. Australia, France, Canada, the UK and Germany also registered high levels of opposition to any use of torture.

In Britain, 72% oppose torture in any circumstances - a reflection of the strong antipathy towards such practices in Western Europe.

One-third of those questioned - 29% - think that governments should be allowed to use some degree of torture in certain cases.

Support for using torture is generally greatest in those countries who see themselves as actively engaged in a struggle against political violence.

43% of those questioned in Israel; 42% in Iraq; 36% of Americans; and 32% in India believe that some degree of torture should be allowed if it provides information that saves innocent lives.

In China too there is significant support for torture - 37% for, 49% against.

The majority of those questioned in the poll - 19 of the 25 countries surveyed - agree that clear rules against torture in prisons should be maintained because it is immoral and its use would weaken human rights standards.

Overall, more than 27,000 people were questioned in 25 countries, all of which were signed up to the Geneva Conventions which prohibit the use of torture and cruel and degrading behaviour.

Source:BBC