Torture

I was interested to read Tom's question whether one can make an argument, consistent with Christian moral thought, that torture should be treated as a question of prudence rather than an intrinsic evil.  It is the asking of the question that I find interesting.

I teach a  first semester/first year Introduction to Law and the Legal Profession course, a couple of classes of which are devoted to an introduction to Legal Ethics.  I have used different vehicles for teaching this part of the course.  This year, I decided to use the DOJ's torture memo as a basis for discussion, thinking it would offer a good tool to think broadly about lawyers' obligations both to and beyond the client.  It did not work as well as I had hoped it would.

The reason it did not is that for the discussion about the lawyer's behavior to work effectively, there needs to be a shared starting point understanding that torture is wrong.  I went into the discussion (naive as I can sometimes be) assuming that such a shared understanding exists.  I know that we live in a world where most things seem to be up for grabs, but really did not think torture is one of them.  I thought we were all sitting in horror about the reports of Abu Ghraib etc.

Based on the responses of my students, I was wrong.  Their responses suggest to me that there are a significant number of people (of varying religions; my class is quite mixed on that score) who accept the prudence over evil way of thinking about the issue.   It is difficult for me to see how that view can be squared with Catholic moral thought and I share Tom's interest in hearing the thoughts of others on the question.