Blake Busby

English 102
Adam Padgett
2/8/16
Is torture effective for gaining valuable intelligence?
There are many opinions out there based upon the legalization of torture. Some people tend
to think that torture is ineffective and has no positive influence while others think that it is
necessary to use because it could save thousands of innocent people. This topic sparks my
interest because there are so many different ways to look at the effect of torture plays a role in.
This research question has me on the fence because I feel like there is only really one positive
influence vs. a bunch of negative influences. But, that one positive effect is a major one and that
is the fact that it could save innocent people like mentioned above. Another reason I am
interested in this topic is because of an older guy I play golf with every so often. He used to be a
cop from Chicago, and would tell stories about using violence to gain information and I never
really knew how I felt about it so through researching this topic, it will give me a better
understanding and a more clear perspective.
Arrigo, Jean Maria. "The Good Psychologist, Good Torture, and Good Reputation
Response to ODonohue, Snipes, Dalto, Soto, Maragakis, and Im (2014) The Ethics of
Enhanced Interrogations and Torture." Taylor Francis Online. N.p., 2015. Web. 7 Feb.
2016.

This article above is a very informative article on the EIT or the "Enhanced Interrogations or
Torture." It talks about things such as the necessity's of torture along with things like who should
be allowed to torture. It uses recorded dates in history to support the details that it presents. The
article orders each tenant of the overall arguments and examines each one separately. The major
interest on this article are Who should be allowed to torture? and What should be allowed during
torture? This article was very credible as one of the writers was a police officer along with an ex
army intelligence agent another was a phycologist and a member of the national security and
another military historian joined in. This makes the article very reliable. It is mainly an
informative piece but it has some bias towards it being acceptable for certain things.

'Torture is never acceptable'." USA Today n.d.: Academic Search Complete. Web. 8 Feb. 2016.

The article above is a very argumentative article on the acceptability of torture. It is revolved
around the issue when President Bush threatened to use a veto to block the torture ban. It starts
with someone writing about how America needs to "take a stand" and not become a nation that
sanctions torture and it ends with a counter writer talking about how he will stand behind
president Bush's decision and how if it were to pass it would only benefit the terrorist. This is a
big and very useful article as it involved the United States white house along with President
Bush. It regards a situation that did occur and information about it can be found all over.
McMahan, Jeff. "Torture, Morality, And Law." Case Western Reserve Journal Of International
Law 37.2/3 (2006): 241-248. Academic Search Complete. Web. 8 Feb. 2016.

The article above is an argumentative article on how torture can save many innocent lives. It is
argumentative because he uses multiple examples and situations that make torture seem like it
only plays a positive role by helping people. He uses some hypothetical situations such as a
"murders copycat" and how they can prevent people by following a murder by certain torture
methods. The "murders copycat" is a situation when one person is committing a certain kind of
murder and when he gets locked away, he has someone on the outside continue his "work." He
uses various examples and situations and talks about each one and the moral justification of that
case. This author is very biased on how torture should definitely be used under certain
circumstances.

The research question I have is arguable because a lot of people think it is morally wrong to
torture someone while others disagree and think we have to do what is needed in order to save
innocent lives. Throughout my research, I have found that some people think it is wrong to
traumatize a human by using torture methods and others look at It as a way to save peoples lives
from ending. A disagreement these sources have is the perspective that they view the act of
torture on. One source viewed it from the guy that was being tortured while the other viewed it
from the lives of innocent people. By doing this, the source that viewed torture from an innocent
people perspective had no sympathy for the harm being done on the victim because they only
cared about the fact that it could save more innocent people. While this is true, research came to
show that many people who are tortured were actually innocent and accused of doing something
that they didnt. With that being said, I'm not sure if it is fully okay to torture someone if you
aren't certain that they have the information that is needed. I might need to revise my research
question by making it a more specific time period or possibly making it a more specific method
of torture that is used.