[coberst]

Morality of Water Torture

The present question regarding the nature and morality of torture offers us an excellent opportunity to advance the level of sophistication of our understanding of morality. We learn best when we are questioning a matter that is meaningful to us.

I was eleven years old when Germany and Japan surrendered and WWII was finally over. One searing memory of this war were the stories I read and the movies I watched during and after the war regarding the torture and general brutality that the German Gestapo inflicted upon the people they conquered. I do not know why this left such a strong impression on me but it certainly did.

Coincidentally I have been studying “Moral Imagination” by Mark Johnson. This is the same Johnson who coauthored the book “Philosophy in the Flesh” with George Lakoff. I have decided to apply the theories Johnson presents in his book as a means to illuminate this matter regarding the morality of water torture used by my country in our struggle with Islamic extremists.

Moral understanding is like any other kind of experience; when we examine a domain of experience that relates to human relationships we must focus our attention on human understanding it self. If we do so we discover that human understanding is fundamentally imaginative in character.

“Many of our most basic concepts have considerable internal structure that cannot be accounted for by the classical theory of concepts as defined by necessary and sufficient features…The primary forms of moral imagination are concepts with prototype structure, semantic frames, conceptual metaphors, and narratives.”

To become morally insightful we must become knowledgeable of these imaginative structures. First, we must give up our illusions about absolute moral codes and also our radical moral subjectivism. Second we must refine our “perception of character traits and situations and of developing empathetic imagination to take up the part of others.”

Empathy is a character trait that can be cultivated by habit and will. Sympathy is somewhat of an automatic response.

When we see a mother weeping over the death of her child caused by a suicide bomber we feel immediate sympathy. Often we will come to tears. But we do not feel anything like that for the mother who may be weeping over the death of her child who was the bomber.

To understand the bomber we must use empathy. We attempt through imagination and reason to create a situation that will allow us to understand why this was done. This is a rational means to understand someone who acts different than we would.

“Empathy is the idea that the vital properties which we experience in or attribute to any person or object outside ourselves are the projections of our own feelings and thoughts.”

The subject viewing an object of art experiences emotional attitudes leading to feelings that are attributes of qualities in the art object thus aesthetic pleasure may be considered as “objectified self-enjoyment in which the subject and object are fused.”

The social sciences adopt a similar concept called ‘empathic understanding’, which refers to the deliberate attempt to identify with another person and accounting for that persons actions by “our own immediate experience of our motivations and attitudes in similar circumstances as we remember or imagine them”. This idea refers to a personal resonance between two people.

“What is crucial is that our moral reasoning can be constrained by the metaphoric and other imaginative structures shared within our culture and moral tradition, yet it can also be creative in transforming our moral understanding, our identity, and the course of our lives. Without this kind of imaginative reasoning we would lead dreadfully impoverished lives. We would be reduced to repeating habitual actions, driven by forces and contingencies beyond our control.”

Can you imagine an individual who is a hard headed realist and very accomplished at empathy sanctioning the use of water torture on anyone, friend or enemy?

[dukey]

[flash width=400 height=326]http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-1025207215019783053&hl=en[/flash]

warning, video contains footage of cops breaking peoples arms with martial arts weapons.

[Ferretlover]

Water boarding is so...so... Spanish Inquistitiion!

[AirlinePilot]

The bottom line is that humans are animals. There are many, many humans walking around who are devoid of empathy. They don't possess the morality you speak of. There are far too many humans who still operate on a much more animal, instinctive level. As long as that remains, we have things like water boarding.

I don't agree with it, as I believe I do have empathy, I do feel as though I can look past my more "animal" instincts and rise above them.

Unfortunately I think mankind has a long, long way to go before we can get to the point where we don't rationalize torture. Until such time as the super majority of humanity can get past the base levels of existence and emotion we will continue this behavior.

Man's inhumanity towards other men still knows few bounds.

Someday it may be different. I doubt I will ever see it.

[coberst]

I think that all humans have the capacity to understand. Empathy is about understanding another person. One of the reasons we have failed so badly in Vietnam and Iraq is that we never tried to understand, i.e. empathesize with those people. We understand our best friend; we need also to understand our worst enemy, if for no other reason than for security.

[Aaron]

Slavery...

Good or Bad?

[btu2012]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Aaron', 'S')lavery...

Good or Bad?

[mekrob]

Morality of Water Torture

Do we really have to be specific about which type of torture? Couldn't we just title this article and issue as "Morality of Torture"? Seems like that's the idea that most posters have in their heads anyway.

[lawnchair]

What about "utility of water torture"?

Alright. So, my piece of crap neighbor turned me over as Al-Qaeda or somesuch. I'm not, he just wants to shag my wife. But, whatever.

Now, I'm in Gitmo. According to my neighbor and his son's account, I know all kinds of stuff.

How can I convince these 19 year old idiots that I don't know anything? I can't. They'll think I'm holding out on them. The more I say "I don't know anything", the more they think I have something really juicy.

Great.

Faced with torture (and I'd consider waterboarding, if done to me), what am I going to do? Crap. My only option is to come up with something for these guys. Preferably something very complicated, believable, but that will take months or years to disprove.

Folks, we're chasing the ghosts of torture sessions in Iraq and Afghanistan, not ObL.

[Plantagenet]

What is torture and what isn't?

I'm ambivalent about water-boarding, mainly because some anti-water-boarding people volunteer to be water-boarded as a protest against water-boarding. I don't see anyone volunteering to have their fingers broken or their eyes gouged out or to be beaten with a rubber hose, but I do see fairly typical-looking people volunteering to be water-boarded.

How bad is it if people volunteer for it?

[gampy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', 'W')hat is torture and what isn't? I'm ambivalent about water-boarding, mainly because some anti-water-boarding people volunteer to be water-boarded as a protest against water-boarding. I don't see anyone volunteering to have their fingers broken or their eyes gouged out or to be beaten with a rubber hose, but I do see fairly typical-looking people volunteering to be water-boarded. How bad is it if people volunteer for it?

[smallpoxgirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dukey', 'w')arning, video contains footage of cops breaking peoples arms with martial arts weapons.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gampy', ' ')When the Army or the CIA is allowed to use torture, especially a technique that leaves no marks, or injury, they wind up using it on people for the least reason. No more name, rank, or serial number. Everyone is now an illegal combatant.

[coberst]

It appears to me that few people have ever been taught anything about empathy. Empathy is an effort of the imagination to walk in the shoes of another. I suspect that anyone who understand the meaning of empathy and has been able to walk in the shoes of another could not torture that individual.

Take anyone who you know well and truly despise then imagine torturing that individual. I do not think any normal person could do such a thing.

I think that one of the reasons that we humans are on the path to self destruction is partially due to the fact that our culture has never embraced the understanding of empathy.

[smallpoxgirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('coberst', 'I')t appears to me that few people have ever been taught anything about empathy. Empathy is an effort of the imagination to walk in the shoes of another. I suspect that anyone who understand the meaning of empathy and has been able to walk in the shoes of another could not torture that individual.

[Fishman]

Smallpox girl
Your logic of:
Even if they were non-violent, you sit your butt in front of a business and refuse to move. You know the cops are going to be called, and they're going to have to come up with some strategy for moving you. It doesn't take a degree in criminal justice to figure out you could get injured in the process. Really the point of the whole thing is to be able to say "Look how mean the cops were in dragging me off."

was first used by the left, the pro lifers only copied it later. So if one sits down in front of a military base the same logic applies?

Folks, reality dictates that when facing a group that would use down syndrome folks as bombers, the most vulnerable of any society, less than optimal methods will be needed to fight them. Wring you hands later, write a book about how terrible we were, AFTER the battle is over. Otherwise, be willing to be beheaded under sharia law.

[smallpoxgirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Fishman', 'w')as first used by the left, the pro lifers only copied it later. So if one sits down in front of a military base the same logic applies?

[Fishman]

Glad we agree on the first part. Equal contempt for all those who whine and protest.

Strange, none of Clancy's books have dealt with the bombing of muslims by muslims, such as Afganistan, Iraq, Palestine, Indonesia, etc. I assume you mean that Cheney planned the bomb in Bali, London, Spain, etc.

[Plantagenet]

Anti-water boarding demonstrator being waterboarded for the TV cameras

volunteer water-boardee describes his ordeal

There are lots Youtube videos of people who volunteered to be water-boarded....AND who would've imagined there were so many torturers in the anti-waterboarding field.....Aren't the people torturing the guy who do the waterboarding. There seem to be more torturers among the anti-water boarding demonstrators then in the CIA!

The girl torturer who is holding the guys head as he is being water-boarded is babalicous, too!

How come the police don't arrest these demonstrators who were "torturing" the poor guy who all the TV cameras were filming as he was being waterboarded?

[mekrob]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')ring you hands later, write a book about how terrible we were, AFTER the battle is over. Otherwise, be willing to be beheaded under sharia law.