Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

One potentially morally justified use of torture is found in philanthropic torture of a perpetrator (PTP): scenarios in which a perpetrator has instigated significant pending suffering against innocents and in which the suffering can be prevented by means of the perpetrator’s cooperation. These situations involve a clash of two intuitions: that torture is in some strong and obvious sense absolutely morally wrong, and that torture or harm of an immoral perpetrator may be permissible to prevent equally abhorrent, if not greater, (...) moral wrongs. My view is that a dually grounded view—permissible on theoretical grounds but wrong on practical grounds—can do justice to the conflicting intuitions we have about torture in cases of PTP. Further, I hold that practical “absolutism” will only be “mostly” or “likely” absolute, but that we should accept as adequate this “near absolutism”—it will give us the practical result we seek while also satisfying the intuition that we may act in otherwise untoward ways to prevent horrific moral harms. (shrink)

Abstract Semi-autonomous robotic weapons are already carving out a role for themselves in modern warfare. Recently, Ronald Arkin has argued that autonomous lethal robotic systems could be more ethical than humans on the battlefield, and that this marks a significant reason in favour of their development and use. Here I offer a critical response to the position advanced by Arkin. Although I am sympathetic to the spirit of the motivation behind Arkin's project and agree that if we decide to develop (...) and use these machines they ought to be programmed to behave ethically, there are several major problems with his view as it stands. At present, it is not clear whether such machines would be capable of behaving more ethically than humans. More importantly, to the extent that humans would remain in the context of war, human moral transgressions will continue, especially in the face of complicated ethical challenges accompanying automated warfare. Moreover, even if machines could be more ethical than humans in certain ways and in certain situations, this says nothing about whether warfare that contains these machines would itself be overall more ethical than warfare that does not include them as participants, or whether the inclusion of lethal robots is the best way to guard against human moral transgressions in war. (shrink)

On Michael Walzer's influential account, "dirty hands" characterizes the political leader's choice between absolutist moral demands (to abstain from torture) and consequentialist political reasoning (to do what is necessary to prevent the loss of innocent lives). The impulse to torture a "ticking bomb terrorist" is therefore at least partly pragmatic, straining against morality, while the desire to uphold a ban on torture is purely and properly a moral one. I challenge this Machiavellian view by reinterpreting the dilemma in the framework (...) of the Humean theory of justice and moral sentiment. By interpreting the ticking bomb scenario as a dramatic narrative, I argue that it appeals to properly moral sensibilities, which speak in favour of the use of force against the terrorist. The absolute ban on torture, by contrast, is an artificial virtue and a product of political prudence. On this account, the ticking bomb terrorist dilemma therefore imposes a different burden on the political leader from Walzer's version: an ethic of political responsibility demands that the political leader be prepared to sacrifice her moral soul by upholding the law against moral but politically imprudent demands to break it; while the ticking bomb romance appeals to her feelings of compassionate moral concern towards particular individuals. She dirties her hands morally, not by authorizing torture, but by allowing the terrorist's bomb to detonate and take the lives of the innocent. (shrink)

This article uses the ‘Ticking Bomb Scenario’ as a starting point for a broader discussion of what I term the ‘liberal narrative of speed’, the argument within liberal thought that the accelerating pace of events in the world requires a transition of authority from slow-moving, democratic legislative bodies, to energetic, efficient and unitary executives. However, this article argues that the source of this transfer of power is not because of any structural misfit between democracy and acceleration . Instead, through an (...) investigation of the ontology of speed I argue that speed produces not a functional threat to democratic politics, but an existential one. Acceleration unsettles stable political identities, and produces a time of uncertainty, in which people are wary of engaging in democratic debate and compromise, preferring instead the certainty of unitary executive leadership. In this regards the anti-democratic tendency of acceleration is to be located in the way in which it inculcates a sense of ressentiment against a future that is contingent and uncertainty. (shrink)

This article critically reviews what is known about the ethical status of psychologists’ putative involvement with enhanced interrogations and torture (EITs). We examine three major normative ethical accounts (utilitarian, deontic, and virtue ethics) of EITs and conclude, contra the American Psychological Association, that reasonable arguments can be made that in certain cases the use of EITs is ethical and even, in certain circumstances, morally obligatory. We suggest that this moral question is complex as it has competing moral values involved, that (...) is, the humane treatment of detainee competes with the ethical value/duty/virtue of protecting innocent third parties. We also suggest that there is an ethical duty to minimize harm by making only judicious and morally responsible allegations against the psychologists alleged to be involved in EITs. Finally, we make recommendations regarding completing the historical record, improvements in the professional ethics code, and the moral treatment of individuals accused in this controversy. (shrink)

Currently, the central questions in the philosophical debate surrounding the ethics of automated warfare are (1) Is the development and use of autonomous lethal robotic systems for military purposes consistent with (existing) international laws of war and received just war theory?; and (2) does the creation and use of such machines improve the moral caliber of modern warfare? However, both of these approaches have significant problems, and thus we need to start exploring alternative approaches. In this paper, I ask whether (...) autonomous robots ought to be programmed to be pacifists. The answer arrived at is “Yes”, if we decide to create autonomous robots, they ought to be pacifists. This is to say that robots ought not to be programmed to willingly and intentionally kill human beings, or, by extension, participate in or promote warfare, as something that predictably involves the killing of humans. Insofar as we are the ones that will be determining the content of the robot’s value system, then we ought to program robots to be pacifists, rather than ‘warists’. This is (in part) because we ought to be pacifists, and creating and programming machines to be “autonomous lethal robotic systems” directly violates this normative demand on us. There are no mitigating reasons to program lethal autonomous machines to contribute to or participate in warfare. Even if the use of autonomous lethal robotic systems could be consistent with received just war theory and the international laws of war, and even if their involvement could make warfare less inhumane in certain ways, these reasons do not compensate for the ubiquitous harms characteristic of modern warfare. In this paper, I provide four main reasons why autonomous robots ought to be pacifists, most of which do not depend on the truth of pacifism. The strong claim being argued for here is that automated warfare ought not to be pursued. The weaker claim being argued for here is that automated warfare ought not to be pursued, unless it is the most pacifist option available at the time, and other alternatives have been reasonably explored, and we are simultaneously promoting a (long term) pacifist agenda in (many) other ways. Thus, the more ambitious goal of this paper is to convince readers that automated warfare is something that we ought not to promote or pursue, while the more modest—and I suspect, more palatable—goal is to spark sustained critical discussion about the assumptions underlying the drive towards automated warfare, and to generate legitimate consideration of its pacifist alternatives,in theory, policy, and practice. (shrink)

This article examines why U.S. healthcare professionals became involved in “enhanced interrogation,” or torture, during the War on Terror. A number of factors are identified including a desire on the part of these professionals to defend their country and fellow citizens from future attack; having their activities approved and authorized by legitimate command structures; financial incentives; and wanting to prevent serious harm from occurring to prisoners/detainees. The factors outlined here suggest that psychosocial factors can influence health professionals’ ethical decision-making.

The received view in mainstream philosophy is that violence is an ‘act’, to be defined in terms of ‘force’ and ‘intentionality’. This approach regrettably and inexcusably tends to prioritise the agent performing the act of violence in question. This paper argues that we should resist this tendency, in order to prioritise the victim or survivor of violence, and her personal experience, not that of the perpetrator. Starting from an analysis of the devastating impact of violence that characterises the experience of (...) sexual violation and its aftermath, based on the memoirs of Susan Brison (philosopher) and Alice Sebold (novelist), we will then proceed to argue that violence should not be thought of merely in terms of an ‘act’, but also as an ‘experience’, the difference being that an act is temporally determinate while an experience is temporally indeterminate. With the help of a phenomenological approach, we will argue that violence has time-indeterminate intended and unintended consequences; these are the ripples of violence. Finally, some of the moral, legal and political implications of acknowledging the temporal indeterminacy of violence will be highlighted. (shrink)

There is a decided consensus that Kantian ethics yields an absolutist case against torture – that torture is morally wrong and absolutely so. I argue that while thereisa Kantian case against torture, Kantian ethics does not clearly entail absolutism about torture. I consider several arguments for a Kantian absolutist position concerning torture and explain why none are sound. I close by clarifying just what the Kantian case against torture is. My contention is that while Kantian ethics does not support a (...) variety ofmoralabsolutism about torture, it does suggest a strong version oflegalabsolutism. (shrink)

Arrigo, DeBatto, Rockwood, and Mawe take issue with a number of arguments in our previous article. We respond in four major ways: pointing out that they never really take on, let alone refute, the key argument in our article—that utilitarian, deontic, and virtue ethical theories are not only consistent with the use of enhanced interrogation and torture in the ticking time bomb scenario but these prescribe it; there are numerous other exegetical problems in their article; they make unsubstantiated claims about (...) the ineffectiveness of EITSLs techniques that we argue are much too strong; and they conflate the ethical with the legal and but even in doing so miss many important issues regarding the legality of EITSLs in the war on terrorism. (shrink)

Dirty hands cases are often seen as a crucial challenge for political ethics. Michael Walzer’s analysis of dirty hands cases has been especially influential. On closer inspection, however, Walzer’s analysis contains some serious flaws. This article examines how and to what extent the political ethics of Paul Ricoeur can remedy the problems in Walzer’s approach. It is shown that Ricoeur’s approach can offer a better understanding of what is at stake in dilemmas in political action and that it can provide (...) guidance for dealing with such issues. Ricoeur’s analysis, furthermore, provides the foundation for a more critical political ethics than Walzer can offer. (shrink)

The war on terror is commonly characterized as a fundamentally different kind of war from more traditional armed conflict. Furthermore, it has been argued that, in this new kind of war, different rules, both moral and legal, must apply. In the first part of this paper, three practices endemic to the war on terror -- torture, assassination, and enemy combatancy status -- are identified as exceptions to traditional norms. The second part of the paper uses these examples to motivate a (...) generalized account of exceptionalism; a taxonomy of different exceptionalisms is derived, including temporal, spatial, and group-based exceptionalisms. The third part of the paper considers the ethical status of exceptionalism, paying particular attention to the group-based exceptionalisms that are argued to be prevalent in the war on terror. It is concluded that there is nothing inherently wrong with group-based exceptionalism and, furthermore, that the proper locus of ethical evaluation lies not with the norms that are being excepted, but rather with the groups that are being excepted from them. (shrink)

Michael Walzer’s article ‘Political action: the problem of dirty hands’ initiated a new wave of discussion over a persistent problem in moral philosophy: are there situations in which ethical rules must be relaxed so as to bring about a greater good? In this article, we consider whether this ‘dirty hands’ approach may be applied to our current climate crisis. One proposed solution to the problem of global warming is the administration of moral enhancements to the population. Assuming that the administration (...) of moral enhancements is a necessary condition in the prevention of a climate crisis, Parker Crutchfield argues that this procedure ought to be covert. This implies lying to the public, and such dishonesty amounts to immoral behavior. We conclude that despite the severity of global warming, there is no justification for a dirty hands approach. Lying to the public in order to save the planet would probably create bigger problems, and it would ultimately be very counterproductive in trying to save the planet. (shrink)

Although standard ethical views categorize intentional torture as morally wrong, the ticking time bomb scenario is frequently offered as a legitimate counter-example that justifies the use of torture. In this scenario, a bomb has been placed in a city by a terrorist, and the only way to defuse the bomb in time is to torture a terrorist in custody for information. TTB scenarios appeal to a utilitarian “greater good” justification, yet critics maintain that the utilitarian structure depends on a questionable (...) set of hidden assumptions. Three experiments were conducted to investigate endorsement of torture when these hidden assumptions were violated. In Experiment 1, results indicated that endorsement varied as a function of the success likelihood of torture and its alternatives. In Experiment 2, people found torture to be more acceptable, less wrong, and more obligatory when the suspect in custody was described as a “terrorist” than when he was described simply as an individual, and when he was described as culpable as opposed to innocent. These results are more consistent with retributive justice than utilitarian “greater good” concerns. The results of Experiment 3 indicated that utilitarian decision profiles were not associated with lower levels of empathic concern but were instead associated with personal distress and the ability to transpose oneself into a fictitious character's experience. Across the three experiments, deontologists were more likely to reject torture than utilitarians. (shrink)

This chapter introduces the Special Issue and offers an overview of the corpus of work on the topic since the publication of Michael Walzer’s seminal article, ‘Political Action: The Problem of Dirty Hands’.

In this paper, I take up the task of further examining the ticking bomb argument in favor of the use of torture. In doing so, I will focus on some recent scholarship regarding ticking bomb methodology introduced by Fritz Allhoff. I will then propose a set of ticking bomb variations which, I believe, call into question some of Allhoff's conclusions. My goal is to show that ticking bomb methodology is misguided in its attempt to justify torture insofar as its proponents (...) seem to ignore certain nonconsequentialist factors that are latent in the various types of uncertainty in real-world ticking bomb cases. Once this fact is recognized, I claim, the normative claims about torture that follow can be denied by appealing to it. I then argue that, even if we grant a certain level of uncertainty within the ticking bomb argument, torture is not justified. Rather, the implementation of torture, even if it yields positive results, is nothing more than a case of moral luck. In other words, the supposed "success" of torture in the ticking bomb cases lies entirely outside the agent's control. Thus, if the outcome of the use of torture is in no way controlled by the agent, then the agent's actions cannot be justified by appealing to that outcome. (shrink)

O’Donohue et al. sought to derive, from classical ethical theories, the ethical obligation of psychologists to assist “enhanced interrogations and torture” in national defense scenarios under strict EIT criteria. They asked the American Psychological Association to adopt an ethics code obligating psychologists to assist such EIT and to uphold the reputation of EIT psychologists. We contest the authors’ ethical analyses as supports for psychologists’ forays into torture interrogation when the EIT criteria obtain. We also contend that the authors’ application of (...) these ethical analyses violates the Geneva Conventions, contravenes military doctrine and operations, and undermines psychology as a profession. We conclude that “good” public reputation is not owed to, or expected by, “good” intelligence professionals, and collaborating operational psychologists must share their providence. (shrink)