Chapter 12: War, Terrorism, and Torture Richard A. Wasserstrom, “Does Morality Apply to War?” – Moral nihilism: the view that, in matters of war, morality has no place Descriptive reading: in fact, decisions related to war are uniformly made on grounds of national interest Prescriptive reading: decisions related to way should be made on grounds of (say) national interest—rather than on moral grounds Analytic reading: it does not make sense to talk about the morality of war

Chapter 12: War, Terrorism, and Torture Richard A. Wasserstrom, “Does Morality Apply to War?” – “A less absolutist argument” for the analytic view: The moral prohibitions on the conduct of war are so insignificant (i.e., the context of war allows so much) that they can be ignored. Response: We need to distinguish the question of what is moral in war from that of the morality of war.

Chapter 12: War, Terrorism, and Torture Richard A. Wasserstrom, “Does Morality Apply to War?” – An argument for the prescriptive view: Public servants (like the President) have a special obligation to pursue the national interest. Response: Public servants may, like parents, have special obligations to certain individuals— but they still also have the ordinary moral obligations that all people have.

Chapter 12: War, Terrorism, and Torture Haig Khatchadourian, “Terrorism and Morality” – Terrorism involves “acts of coercion or actual use of force” – Four kinds of terrorism: 1. Predatory 2. Retaliatory 3. Political 4. Moralistic/religious

Chapter 12: War, Terrorism, and Torture Haig Khatchadourian, “Terrorism and Morality” – Predatory and retaliatory terrorism are “patently wrong”, so K. focuses on arguing for the wrongness of the other two sorts of terrorism. – All forms are wrong from the perspective of just- war theory. Principles of necessity, discrimination, and proportion are violated. – Also all wrong from the perspective of human rights Terrorism “violates...its targets' right to be treated as moral persons.”

Chapter 12: War, Terrorism, and Torture Michael Walzer, “After 9/11: Five Questions about Terrorism” – What is terrorism? “Terrorism is the deliberate killing of innocent people, at random, in order to spread fear through a whole population and force the hand of its political leaders.” – How should we explain the existence of terrorism? “We need a combined cultural- religious-political explanation that has to focus...on the creation of...a whole group of people who are ideologically or theologically degraded so that they are available for murder.”

Chapter 12: War, Terrorism, and Torture Michael Walzer, “After 9/11: Five Questions about Terrorism” – How is terrorism defended? Two excuses: (1) the terrorists were desperate, and (2) we asked for it. – How should we respond? Three elements of response (in order of importance): 1. Police work 2. Covert action 3. Diplomacy

Chapter 12: War, Terrorism, and Torture James P. Sterba, “Terrorism and International Justice” – Nonviolent pacifism: any use of violence against other human beings is wrong – Nonlethal pacifism: any legal use of force against other human beings is wrong – Just-war pacifism: only very rarely will participation in the massive use of lethal force in warfare be morally justified

Chapter 12: War, Terrorism, and Torture James P. Sterba, “Terrorism and International Justice” – Sterba argues for just-war pacifism. – “[H]arm to innocents can be justified for the sake of achieving a greater good when the harm is...nonreparable but greatly outweighed by the consequences of the action.” – His recommended response to the terrorism behind the 9/11 attacks: (1) encourage Israel to reach an agreement with the Palestinians, (2) modify the sanctions against Iraq, (3) bring Al Qaeda before a U.S. or international court.

Chapter 12: War, Terrorism, and Torture Henry Shue, “Torture” – Terrorist torture: torture performed for the purposes of intimidation or deterring dissent – Interrogational torture: torture performed for the purposes of extracting information – Terrorist torture cannot satisfy the constraint of possible compliance. This principle has three parts: 1. Purpose of torture must be known to victim 2. Purpose must be performance of some action the victim can perform 3. The performance of this action must permanently end the torture

Chapter 12: War, Terrorism, and Torture Henry Shue, “Torture” – Can interrogational torture satisfy the constraint of possible compliance? Shue says it possible, but very unlikely Cases of “purely interrogational torture” might satisfy this constraint, but these will likely always be hypothetical cases. – On the use of hypothetical cases Not useful for practical application Say nothing about the legality of torture (even if such cases are possible, laws should prohibit all torture)

Chapter 12: War, Terrorism, and Torture Alan M. Dershowitz, “Should the Ticking Bomb Terrorist Be Tortured?” – Answer to the title question: Yes – Why? “The simple cost-benefit analysis for employing nonlethal torture [in cases like this] seems overwhelming...” – This is an application of act utilitarianism. – Dershowitz mentions the risk of a slippery slope whereby act utilitarianism is used to justify intuitively wrong actions.

Chapter 12: War, Terrorism, and Torture Alan M. Dershowitz, “Should the Ticking Bomb Terrorist Be Tortured?” – To avoid the slippery slope, Dershowitz suggests we respect certain constraints, such as limiting torture to “convicted terrorists who had knowledge of future massive terrorist attacks.” – Dershowitz also argues that the existing law should allow for torture in particular cases, and he proposes a system of judicial “torture warrants” as a way to do this.