The Changing Moral Status of Torture Post-9/11

• In Event: 106 - Open Refereed Roundtable Session I
  In Refereed Roundtable: A. Table 15. Military Sociology

Abstract

This paper explores the ethical shift on the issue of torture after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 through an analysis of government documents that set the stage for detainee abuse and torture to occur in the ‘War on Terror.’ Using Sheldon Ekland-Olson’s model for how moral systems evolve, this paper demonstrates how the United States abandoned the deontological position of the treaties the prohibit torture in all circumstances in favor of a utilitarian position that torture is a lesser evil compared to the casualties of terrorism. Government officials and lawyers framed the ‘War on Terror’ as a novel war to which the Geneva Conventions did not apply. They dehumanized the terrorist enemy, creating an ‘other’ that deserves no protection in international law. Finally, they narrowed the definition of torture to such an extent that act previously considered torture would fall short of such a categorization and thus be permissible. 9/11 functioned as a crystallizing event that has altered the status of torture and war in the early twenty-first century.

Author

• Julie Anne Beicken, University of Texas-Austin