May 15 Stop torturing morality

What is torture? When if ever is it legal? Does it ever work?

What has got me intrigued in listening to these Senate hearings this week on fundamental moral issues is how they appear to converse  without having to display any hint of understanding first principles.

Not that they have to agree with these principles- no. But at least their competence as leaders demands they know what they are talking about, particularly if they are advocating radical changes as to how we traditionally determine right from wrong. For instance, if water boarding got some captured Japanese Generals executed in the wake of World War Two, what has changed to make it legal for us? Not I presume because we are not Japanese, or that we didn’t lose a war.

Why no mention of the time tested idea of “the end never justifies the means” which is a core ethical teaching, one with a thousand years of commentary to justify why it is such a core principle. If they want to reverse it, fine-but at least do the hard thinking as to why. Engage in solid  moral reasoning and not sound so political and mercenary. Even argue as former VP Cheney does on the basis of pure pragmatics. It worked, so shut up!  But then, outline why in this case pragmatism serves as one’s moral compass, and if so, show how a society might function on pure pragmatics, where what works determines what’s right. Then intention or motive don’t matter-which if we accepted, we would have to rewrite the entire common law but hey, this is America-results rule. I attempted to murder X but failed so, if there was no consequence, there is no guilt, no crime. Does that work? If it works its fine. It it doesn’t, its a crime.

In law school, you used to learn on day one that extreme cases make for bad law, and again, you can disagree, but at least acknowledge you are reversing the hallowed tradition. Show at least you know  the maxim exists and why it is taught, rather than resort to this tiresome ticking time bomb argument which is trotted out by these supposed great minds.  I would ask my 17 year olds in a high school civics class to demolish this trite example of how to hype the hypothetical. Exceptions normally prove the need for the law rather than overthrow it.  In national emergencies, you suspend the law, but you don’t get the Office of Legal Counsel  to make what is illegal legal. You have the courage to say, ‘Guys, this is normally illegal but urgency demands it. OK? “Lincoln did it. It was eventually declared unconstitutional, but Lincoln knew that and the country understood they were in crisis.

The lack of competency in moral reasoning of some of our elected and formerly elected officials, or their seeming intellectual disdain for this deep field of expertise is alarming. One would think to listen to them that  our torture dilemma is totally new, but the Romans and Greeks and the Turks and  the British all had to deal with it. Britain tortured the Irish and provoked an uprising. The Church tortured heretics and is still making up for it. The glorious history of Torture has yet to be written, though a certain Vice President might be inspired to write it.

These paper thin arguments that parade as moral reasoning collapse when exposed to any critical review. They will eventually be exposed as being not right or wrong but just plain dumb, or even worse, to be parroting the  same arguments that Stalin and Hitler used, to save the Proleteriat from the greedy Kulaks, or the Germans from some mythical Jewish conspiracy. We have been here before but you’d never think so to hear these latter day Plato’s postulating in their own caves on Capital Hill.

When elected officials and members of the administration have to make the hard moral choices, often between two evils, or even between two conflicting goods, they are obligated to make a reasonable case, to follow some traceable path that it recognizable as moral reasoning, knowing that they will have to give an account that stands up to the scrutiny of history. Moral discourse unfortunately cannot be easily disguised in political rhetoric, because we know when someone is stacking the odds, or bluffing.  The reason why we know is that we all make moral decisions. We all know how hard it is at times, so our leaders need to honor us as thinking citizens, and appeal to our brains, not our fears. Torture may be right and torture may be wrong, but to torture the well established field of moral reasoning with such a lame conceptual grasp of the basics is to invent a new form of moral hazard. The jury might in the end find the Office of Legal Counsel to be not right or wrong, but even worse, to be just plain dumb. Whatever about water tortures, these guys seem out of their depth.

 

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