[lit-ideas] Re: Is torture wrong by definition?

  • From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2006 13:29:58 +0100 (BST)

Omar wrote

"I made the argument to Larry Kramer once, on the
Phil-Lit of yore, that I think that killing humans is
also wrong by definition, i.e. in itself. It might be
justified only in special circumstances when
committing the wrong would prevent a greater wrong.
Larry in contrast argued that there is nothing right
or wrong with killing in itself, but its moral value
is determined by the context entirely. This proved to
be not a purely semantic distinction. From my
position, the one who wishes to justify such acts has
the burden to prove that they are/were necessary. From
the other position, the killing of, say, foreign
nationals in war would be justified unless proven
otherwise."

Is anything wrong _by definition_? Only, I suggest, a definition can be wrong
by way of a definition - and even here the definition is just a stipulation
that we are not compelled to accept - it being a mere convention as to the
permissible use of words.

Of course 'ordinary language' is occasionally littered with expressions like
'By definition it is clear that...', 'It is a contradiction-in-terms to
suggest that...', 'The only logical conclusion given the terms of the
debate..'. Insofar as such expressions, and others, are attempts to win an
argument by (covert or overt) appeal to a definition, no deviation from which
is logically permissible, they are another muddled aspect of ordinary usage
or commonsense - which after all frequently abuses the appeal to 'logic' (eg.
'The only logical to do is x) when logic can only strictly decide points of
logic and not between proposals as to what we ought or ought not to do.

Here is a possible example of a genuine contradiction (provided we
interpolate the parenthetical words): "...I think that killing humans is
also wrong by definition, i.e. in itself (and no matter what the
circumstances). It might be
justified only in special circumstances when
committing the wrong would prevent a greater wrong." 
It is not a contradiction if we read Omar as saying merely: "I think killing
is, on the face of it, wrong - unless someone shows special circumstances
that justify it." 
But then, to me at least, it is hard to see how this position is not merely
"a purely semantic distinction" away from LK's position that whether killing
is wrong depends entirely on the context (say, on the existence or
non-existence of "special circumstances"). 

It is a separate point entirely whether we put the burden on the killer to
justify his killing (which seems sensible) or on ourselves to show the
killing is unjustified; but even here I doubt there would be much practical
difference given that, even if we placed the theoretical burden on ourselves
to show the killing was unjustified, our moral intuitions/instincts would _in
most ordinary circumstances_ guide us to often find that burden easily
discharged (eg. when someone went up and shot a stranger in the street).

The use and abuse of so-called 'definitional' or 'logical' arguments does not
clarify debate on these matters and is, I suggest, best avoided.  

Eric wrote:- 
> If not all killing is essentially morally wrong,
> how can all torture be essentially morally wrong,
> since killing is worse for people than torture?

For what it's worth, I can easily imagine circumstances where inflicting
great pain on an individual to get them to give information might be
justified (admittedly, this may be just a callousness on my part that has
been inculcated by the examination-system). To deny this possibility by way
of definition, by saying that if justified such pain-infliction could not _by
definition_ be torture, seems to me beside the point.
 
> Of course, you can stumble across some torture 
> accounts while reading history, like some of the 
> things the Mongols did, that are just diabolically 
> awe-inspiring: all that human ingenuity going into 
> total sadism and cruelty.

A moral philosopher might wish to theorise about the line to be drawn where
it would be better to kill someone [or be killed] without justification than
inflict pain [or suffer pain] without justification but without killing. This
is a reason why sometimes moral philosophy can lead into a swamp when it
moves away from practical moral problems in the here-and-now to teasing out
some set of principles against extreme and unreal cases.

Donal
Somewhere near a swamp
In England

 





                
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