Santorum’s and Thiessen’s False Gospel
Two public Catholics, power-seeker Rick Santorum and power-apologist Marc Thiessen, are out in the square gallantly defending coercive interrogation techniques (what sane and sensible people call torture) and the dehumanizing effects such techniques have upon the personal core of those subjected to them. Both men make plain that the purpose of these techniques is to break the prisoners so they become cooperative and compliant. Their aim is to break a person as a person—to deprive human beings of their powers of reason and will.
This depravity, designed perhaps to unearth secrets buried deep in the soul, severs the one interrogated from the pursuit of goodness. Once broken, the tortured person no longer acts will moral culpability; he becomes a slave to the interrogator’s will. His mind and will are not his own, so he cannot act with either true viciousness or true virtue.
As the primary goal of the State is the good of all people and of the whole person, torture by State officials undermines the very reason for the State’s existence. Unsurprisingly, the religion which Santorum and Thiessen profess doesn’t mince words about inflicting torments on the mind and body or attempts to coerce the will itself, calling these actions “infamies” that “poison society,” do “supreme dishonor to the Creator,” and “do more harm to those who practice them than to those who suffer from the injury.” Whatever deposit of faith Santorum and Thiessen are advancing here, it ain’t the one entrusted to their Church.
Um, I am never sure why Catholic blogs portray torture as an “intrinsic evil” when the entire Catholic judicial system at one time used it as its method of choice in acquiring information and consent. Oo, I know, it’s because some other group of hierarchs in 1993 got together and wrote it in a catechism. Yeah, that solves the problem. It’s not like truth needs a precedent or anything, we can just pull it out of the sky based on what the people happen to be feeling that day. Add on “intrinsic”, and it’s like 95% of history never happened. Morality by magisterial fiat!
Don’t get me wrong, I love that the Catholic Church finally got enlightened enough to condemn the bourgeois state torturing people. It reminds me of when the Papal States finally came around to gas lights and railroads in the mid-19th century (instead of condemning the latter as “chemins d’enfer”). However, I am left wondering what other “intrinsic evils” the Church has propagated in its two thousand year history, and how many “intrinsic evils” it may be propagating now.
I didn’t use the word “intrinsic,” though I’d unhesitatingly condemn the act of torture as such, with or without the support of the church.
” –the entire Catholic judicial system at one time used it as its method of choice in acquiring information and consent.”
Well, THAT certainly justifies using it, doesn’t it?
I’m not defending Santorum or Thiessen, about whom I know next to nothing. But there is a flaw in your logic here.
You write, “As the primary goal of the State is the good of all people and of the whole person, torture by State officials undermines the very reason for the State’s existence.”
First, if your premise is granted, your argument also precludes the waging of war and the death penalty, neither of which is precluded by Church teaching.
But your premise is not granted, since the primary goal of the State is the welfare of its citizens, not of “all people”. It’s not the goal of the Japanese government to look after the welfare of the residents of, for example, West Los Angeles. Nor is it the goal of the U.S. government to look after the welfare of those accused of participating in terrorism against those the welfare of whom it is the primary goal of the U.S. government to look after: American citizens.
Paragraph 165 of the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church reads:
“A society that wishes and intends to remain at the service of the human being at every level is a society that has the common good — the good of all people and of the whole person [347] — as its primary goal. The human person cannot find fulfilment in himself, that is, apart from the fact that he exists “with” others and “for” others. This truth does not simply require that he live with others at various levels of social life, but that he seek unceasingly — in actual practice and not merely at the level of ideas — the good, that is, the meaning and truth, found in existing forms of social life. No expression of social life — from the family to intermediate social groups, associations, enterprises of an economic nature, cities, regions, States, up to the community of peoples and nations — can escape the issue of its own common good, in that this is a constitutive element of its significance and the authentic reason for its very existence[348].”
Deny the premise all you like, but it is a premise that the Church holds. The common good, the good of all people and of the whole purpose, is the reason for the State’s existence. Of course, subsidiarity applies here. The U.S. government doesn’t have the same responsibilities to the people of France as it does to its own people.
I hope you believe I’m not being deliberately obtuse, but I don’t see what you’re saying in this paragraph, i.e. that the primary purpose of each State is the good of all people in the entire world. Can you connect the dots for me?
I could grant that within the context of *a* state, one of the state’s purposes is to ensure the welfare of all citizens of the state. (I consider that an oversimplification, but leave that aside for now.) But where does the Church teach that the government of one state is responsible for the welfare of the persons of other states? Specifically, where does it say that in the quoted paragraph?
If the primary goal of the State is the common good, and the common good is the good of all people and of the whole person, then the primary goal of the State is the good of all people and of the whole person. This syllogism is implicit in the quoted paragraph. Moreover, the Church has been abundantly clear the the richer nations have a responsibility to the poorer and developing nations. As I mentioned, however, subsidiarity applies here. State X has more responsibility to it’s own people than it does to the people of State Y. It’s not as though the U.S. government necessarily has an obligation to provide a healthcare system for Germany.
Besides which, you didn’t touch my first point, which was, that if the primary goal of the State being the good of all people therefore precludes torture (I’ll use that term for the sake of argument) since it harms people, then it would also preclude war and the death penalty. Yet the Church proscribes neither of those.
Even if it were true that the government of each nation is morally responsible for the welfare of all persons of every state, that responsibility is obviously set aside, at least temporarily, when the government is actively attempting to kill persons (for the sake of argument, let’s say soldiers) of an enemy state. Therefore even if there is such a rule, obviously there are circumstances in which it is set aside, at least temporarily.
I’m not saying there is no argument against what you are calling torture, just that, IMHO, this isn’t it.
Torture offends the dignity of the person in a way that the infliction of death does not: it specifically targets the powers we associate with personhood: rationality and the will. To put it another way, whereas the death penalty directly harms a person and by extension his or her personhood, torture directly harms both a person and his or her personhood. This direct and intentional harm, in my view, is what makes torture evil in any and all circumstances.
Torture is not a lesser-included part of war or capital punishment, any more than rape is…..
“As the primary goal of the State is the good of all people and of the whole person,…”
Gee, who’d have thought?! Where I live, the primary goal of the State is self-continuation. Though prudent and even necessary at times, it is risky to hitch our wagon of goodness to the locomotive of “the State” if we forget that the wagon and the locomotive have entirely different destinations. People like Santorum and Thiessen deceive themselves into thinking that our particular nation-state’s purposes are necessarily ordained by God and thus Divine and holy.
Kyle writes, “If the primary goal of the State is the common good, and the common good is the good of all people and of the whole person, then the primary goal of the State is the good of all people and of the whole person. This syllogism is implicit in the quoted paragraph. Moreover, the Church has been abundantly clear the the richer nations have a responsibility to the poorer and developing nations. As I mentioned, however, subsidiarity applies here. State X has more responsibility to it’s own people than it does to the people of State Y. It’s not as though the U.S. government necessarily has an obligation to provide a healthcare system for Germany.”
Yes, but again, there must be exceptions to the state’s duty to the good of all persons. For example there are times when a state is actively at war with another state, and therefore trying to kill persons who are members of its armed forces. Thus while at war, clearly the state is not, and cannot be, nor is morally required to be, seeking the good of “all persons”.
Kyle writes, “Torture offends the dignity of the person in a way that the infliction of death does not: it specifically targets the powers we associate with personhood: rationality and the will.”
IMHO, this is the argument you should be using against torture, and not the state’s purported obligation to always seek the good of all persons.
In my opinion what makes torture wrong in the context of war (and this may be the same as what you are arguing) is robbing someone of the ability to carry out his duty: Forcing him to betray his country and homeland by providing information that will damage them. In this regard it’s something like rape: Forcing someone who refuses to perform an act for moral reasons, to perform the act anyway.
Further, it’s not the soldier’s fault that his country is at war with your country. He is serving out of duty to his country and not necessarily out of malice to you or your country. Therefore it’s wrong to treat him as though he is the personal enemy of you or your country, to hold him responsible for killing your comrades-in-arms, etc.
However in the case of terrorists and criminals, I don’t believe they have a moral duty to not betray their comrades in crime and immorality. Therefore, forcing them to betray terrorist or criminal plots is not forcing them to commit immorality. Further, they are not serving as terrorists out of duty to their country, since they are not members of their country’s armed forces. They are acting outside the bounds of legitimate authority and are commiting acts of illicit warfare, which basically amounts to war crimes. The attempt to get information out of them is an attempt to prevent further war crimes.
I’m not saying that therefore any kind of torture against criminals and terrorists is OK. I’m sure we could draw a line at some point where we both agree that going beyond that point would be excessive. But is any and all discomfort and pain excessive? We can’t deprive him of sleep for days on end. But can we keep him up an hour past his bedtime? Two hours? We can’t beat him senseless. But can we grab him by the shoulders and shake him? Can we slap him once or twice, for the sake of preventing the deliberate targeting and mass murder of civilians?
If someone had kidnapped your wife and child, and you had good reason to believe another man knew where they were being held, where would you draw the line in terms of getting information out of the guy? Would you just ask him politely and leave it at that?