The Absolute Violation: Why Torture Must Be Prohibited
State torture has found an increasing number of defenders in law, philosophy, and public policy. Their defences often ignore the empirical literature on torture and thus misunderstand its nature and the damage it does, as well as accepting the illusory benefits it promises.

Richard Matthews challenges the increasing acceptability of state-sponsored torture interrogation, repudiating any possible justifications. He confronts its various supporters - ticking time bomb and tragic choice theorists, utilitarians, legal scholars - and draws from philosophy, medicine, psychiatry, survivor and torturer narratives, history, feminism, the experience of working intelligence officials, anthropology, and game theory to illustrate that no moral justification for torture can be supported.

The Absolute Violation is essential reading for philosophers, lawyers, judges, human rights activists, military, police and intelligence officers, medical professionals, and anyone who is interested in forcefully countering the recent trend towards moral justification of torture.
1117034232
The Absolute Violation: Why Torture Must Be Prohibited
State torture has found an increasing number of defenders in law, philosophy, and public policy. Their defences often ignore the empirical literature on torture and thus misunderstand its nature and the damage it does, as well as accepting the illusory benefits it promises.

Richard Matthews challenges the increasing acceptability of state-sponsored torture interrogation, repudiating any possible justifications. He confronts its various supporters - ticking time bomb and tragic choice theorists, utilitarians, legal scholars - and draws from philosophy, medicine, psychiatry, survivor and torturer narratives, history, feminism, the experience of working intelligence officials, anthropology, and game theory to illustrate that no moral justification for torture can be supported.

The Absolute Violation is essential reading for philosophers, lawyers, judges, human rights activists, military, police and intelligence officers, medical professionals, and anyone who is interested in forcefully countering the recent trend towards moral justification of torture.
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The Absolute Violation: Why Torture Must Be Prohibited

The Absolute Violation: Why Torture Must Be Prohibited

by Richard Matthews
The Absolute Violation: Why Torture Must Be Prohibited

The Absolute Violation: Why Torture Must Be Prohibited

by Richard Matthews

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Overview

State torture has found an increasing number of defenders in law, philosophy, and public policy. Their defences often ignore the empirical literature on torture and thus misunderstand its nature and the damage it does, as well as accepting the illusory benefits it promises.

Richard Matthews challenges the increasing acceptability of state-sponsored torture interrogation, repudiating any possible justifications. He confronts its various supporters - ticking time bomb and tragic choice theorists, utilitarians, legal scholars - and draws from philosophy, medicine, psychiatry, survivor and torturer narratives, history, feminism, the experience of working intelligence officials, anthropology, and game theory to illustrate that no moral justification for torture can be supported.

The Absolute Violation is essential reading for philosophers, lawyers, judges, human rights activists, military, police and intelligence officers, medical professionals, and anyone who is interested in forcefully countering the recent trend towards moral justification of torture.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780773574823
Publisher: McGill-Queens University Press
Publication date: 07/24/2008
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
File size: 2 MB

About the Author


Richard Matthews is assistant professor of philosophy, Mount Allison University.

Table of Contents


Acknowledgments     ix
Introduction     3
Understanding Torture     31
What about the Ticking Bomb?     68
Why Utilitarians Must Oppose Torture     100
Torture, Tragic Choices, and Dirty Hands     139
On Neither Excusing nor Justifying Torture     186
Conclusion     203
References     221
Index     233
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