Torture and the Problem of Dirty Hands

2008 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 149-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamar Meisels
Keyword(s):  
Decision Maker ◽  
Moral Justification ◽  
Individual Decision ◽  
Dirty Hands ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Contemporary Debate ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Consequentialist Theory ◽  
Moral Theories ◽  
The Individual

This paper looks at the contemporary debate over investigative torture in liberal democracies besieged by terrorism, from the viewpoint of the state leader, politician, judge or individual interrogator, called upon to make life-and-death decisions. It steers away from the classic debate between utilitarians and Kantians regarding moral justification, and, following Michael Walzer presents the issue as a specific case of "the problem of dirty hands in politics". Contra Walzer, the paper suggests, among other things, that the notion of dirty hands functions not only within moral theories that include absolute prohibitions but also within consequentialist theory, and that it is therefore far wider, practically illuminating and more applicable than Walzer originally assumed. Later it addresses Alan Dershowitz’s controversial suggestion requiring judicial "torture warrants", and argues that this too should be viewed in light of the notion of dirty hands rather than within the conventional debate over justifications. Finally, it suggests that, while torture may be morally unjustifiable on anything but purely consequentialist grounds, circumstances may offer the individual decision maker an excuse, rather than a justification, for resorting to torture under very restricted conditions.

scholarly journals The Moral Justification of Religion

1909 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-185
Author(s):  
Ralph Barton Perry
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Moral Justification ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Personal Liberty ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Artificial Illumination ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Fear Of The Lord ◽  
Human Destiny

It is generally agreed that religion is either the paramount issue or the most serious obstacle to progress. To its devotees religion is of overwhelming importance; to unbelievers it is, in the phrasing of Burke, “superstitious folly, enthusiastical nonsense, and holy tyranny.” The difference between the friends and the enemies of religion may, I think, be resolved as follows. Religion recognizes some final arbitration of human destiny; it is a lively awareness of the fact that, while man proposes, it is only within certain narrow limits that he can dispose his own plans. His nicest adjustments and most ardent longings are overruled; he knows that until he can discount or conciliate that which commands his fortunes his condition is precarious and miserable. And through his eagerness to save himself he leaps to conclusions that are uncritical and premature. Irreligion, on the other hand, flourishes among those who are more snugly intrenched within the cities of man. It is a product of civilization. Comfortably housed as he is, and enjoying an artificial illumination behind drawn blinds, the irreligious man has the heart to criticize the hasty speculations and abject fear of those who stand without in the presence of the surrounding darkness. In other words, religion is perpetually on the exposed side of civilization, sensitive to the blasts that blow from the surrounding universe; while irreligion is in the lee of civilization, with enough remove from danger to foster a refined concern for logic and personal liberty. There is a sense, then, in which both religion and irreligion are to be justified. If religion is guilty of unreason, irreligion is guilty of apathy. For without doubt the situation of the individual man is broadly such as religion conceives it to be. There is nothing that he can build, nor any precaution that he can take, that weighs appreciably in the balance against the powers which decree good and ill fortune, catastrophe and triumph, life and death. Hence to be without fear is the part of folly. Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom.

What Counts as the Same?

2018 ◽  
pp. 5-32
Author(s):  
Adam B. Seligman ◽  
Robert P. Weller
Keyword(s):  
Decision Maker ◽  
Multiple Forms ◽  
Individual Decision ◽  
The Individual

This chapter begins by exploring the multiple forms and analytic purchases carried by memory, mimesis, and metaphor. It asks what we mean when we say that people share a culture. Rather than beginning with the assumption of the unity of culture or the priority of the individual decision maker, we focus on how people come to perceive things as shared. This is just one facet of our basic underlying question: What counts as the same? What lets two people, or two million people, feel that they have the same culture, or for that matter the same class, gender, race, religion, or any other category? This is not actually a question of how much we actually share but how and when we come to perceive that we share; not what is the same, but what counts as the same.

Beyond Durkheim: A Comment on Steven Lukes's ‘Liberal Democratic Torture’

2007 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 567-570 ◽  
Author(s):  
GEOFFREY BRAHM LEVEY
Keyword(s):  
Civil Liberties ◽  
Emile Durkheim ◽  
Dirty Hands ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Right ◽  
Key Aspects ◽  
Do The Right Thing ◽  
Lesser Evil

In a recent article, Steven Lukes offers a thought-provoking reflection on the apparently growing resort to torture by liberal democracies today. Professor Lukes aptly asks whether ‘torture is just another case of dirty hands in politics?’ – that is, the idea that in order to do the right thing or achieve the best public outcome in the circumstances one cannot avoid committing a wrong, such as deceit or cruelty. His answer is that torture differs from other cases of dirty hands in that it cannot be made ‘liberal-democratically accountable’, thus raising the question of ‘how should it be addressed in liberal democracies?’ Here he suggests we can learn from the sociologist Emile Durkheim and, especially, his conception of modern societies as being held together by a ‘religion of individualism’. Allowing state officials to violate basic rights of the individual thus profanes against the religion and threatens the ‘moral disintegration’ of society itself. Lukes argues that Durkheim's account helps us see both the folly in ‘certain ways of thinking and talking about torture’, such as construing it as a ‘lesser evil’ given the competing claims of risk and security, and the damage that liberal democracies inflict on themselves, in responding to the threat of terrorism, by so readily compromising their own principles.There is much that is appealing in Professor Lukes's remarks. I also share his concern about the current erosion of civil liberties in liberal democracies. I wish, however, to raise some doubts about three key aspects of his argument: that torture is not susceptible to liberal-democratic accountability; that the ‘Durkheimian argument’ effectively precludes the practice of torture; and that we cannot rightly speak of torture as a ‘lesser evil’.

Recognizing knowledge and learning in equilibrium models

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence A. Boland
Keyword(s):  
Decision Maker ◽  
Free Choice ◽  
Main Property ◽  
Methodological Individualism ◽  
Individual Decision ◽  
Equilibrium Models ◽  
The Individual

This chapter introduces Part II, discussing the limits of equilibrium models. This chapter discusses how the recognition of time and information within models results in the need to deal with expectations explicitly. This leads to the problem of explaining nature of a decision maker’s knowledge – is it quantity-based or quality based. That is, is knowledge like wealth or like health. The chapter also provides a discussion of the main property that every neoclassical equilibrium must provide. Specifically, an equilibrium model’s explanation of economic events must not violate methodological individualism. The chapter criticizes the presumption that methodological individualism must be compatibility with a psychology-based model of the individual decision maker. Using a psychology-based model of the individual can undermine the idea of completely free choice, which was the original appeal of the equilibrium models.

Utility Estimation of a Set of States of Health

1977 ◽  
Vol 16 (03) ◽  
pp. 168-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. I. Card ◽  
M. Rusinkiewicz ◽  
C. I. Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Visual Acuity ◽  
Utility Function ◽  
Decision Maker ◽  
The State ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Individual Decision ◽  
Middle State ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Utility Estimation

A decision maker was presented with three states of health, such that an imaginary patient was in the middle state while the two other states could be described as more preferred and less preferred. The decision maker was then asked to choose the minimal odds at which he would advise an operation which would result in success, the patient moving into the more preferred state, or failure, the patient moving into the less preferred state. Eight decision makers were tested in this way and each made 24 such wagers on a set of three states chosen from a total set of eight; each of these states differed unidimen sionally only in the visual acuity of the remaining eye in the imaginary patient. If the utility of I is arbitrarily assigned to the state of perfect vision, and the utility of 0 to the state of non-perception of light, estimates of the utilities of the intervening states can then be made. The utility function for each decision maker was constructed and was found to be linear against the logarithm of the visual acuity. From this it follows that if all decision makers, e.g. ophthalmic surgeons, show such linearity, they will all choose the same odds before deciding whether to operate and these odds are independent of the utilities which the individual decision maker attaches to the different states of health.

Utility Estimation of a Set of States of Health

1977 ◽  
Vol 16 (03) ◽  
pp. 168-175
Author(s):  
W. I. Card ◽  
M. Rusinkiewicz ◽  
C. I. Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Visual Acuity ◽  
Utility Function ◽  
Decision Maker ◽  
The State ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Individual Decision ◽  
Middle State ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Utility Estimation

A decision maker was presented with three states of health, such that an imaginary patient was in the middle state «‘hile the two other states could be described as more preferred and less preferred. The decision maker was then asked to choose the minimal odds at which he would advise an operation which would result in success, the patient moving into the more preferred state, or failure, the patient moving into the less preferred state. Eight decision makers were tested in this way and each made 24 such wagers on a set of three states chosen from a total set of eight; each of these states differed unidimen-sionally only in the visual acuity of the remaining eye in the imaginary patient. If the utility of 1 is arbitrarily assigned to the state of perfect vision, and the utility of 0 to the state of non-perception of light, estimates of the utilities of the intervening states can then be made. The utility function for each decision maker was constructed and was found to be linear against the logarithm of the visual acuity. From this it follows that if all decision makers, e.g. ophthalmic surgeons, show such linearity, they will all choose the same odds before deciding whether to operate and these odds are independent of the utilities which the individual decision maker attaches to the different states of health.

scholarly journals Introduction. Neuroeconomics: the promise and the profit

2008 ◽  
Vol 363 (1511) ◽  
pp. 3767-3769 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wolfram Schultz
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Decision Maker ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Individual Decision ◽  
Economic Decisions ◽  
Economic Decision Making ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Gains And Losses ◽  
The Brain

Neuroeconomics investigates the neural mechanisms underlying decisions about rewarding or punishing outcomes (‘economic’ decisions). It combines the knowledge about the behavioural phenomena of economic decisions with the mechanistic explanatory power of neuroscience. Thus, it is about the neurobiological foundations of economic decision making. It is hoped that by ‘opening the box’ we can understand how decisions about gains and losses are directed by the brain of the individual decision maker. Perhaps we can even learn why some decisions are apparently paradoxical or pathological. The knowledge could be used to create situations that avoid suboptimal decisions and harm.

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