ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the way academics, ethicists, activitists, military and intelligence practitioners, and even the public has chosen to use moral principles to discuss the justification for torture. Philosophers and ethicists did not invent morality but merely theorize on the nature of the phenomenon. Some argue that morality is merely a tool to further human interests. Others believe that the truths of morality are truths of reason that are perceived by reason. Interrogating prisoners and killing enemy combatants is nothing new to military organizations and intelligence agencies. For centuries, states have engaged in armed conflict and have operated according to the laws and customs of war as defined by international law. The chapter concludes that asking soldiers to engage in this exercise while in battle under the most challenging of circumstances is to open the potential for extremely dangerous consequences for the interrogators and the American public in particular and this country's legitimacy more generally.
