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Morally Permissible To Torture Essay

1948 Words8 Pages

Marissa King
Professor Mataresse
Phil 240w
Can you ever justify torture? I believe at times it is morally permissible to torture a human. Specifically, when the pain will result in the most happiness; for example, if a human, who was suspected of placing a bomb in a stadium full of people, is tortured in order to find the bomb to save the most people that are possible, would in fact, result in the greatest happiness. Because if it turned out that the human was not tortured and many died, there would be greater suffering than happiness in the end. In my opinion, greater happiness helps society more, than great suffering, because I think it is just human nature to favor greater happiness instead of great suffering. As a result, I think it is morally permissible to torture if it results in greater happiness. This view is called utilitarianism where the main principle is to maximize utility, which is happiness or the prevention of pain.
Utilitarianism is a moral theory that was founded by moral philosopher Jeremy Bentham. According to him, happiness and pain govern human actions, and so morality’s main principle is to “maximize happiness” and minimize pain (Sandel, pg. 34). What produces the most happiness, …show more content…

These two issues can go hand in hand because if torture is abused, it will be easier to torture the wrong person; and if the wrong person gets tortured, it can cause more abuses of torture because of the practice of targeting the wrong person. As in all forms of punishment torture can become abused and as such human rights will be violated, and so a question is needed to be answered: when does an action violate a right? Because even when torture is being used for the sake of security and when it is being abused they are both exercising the same

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