Lit Review

It is universally agreed upon that torture is immoral [4]. However, the definition of torture is not universal [1]. There are forms of punishment and coercive interrogation that many governments deem acceptable that fall under the public’s definition of torture [3]. Should torture be legalized and if so in what terms should it be legalized?
Bekerman, Gross, Hooks, and Shue all agree that there are most definitely forms of torture that should be acceptable [1, 3, 4, 5]. Bekerman and Hooks believe that the issue of whether or not torture should be legalized depends on the definition of torture, specifically the extent of the actions on the victims and the purpose of these actions [1, 4]. If the purpose is moral, meaning your trying to prevent the loss of more lives instead of just seeking revenge as was seen in Abu Ghraid, and the actions are defined measures of coercive interrogation rather than torture then it is acceptable [1, 3, 4]. Shue defines justified torture as the least available evil is done to achieve a moral and necessary outcome [5]. However, Shue believes that no form of torture should be legalized because there are so few cases where torture fits his definition of justified. Shue and Waldron agree that the need to limit unjustified torture far exceeds the need to justify torture [5, 6]. Therefore, keeping the prohibition on torture forces someone who falls under the few cases of justified torture to argue under a court of law why he is justified while putting away the majority of torturers behind bars for unjustified actions.
In his novel Little Brother, Doctorow agrees with the ideas of Shue and Waldron [2]. Marcus explains how the governments process of finding terrorists in unbelievably inefficient. They catch a significantly higher number of innocent people for every terrorist they catch. In his story, hundreds even thousands of innocent people are held captive and tortured by the Department of Homeland Security after a terrorist attack on the Bay Bridge. The DHS is fighting for a just cause of ending terrorist attacks and saving lives. However, they go about achieving this goal by capturing and torturing innocent people. The DHS is neither torturing the right people nor using the least evils to extract information from people. Through this story, Doctorow shows us that torture cannot be legalized because innocent people will fall victim to the supposed moral goal of the torturer [2, 5, 6].