Spirituality and the Ethics of Torture

Spirituality and the Ethics of Torture
Author: D. Jeffreys
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 195
Release: 2009-06-22
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0230622577

What exactly is torture? Should we torture suspected terrorists if they have information about future violent acts? Defining torture carefully, the book defends the idea that all people are valuable, and rejects moral defenses of torture. It focuses particularly on practices like sensory deprivation, which perniciously attack the human psyche.

Religion, Torture and the Liberation of God

Religion, Torture and the Liberation of God
Author: Mario I Aguilar
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 162
Release: 2015-04-17
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1317503082

If God can be used by the powerful to justify violence in the name of order, he can also be used by the weak to illuminate the position of the victims of political conflict. Religion, Torture and the Liberation of God explores the theological possibilities of a God who is a prisoner and a victim of torture. The book relocates God to the horrors of the military abuse of human rights in Chile and the systematic rape of women in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Aguilar argues that this theological exercise offers us new ways of understanding the abuse of power, whether it be the clerical abuse of children, violence against women, or homophobia. This examination of torture and rape becomes, through a theology of praxis and compliance, an examination of solidarity, love and affection. The book concludes with an exploration of the possibilities of a tortured God who liberates.

Religion, Empire, and Torture

Religion, Empire, and Torture
Author: Bruce Lincoln
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 195
Release: 2010-02-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0226481913

How does religion stimulate and feed imperial ambitions and violence? Recently this question has acquired new urgency, and in Religion, Empire, and Torture, Bruce Lincoln approaches the problem via a classic but little-studied case: Achaemenian Persia. Lincoln identifies three core components of an imperial theology that have transhistorical and contemporary relevance: dualistic ethics, a theory of divine election, and a sense of salvific mission. Beyond this, he asks, how did the Achaemenians understand their place in the cosmos and their moral status in relation to others? Why did they feel called to intervene in the struggle between good and evil? What was their sense of historic purpose, especially their desire to restore paradise lost? And how did this lead them to deal with enemies and critics as imperial power ran its course? Lincoln shows how these religious ideas shaped Achaemenian practice and brought the Persians unprecedented wealth, power, and territory, but also produced unmanageable contradictions, as in a gruesome case of torture discussed in the book’s final chapter. Close study of that episode leads Lincoln back to the present with a postscript that provides a searing and utterly novel perspective on the photographs from Abu Ghraib.

Torture Is a Moral Issue

Torture Is a Moral Issue
Author: George Hunsinger
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Total Pages: 295
Release: 2008-09-05
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 080286029X

In this hard-hitting volume two dozen scholars, activists, military officers, and religious leaders call for an immediate end to the practice of torture, paying particular attention to its use in the American war on terror. Torture Is a Moral Issue begins with background material, including vivid firsthand accounts from a torture survivor and a former U.S. interrogator in Iraq. The heart of the book contains respectively Christian, Jewish, and Muslim arguments against torture, and the final part charts a way forward toward a solution, offering much principled yet practical advice. Included as an afterword is an interview with Darius Rejali, one of the world's foremost experts on torture and democracy. Contributors: Taha Jabir Alalwani William T. Cavanaugh John Conroy Edward Feld David P. Gushee Yahya Hendi Scott Horton George Hunsinger Adm. John Hutson Tony Lagouranis Ellen Lippman Ingrid Mattson Ann Elizabeth Mayer Marilyn McEntyre Gen. Richard M. O'Meara Dianna Ortiz Darius Rejali Louise Richardson Kenneth Roth Fleming Rutledge Melissa Weintraub Carol Wickersham

Torture and Eucharist

Torture and Eucharist
Author: William T. Cavanaugh
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
Total Pages: 304
Release: 1998-12-07
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780631211990

In this engrossing analysis, Cavanaugh contends that the Eucharist is the Church's response to the use of torture as a social discipline.

Torture and Its Definition in International Law

Torture and Its Definition in International Law
Author: Metin Baolu
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 571
Release: 2017
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0199374627

This book presents an interdisciplinary approach to definition of torture by a group of prominent scholars of behavioral sciences, international law, human rights, and public health. It represents a first ever attempt to compare behavioral science and international law perspectives on definitional issues and promote a sound theory- and evidence-based understanding of torture.

Anatomy of Torture

Anatomy of Torture
Author: Ron E. Hassner
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 243
Release: 2022-04-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1501762044

Does torture "work?" Can controversial techniques such as waterboarding extract crucial and reliable intelligence? Since 9/11, this question has been angrily debated in the halls of power and the court of public opinion. In Anatomy of Torture, Ron E. Hassner mines the archives of the Spanish Inquisition to propose an answer that will frustrate and infuriate both sides of the divide. The Inquisition's scribes recorded every torment, every scream, and every confession in the torture chamber. Their transcripts reveal that Inquisitors used torture deliberately and meticulously, unlike the rash, improvised methods used by the United States after 9/11. In their relentless pursuit of underground Jewish communities in Spain and Mexico, the Inquisition tortured in cold blood. But they treated any information extracted with caution: torture was used to test information provided through other means, not to uncover startling new evidence. Hassner's findings in Anatomy of Torture have important implications for ongoing torture debates. Rather than insist that torture is ineffective, torture critics should focus their attention on the morality of torture. If torture is evil, its efficacy is irrelevant. At the same time, torture defenders cannot advocate for torture as a counterterrorist "quick fix": torture has never located, nor will ever locate, the hypothetical "ticking bomb" that is frequently invoked to justify brutality in the name of security.

Moral Dilemmas of Modern War

Moral Dilemmas of Modern War
Author: Michael L. Gross
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2010
Genre: History
ISBN: 0521866154

A practical guide for policy makers, military officers, students, and anyone else interested in asymmetric conflicts.

For Torture

For Torture
Author: Stephen Kershnar
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2012
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780739167779

Stephen Kershnar argues that torture is justified in a number of theoretical contexts, including defense, punishment, and when the person to be tortured consents. He then looks at the actual world and argues that it is plausible to think that there are real-world cases where torture is justified.