In the essay "The Case for Torture", by Michael Levin, it makes you think
about torture, and if it is necessary. In order to determine the answer you must
define what torture is. Then ask yourself why you believe this person should or
should not be tortured. Michael Levin believes you should "only torture the
obviously guilty." I do not agree with him on torturing even the obviously guilty,
and I will provide you with my reasons below.
First I had to define what torture is/ means to me. The Merriam-Webster
Dictionary defines torture as, "the infliction of severe pain," and, "anguish to the
body." When it comes to the dictionary version of torture, I do not believe that it is
the way to get an answer. What if the are being threatened and they have no choice
but to do something bad. For example, a kidnapper puts a hostage in a position to
take someone's baby. If he doesn't then the kidnapper would hurt his family. The
hostage wants to protect his family so he takes the baby. Obviously he is guilty,
but torturing him would be wrong. You can never be one hundred percent positive
if someone is really guilty unless you are the person being accused.
I agree with Levin on not torturing someone who is not "obviously guilty".
This is different than my earlier view because the hostage was guilty of taking the
baby. In this case you would be guessing if a person is guilty or not. For example,
in Irac innocent people are being tortured by soldiers who think they might have
some kind of beneficial information. In this case you would be guessing if a
person guilty or not. Knowing that you tortured an innocent person would hurt
I can understand it from the victims point of view also. For example, if
someone kidnaped my mother the first instinct would
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