Why Counterfeiting Is Wrong (And Why Torture Is, Too)
Why is counterfeiting wrong?
Or more precisely, why is the belief that counterfeiting legal tender and then using to to buy stuff is wrong compatible with anything other than a spooky theory according to which certain pieces of paper (or metal) are magically able to exude monetary value? I don’t mean to be snide, but it strikes me that such questions are reasonably analogous to those at the basis of Jim’s challenge to non-pacifist opponents of torture.
Counterfeiting is wrong, of course, not because of the intrinsic properties of the pieces of paper involved, but because the practice of using as legal tender only those pieces of paper (or metal) that have the right sort of causal history is the very basis of modern economies. And in the same way, torture is wrong not because pacifism is true but because the practice of drawing bright lines to distinguish wanton cruelty from necessary evils is what makes human society the remarkable thing that it is.
Why doesn’t that answer seem sufficient?
As Jim suggests, I suppose it has something to do with the desire for a reason why the lines are drawn in one place rather than another; the decision not to torture is, after all, supposed to be different from the restriction of automobiles to the right side of the street. But then the natural response is that we have absolute prohibitions against torture and inhumane treatment because wanton cruelty is wrong, and that conduct on the battlefield isn’t governed by similarly strict laws not because it’s “OK to inflict (the most extreme imaginable) violence when the guy is totally helpless in combat”, but because laws regulating conduct on the battlefield are extraordinarily difficult to formulate and enforce.
Jim asks why “suddenly upon [an opposing combatant’s] saying the words ‘I surrender’, any serious violence beyond confinement becomes wrong”; the obvious answer, though, is that such violence is wrong because he’s surrendered, and that what sets off humans from other animal species is our recognition that, except perhaps when it is a matter of punishing someone pursuant to a conviction in an impartial court of law, killing people who have surrendered themselves is an immoral thing to do. That combatants sometimes resemble people who have surrendered, and that certain things that can legally be done to combatants look an awful lot like other things that can’t legally be done to prisoners, are much better arguments for restraint on the battlefield than for mass execution of prisoners of war.
Well put.
— Greg Sanders · Apr 27, 08:24 PM · #
John:
You ask:
Because the question on the table is not “Should we have lines?”, but “Why should the line be drawn here?”. The point of the post was not that torture is OK, but that abstract reasoning is not a reliable guide for how to strike the balance between the need of a society to defend itself from armed aggression on one hand, and avoid becoming a society not worth defending on the other. we have to rely upon our traditions to draw these lines.
Here is the closing sentence of my post:
— Jim Manzi · Apr 27, 08:42 PM · #
Great post, and a morally obtuse response from Jim which is indicative of what I can only conclude is bad faith on his part. Jim is too smart to have missed the part of John’s post which explains in very clear language why the line is drawn where it is. Rather than enaging that argument, Jim (mush like he does in his original post) simply ignores it.
— LarryM · Apr 27, 08:55 PM · #
I wouldn’t join the speculation on motives, but LarryM is right, Jim: I addressed the second of those questions at length in the latter half of my post.
— John Schwenkler · Apr 27, 08:57 PM · #
I’m all zanged out on flu medicine (not pig flu, hopefully), so this is going to be a shaky effort. But here goes.
The Viceroy butterfly counterfeits the Monarch butterfly’s patterns to stay alive, without having to bear the cost of manufacturing the Monarch’s poison. Is that wrong?
In other news, “You’re going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.” Change the frame, change the morals.
— Sargent · Apr 27, 09:10 PM · #
John:
OK, fair enough. Let’s take the last paragraph one sentence at a time:
With qualifiers, I think this responds to the question “Why is it wrong to kill somebody who surrenders?”, with the statement “Because humans recognize that it is immoral to kill somebody who surrenders”. I accept that you believe that (and as a general rule, so do I). But the point of the question is whether it is possible to ground this in a yet-more-basic principle. The reason I think this matters is that when it comes to operational question of “Should we torture captured combatants?”, many people don’t think it’s obvious that it’s wrong (or equivalently, that it is immoral by definition of being human).
I think this is a milder version of my point that it is not easy to see the abstract moral prinicple that would underlie both aspects of current US military doctrine and an absolute prohibition on combatant toruture. Once again, this doesn’t mean that I’m for torutre, or even that I see a ban on torture as incompatible with US military doctrine, merely that you can’t reason your way to a “don’t torture” policy – you have to rely on intuition, tradition and experience to defend it.
— Jim Manzi · Apr 27, 09:12 PM · #
Sargent:
No, because the butterfly doesn’t act intentionally and can’t do otherwise.
Jim:
But “recognize”, unlike “believe”, is a success verb; I can’t recognize that something is so unless it is. And given that we can only recognize what is so, it’s the surrender that’s the reason not to kill such a person, just as someone’s being in pain might be a reason to care for her. The fact that there might not be any easily formulable “more basic principles” (though how about: Do unto others …?) is, like the fact that some people disagree, neither here nor there.
No, that only follows if you insist that all wrongs must be proscribed. As I said, there are all sorts of reasons why it would be impractical, if not impossible, to have laws regulating battlefield conduct that perfectly mirrored those of nature (or God, or whatever); the same isn’t true, however, for conduct in prisons, which is why torture can easily be prohibited and punishable by law while quite a lot of immoral cruelty on the battlefield simply can’t.
— John Schwenkler · Apr 27, 09:19 PM · #
Jim:
I think you and John agree more than you disagree here – you’ve got similar moral intuitions, and John’s not defending the proposition that some kind of abstract reasoning would get you to exactly the moral distinctions that we make in law about either treatment of prisoners or battlefield norms.
But the real force in John’s post comes in his last sentence: “That combatants sometimes resemble people who have surrendered, and that certain things that can legally be done to combatants look an awful lot like other things that can’t legally be done to prisoners, are much better arguments for restraint on the battlefield than for mass execution of prisoners of war.” That’s not an argument that “the lines are arbitrary but we should stick with them because of intuition/tradition/etc” – it’s an argument that if we’re going to move the line, our bias should be towards moving it the other way. Or, what I would argue instead, that because restraints on battlefield behavior are so difficult to establish and enforce, that we probably need much more significant restraints on entering the battlefield in the first place.
It is very instructive to realize that, in 2009, eighteen years after the collapse of our last superpower rival and eight years after the first mass-casualty terrorist attack on American soil, we’re having a far more substantial debate about whether or not torture is wrong than we are about whether or not an aggressively forward defense posture (what critics would – and do – call an imperial foreign policy) is wrong.
And I suspect you agree with that more than you disagree as well.
— Noah Millman · Apr 27, 09:23 PM · #
In other words, for the same reason gay marriage is wrong.
— forestwalker · Apr 27, 09:25 PM · #
John: No, because the butterfly doesn’t act intentionally and can’t do otherwise.
Yes! Another one, then.
Your tribe is under attack Swiss Family Robinson style, and the best defense you have is a series of wicked traps. You know that any person falling into these traps will experience excruciating pain for several hours before they die. Is it wrong to set the traps? What if using the traps allows all your tribe to survive, while 9% of your tribe will die if you fight it out hand to hand?
Maybe the answer is to call an emergency meeting of all the tribes, and mutually agree to outlaw the use of traps.
— Sargent · Apr 27, 09:37 PM · #
To say “the practice of drawing bright lines to distinguish wanton cruelty from necessary evils is what makes human society the remarkable thing that it is” is not the same as saying torture is wrong.
A distinction is not a prohibition. I have a pretty loose understanding of torture and cruelty. As Manzi points out prison is a very normal accepted form of punishment, and form of treatment of enemies (whose only crime is that they were born in the wrong place and have different values), but I think it is ridiculous to call it humane or anymore of a necessary evil than anything else governments do to people by force. How is caging people and putting them on a schedule to pay penance for the wrath of the legislators and people anything but cruel, no matter how necessary?
“Wanton” cruelty is wrong, you seem to say, and the mark of civilization is recognizing this. Fine (though of course not really accurate, unless you want to discount all human cultures and histories except your interpretation as barbarism like most eurocentric absolutists).But do you think any American defending torture, or what approaches it, is defending it as wanton? The question is if torture is ever justified. I don’t see how you can say it never is unless you are a self-righteous moral absolutist and Western chauvinist wielding a convenient American exceptionalism (like the Christian fanatic A. Sullivan).
This is an offensive, morally repugnant, and ultimately unpatriotic position that selfishly puts your moral beliefs and ‘principles’ above the freedom and security of everyone around you.
It is often necessary to inflict evil and pain on others for the greater good, and it is the height of injustice to preen and hesitate precisely when what is needed by our country and the good cause makes us uncomfortable.
If you really think torture is never justified you either have a very meaningless definition of it, have a fantastically dangerous view of the world you live in, or are accustomed to imposing your tastes as absolute truths on others, and to their very real detriment.
It is very difficult for me to think anyone is that immoral to not only draw lines but to think they mark out real differences and real prohibitions against what is right and wrong that are always true in every situation no matter what.
I don’t think our president, for instance would actually hesitate to use whatever means at his disposal to preserve the well-being of his country because of some imagined cosmic reputation in the eyes of History or God. He may wrongly suppose what is at stake or necessary, but no responsible adult can doubt the justice of being willing to kill or harm any individual, especially our enemies, for the sake of the country.
(That is, if the country is worth keeping safe – most preeners on this matter give the impression that they think it is less worth our devotion than the worthless righteousness of unthinkingly and rigidly following arbitrary codes of distinction).I mean, is there really a debate here? I actually suspect almost everyone agrees about this stuff deep down – that every conceivable evil might be necessary in some conceivable circumstance, and that all of this talk about American values, moral purity, and the like constitutes a grand pissing contest.
Isn’t it just an argument of whether these particular evils were necessary in this particular instance? (on that perhaps we’d agree – though most people would be bored by that sort of dialogue over messy facts and consequences I guess)
But is there any good reason to elevate such an issue to circular arguments about first principles, essences, and trying to define rigid laws of natural morality, (besides the comfort of holding and preaching manichean clarity on inherently unclear matters)?
— Hagar · Apr 27, 09:43 PM · #
That’s the best paragraph I’ve read all day, Noah.
Sargent: No, I suppose I don’t think that would be wrong; or at least it would depend on why we were being attacked and what the available alternatives were. But what you describe is quite different from what we usually understand as torture.
And Hagar … well, I’m not going to get into it.
— John Schwenkler · Apr 27, 10:01 PM · #
“…what sets off humans from other animal species is our recognition that, except perhaps when it is a matter of punishing someone pursuant to a conviction in an impartial court of law…”
But don’t animals practice “surrender” all the time? Dogs, wolves, lions, chimpanzees, goats, horses, and whatnot all have elaborate combat rituals that involve a non-fatal surrender to the dominant victor. We’re not so much unique in that we have something we call “surrender” except in that we can call it something and consciously ponder it.
— James F. Elliott · Apr 27, 10:21 PM · #
re: torture = wanton cruelty, and wanton cruelty is wrong. I think you might be missing a crucial distinction. With wanton cruelty, cruelty is the end, the sole purpose. With torture, cruelty is the means to an end — an instrument to extract X, whatever that is.
There’s two big questions here:
1. Do we eliminate certain means from our behavioral repertoire a priori, regardless of the ends to which they might be used, regardless of their efficacy in achieving those ends?
2. Or, before restricting means, do we take into account the ends we are pursuing, and the efficacy of the means we might use to get there?
Jim’s point, if I read him right, is that arguing from number one is untenable, and when arguing from number two, which is immensely difficult, the burden is on those who would disrupt tradition and our collective impulse. I think that’s right.
John, I can’t really tell what you think about this. You write that “the practice of drawing bright lines to distinguish wanton cruelty from necessary evils is what makes human society the remarkable thing it is,” which seems to be an instrumentalist take (placing value on ‘remarkable’). But if ‘remarkable’ just means ‘morally worthy,’ doesn’t that beg the question, restating it in different form?
And you perform a bait and switch with the “wanton cruelty, necessary evil” dichotomy, and the “wanton cruelty = torture” conflation. Torture can be wanton cruelty (its own end), but torture can also be a necessary evil (a means to an end). We’re arguing about torture qua necessary evil (if it is, if it’s not). I don’t know anybody (anybody worth taking seriously) who is defending torture qua wanton cruelty.
— Sargent · Apr 27, 10:27 PM · #
John,
You seem to be suggesting two inconsistent responses to Jim:
1) The greater immorality of torture vs. various kinds of battlefield killing is simply axiomatic – or inherent to a civilized society, if you prefer; and
2) The two are both immoral but it is only possible, for practical reasons, to prohibit torture.
Am I misreading you?
— Alex · Apr 27, 10:32 PM · #
JFE:
Yes, that’s right. And we can also structure our actions to the moral demands that that pondering reveals to us.
Sargent: Torture isn’t always a means to an end, but I’ll concede that point. The “question-begging” reading of that sentence is, however, the one that I was after: I think that what makes the achievement remarkable is precisely that it’s an achievement in which we’re getting things right. But what of it? Some things are wrong because they’re cruel, and torture, no matter the end it’s meant to serve, is one of those.
And Alex: I think you’re misreading me. I think that some things that are done on the battlefield are just as bad as torture, or nearly so (or sometimes even worse); which means that in this context I don’t accept (1) as you state it, even though I do think that some kinds of battlefield killing aren’t morally wrong in the way that torture is.
— John Schwenkler · Apr 27, 11:52 PM · #
John, thanks for clarifying. As I said, my reading comp is a little fuzzy right now. I’d better hang it up.
— Sargent · Apr 27, 11:59 PM · #
Semantics!
But really, it’s also about fairness. You can use to elision to make a prisoner sound like a soldier, to make a civilian sound like a soldier, but functionally they are distinct, notwithstanding any continuing obligations of the soldier to his employer. You can claim (as one commenter did in the thread about Jim’s post) that imprisoned soldiers are still tools of the state, but they are certainly not effective tools of the state. To torture soldiers is to refuse to let them leave the battlefield, even after they have lost the ability of directly affect it.
Moreover, because we know that we, too, might be captured and imprisoned, and we want to be treated fairly. Shot in battle; acceptable. But not transported to secret detention centres to be tortured. Such brutality for such questionable gain – of course it offends morality.
But let me pose a question of my own: for the purposes of the argument, I accept that killing and torturing soldiers is justified, and since we are killing and torturing detainees (functional civilians) on the basis of anticipated threat, why stop there? Why not lob skulls over the city walls and execute all the males of fighting age?
— vimothy · Apr 28, 12:04 AM · #
Because, when an individual surrenders, there is an implicit contract made. If you don’t want the responsibility of a prisoner, shoot them. Though, I can’t imagine a lot of folks will be surrendering if this is what is possible.
— Cascadian · Apr 28, 12:14 AM · #
“War is in no way a relationship of man with man but a relationship between States, in which individuals are enemies only by accident; not as men, nor even as citizens, but as soldiers (…). Since the object of war is to destroy the enemy State, it is legitimate to kill the latters defenders as long as they are carrying arms; but as soon as they lay them down and surrender, they cease to be enemies or agents of the enemy, and again become mere men, and it is no longer legitimate to take their lives.”
— Jean-Jacques Rousseau
— vimothy · Apr 28, 12:18 AM · #
— Jim Manzi · Apr 27, 04:42 PM · #
But you guys are the traditionalists.
Why did you torture?
And if it wasn’t you, why defend the torturers?
In case it hasn’t been made clear to you, I, personally, like John I think, am Alyosha.
“I could not do it.”
— matoko_chan · Apr 28, 12:21 AM · #
I don’t think the prohibition on torture is contingent upon surrender. We don’t, I wouldn’t think, have any more right to torture someone we kidnap than someone who enters captivity by laying down his arms.
— southpaw · Apr 28, 12:51 AM · #
So, torture is wrong, and yes, we did it.
I’m Alyosha, but I cannot condemn anyone that is Ivan.
I think this is what we should do now
— matoko_chan · Apr 28, 01:03 AM · #
southpaw: You’re right in what you say, but the debate isn’t over whether surrender is a necessary condition on not being a legitimate target for cruelty – the relevant question is whether it’s a sufficient one.
— John Schwenkler · Apr 28, 01:25 AM · #
Right, John, I see what you’re saying. Having spent many years reading Bench Memos, the Corner and, in particular, Andy McCarthy, I’m leery of any argument that torture is forbidden by implicit or explicit contract (or treaty, convention, you get my drift). That’s a contract Andy and his friends will seek to break. That said, I’m completely on board with the idea that, for all X, X is a sufficient condition for not torturing another person.
— southpaw · Apr 28, 02:40 AM · #
War is in no way a relationship of man with man but a relationship between States, in which individuals are enemies only by accident; not as men, nor even as citizens, but as soldiers (…). Since the object of war is to destroy the enemy State, it is legitimate to kill the latters defenders as long as they are carrying arms; but as soon as they lay them down and surrender, they cease to be enemies or agents of the enemy, and again become mere men, and it is no longer legitimate to take their lives.”
— Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Rousseau is full of it. Being captured—or surrendering—does not sever one’s ties to ones’ armed forces and one’s nation. It doesn’t return you to a state of nature.
— Adam Greenwood · Apr 28, 02:27 PM · #
Adam Greenwood: Do you believe it is that war should be fought with any kind of restraint?
— vimothy · Apr 28, 03:04 PM · #
Sorry for the typo, that should read, “Do you believe that war should be fought with any kind of restraint?”
— vimothy · Apr 28, 03:23 PM · #
Vimothy,
Fight a war “with any kind of restraint?”
It depends on what side your on (if you can afford to show mercy and humanity due to your superior firepower, or if you are outgunned) and whether your cause is worth killing for.
Or do you mean a non-violent war without killing fellow humans? Many still think killing is more immoral than mere cruelty.
Don’t play games of consent and imaginary states of nature to make killing some people more moral than others. These are the games the powerful side plays to make themselves feel good and hide the injustice of their motives from themselves.
If you go to war for something you are willing to do the ultimate injustice for then it must be something very good and just indeed (I hope). I think some things are so just they do justify war.
And if it is justified and so worthy a cause why would you restrain yourself? Why isn’t it even more unjust to pursue justice halfheartedly, committing some atrocities, but not others? Here’s a hint: if it’s not worth hurting someone you can hurt, hurt no one.
Isn’t restrained war the worse position of all: We can kill them with our superior technology as long as they are being brave, but as soon as they take the cowardly route and come over to our side, willingly or not, we will feed, clothe, and shelter them in comfort. When they surrender after trying to kill us we will treat them as our own citizens, except that we will not consider them as in any way useful to us in advancing our cause – so better than our own own citizens.
They have now become Human Being a creature of infinite moral worth , made in His image, and sacred to all. Treat him as the noble savage he is by nature and feel shame for ever wanting to use him.
I tried to ask Schwenkler why that’s such a moral position unless we think foreigners (as long as they are unarmed are of more worth than the justice of defending our country (hey, maybe they are)).
Unfortunately he didn’t want to get into that. I guess I misread the title of his post.
But maybe you can tell me. Why should any country be obligated to do anymore than enslave the vanquished after defeating them? That seems like the most restraint we could ask from any side in a war. But it is still an indulgence that most underdogs can’t afford. According to Schwenkler these people never had “society” because they didn’t take the time to distinguish and prohibit cruelty (wanton) in the midst of war.
Don’t you think war shouldn’t be made a game that can so easily be played over and over? Shouldn’t it have very high costs? I mean it is hell and everything.I doubt all the waterboarding done over the past eight years was necessary. There are lots of reasons it shouldn’t have been done.
But I am getting very tired of all the hand-wringing and righteous indignation over the prisoners’ “rights”, the national “honor”, and our moral conscience, as if they were not merely in the very privileged position of being born recently in such a technologically advanced nation that can hide behind brute strength and pretend to be morally superior and wield talk of dignity like a propaganda tool, distinguishing the civil from the barbaric like so many fashion divas snorting at the bad taste of trailer trash.
Sorry to be bombastic, but it’s just offensive and ridiculous.
— Hagar · Apr 28, 04:44 PM · #
Adam Greenwood: Do you believe that war should be fought with any kind of restraint?
You bet. Do you still beat your wife?
— Adam Greenwood · Apr 28, 05:41 PM · #
Only when she refuses to talk.
— vimothy · Apr 28, 05:43 PM · #
I would have thought it would be the other way around. I guess your wife is the strong, silent type with a prominent Adam’s apple.
— Adam Greenwood · Apr 28, 05:56 PM · #
I guess your wife is the strong, silent type
Exactly!
— vimothy · Apr 28, 09:26 PM · #
Oh, okay.
Just arbitrary socialized sentiments of a small privileged minority, then? No real moral basis except the self-esteem that preaching fashionable moral absolutes brings?
Kinda figured. Just wanted to confirm. Thanks for the help.
I’ll try to stay on my side of the internet from now on.
— Hagar · Apr 29, 12:54 AM · #
Hagar,
I confess to being rather confused. Would you prefer war to be fought without rules, because, on some level, that would be less hypocritical? If we assume that war will be with us for some time to come, doesn’t it make sense to moderate it somehow? Additionally, it is not the case that only the powerful observe war fighting norms, though, of course, norms vary according to the society in question.
— vimothy · Apr 29, 06:59 PM · #