Pain: A Brief History and Bibliography
Pauletta Otis Friday, 1 June 2007
Revelations surrounding the interrogation and treatment of Muslim males at Abu Ghraib in Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba shocked the public and provoked the collective conscience. How could this happen? What are the rules in this "time of terror"? Do rules always apply? Whose rules?
Many politicians, scholars, and theologians have been quick to condemn harsh methods of interrogation, arguing that there is an absolute ethical prohibition on inflicting pain in this way. However, the application of just war theory to this issue has the potential to yield a more qualified conclusion, as the use of violence can be deemed ethical when it meets a variety of criteria, among them the standard that the use of violence must prevent a greater harm. It is here where the debate turns from the abstract to the concrete—yet it is also here where our woeful empirical ignorance about interrogation is exposed. The Intelligence Community simply does not have reliable data on whether any particular coercive method produces information that is factually accurate, let alone likely to prevent a greater harm. If the practical effect of coercive methods cannot be proved, then they cannot meet a reasonable ethical standard.
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