The Objectivist
Academia and Sex Differences
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
November 2, 2009
On average, men and women differ in their preferences with regard to work and family and this leads to workplace differences. An interesting issue is whether the academic workplace should be changed to better accommodate women’s preferences.
In some high-end fields, women have less success at the top of the career ladder. Consider, for example, law and business. Joanne Lipman writing in The New York Times reports that in 2008, women made up almost half of the associate lawyers (those who work for law firms), but only 18.3% of the partners (those who own the firms). Similarly, she reports, only 15 women run Fortune 500 companies.
The same pattern occurs in academia. There women with children or who are likely to have children do worse than their peers. Consider the following research by Mary Ann Mason, Dean of the Graduate Division at the University of California at Berkeley. Women with babies are 28% less likely than women without babies to enter a tenure-track position. A person is on the tenure track when she is on track to have a permanent full-time position in a college or university or has such a position. Married women are 21% less likely than single women to enter a tenure-track position. Women faculty are 27% less likely than men to become an associate professor (mid-level professor) and 20% less likely than men to become a full professor (senior-level professor) within 16 years. A high percentage of mothers end up in second-tier academic positions (specifically, lecturers, part-timers, and adjuncts).
Mason and Marc Goulden (a research analyst at Berkeley) point out that the academia presents family-related problems for women. They point out the following. Only a third of women without children who take a fast-track university job ever become a mother. Tenured women are more than twice as likely as tenured men to be single 12 years out from the Ph.D. If married, tenure-track women faculty are 50% more likely than men to divorce (and twice as likely to divorce as women in second-tier positions).
It is not entirely clear what is going on here. There is no general hindrance to parenting. Mason points out that men who have early babies (babies had less than five years after Ph.D. completion) do better than all other groups, including single men and women.
The problem might be one of spousal selection or timing. Mason and Goulden point out that most women academics are married to people with advanced degrees and most academic men are not. If this results in men being more likely to have a stay-at-home spouse, and I suspect it does, then the differences in academic success might in part reflect this difference. The problem might also be one of timing, specifically having early versus late babies. Mason points out that women with late babies (babies that are not early) do as well as women without children.
The difference in academic success is accompanied by, and probably caused in part by, differences in productivity. Consider Mason’s findings on postdoctorates (Ph.D.s whose job is to do research in a professor’s lab). Married men with children put in 15% more time as a post-doctorate than married women with children and married men without children put in 29% more. Married women with children are 25% less likely to present at a conference in the last year than married men with children and 17% less likely than married men without children. There is some evidence, albeit weak evidence, that this pattern holds for publications. Philosophers Miriam Solomon and John Clarke report that in philosophy, women receive 25-33% of the Ph.D.s, have 21% of the philosophy positions and yet publish only 12.4% of the articles. Note these figures come from different but overlapping periods.
Women professors with children are not lazier than their counterparts. Rather, they put their efforts elsewhere. For example, Mason found that women with children do roughly 16 more hours in housework and caregiving than do men with children and 24 hours more than do men without children.
Proposed explanations for these differences in academic success have included discrimination and genetics. An important factor is probably different preferences. Women attach less weight to their careers and more to family. This can be seen in that male Ph.D.s are more likely to want to be professors at research positions than are women Ph.D.s (32% more likely for University of California Ph.D.s). The latter are also much more likely to shift their career goals away from academia. When they shift their career goals, women are more likely than men to cite as reasons children and spouses. Mason provides an example of this line of thinking is the following quote from a doctoral student, “I feel unwilling to sacrifice a healthy family life and satisfying personal life to succeed in academics, and thus industrial options have become more appealing.”
Women’s preferences are not wrong, bad, or irrational, just different. Professor Michael Argyle of Oxford University points out that marriage is one of the strongest factors to correlate with happiness and the correlation is stronger for women than men. In The Blank Slate, Harvard psychology professor Steven Pinker points out that on average mothers are more attached to their children than are fathers and that this is true in societies all over the world and in our mammal lineage. He notes that on average women are more attentive to their babies’ well-being and place a higher value on spending time with their children. In contrast, Pinker notes, men’s self-esteem is more closely tied to their status, salary, and wealth. He also points out these factors play a larger role in men’s attractiveness as a sexual and marriage partner than it does for women.
One response by some universities such as the prestigious University of California at Berkeley is to excuse parents with substantial caregiving duties for children from having to teach some of their classes. A second response has been to give these parents an extra year or two to earn tenure. Other universities have adopted similar policies. It is not clear, however, whether these policies are justified by either fairness or efficiency.
These policies transfer costs from one person to another. If at a state university, professor Jones get excused from teaching some of her classes, one of three things happens: other professors have to teach her classes, students are offered less classes (or larger classes), or taxpayers have to pay someone to teach a class when they have already paid someone to teach it. By analogy, imagine the Sunshine taxicab business has salaried drivers. If women drivers with babies get excused from their shifts, then consumers pay more money, Sunshine loses money, or other drivers have to work extra shifts. This cost transfer might be good policy, but it is not a requirement of fairness or justice. Furthermore, if the headwind is against people who have early babies and don’t have stay-at-home spouses, then this is arguably a cost of one’s choices.
The efficiency claim is harder to assess. The concern here is whether the policies have positive or negative effects on people other than the professors. Such policies might encourage some of the best and brightest women to go into academia. This is desirable. There might also be eugenics-type reasons that are relevant. On the other hand, if students and others benefit from more productive professors, then there is reason to be weary of these policies. Also, this policy provides an incentive against stay-at-home parenting and if this is bad policy, and I don’t know that it is, this is a reason to avoid it. The effects are speculative and in any case hard to balance against each other. In addition, it is not clear that there is one right answer for every academic sector.
In any case, the issue is an interesting one and one the academic world will have to consider.
04 November 2009
21 October 2009
Evolution and Rape
The Objectivist
Rape and Evolution
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
October 19, 2009
The way in which we think is the result of how our brains are wired. Evolution tells us that the way in which our brains are wired is in part the result of the way in which wiring patterns affected reproductive success over millions of years of our history. Evolution provides an insightful look into this history. It can be troubling in that it suggests that many of our violent and ugly desires are at least in part genetic. Perhaps the best example of this is rape.
Men and women often use different reproductive strategies. In animals like human beings where offspring depend on their parents for years, females must invest significant time and bodily resources in order to reproduce and raise their offspring. In contrast, men can father many more offspring with much less time and bodily resources. This gives them an incentive to have as many mates as possible. This is not true for females. The male reproductive strategy explains why males more strongly desire casual no-string-attached sex than do females. On this account, then, the male reproductive strategy was hard wired into their brains through their genes. This same account also explains why males desire rape-sex when females do not.
In A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion, biologist Randy Thornhill and anthropologist Craig T. Palmer defend the notion that rape is a behavioral pattern that evolved because it was genetically advantageous. Their argument rests on several types of evidence. It should be noted that their arguments are highly controversial.
First, Thornhill and Palmer argue that the theory fits cleanly with the presence of rape in our closest relatives and across human cultures. They note that male rape of females is found in our closest relatives (chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans). They claim that it is also found in every human society. In addition, they note, it is widespread in the animal kingdom. Mammals, birds, and insects all engage in coerced copulation. Whenever you see a behavioral pattern that is found in our closest relatives and in all human societies, there is good reason to believe that it is either an evolutionary adaptation or a by-product of one.
Second, Thornhill and Palmer note that the theory explains how victims are chosen. Rape victims are overwhelmingly in their peak reproductive years (13-35, mean age 24). This is what one would expect of a behavior that is favored because it led to increased reproduction. This age distribution differs from other violent crimes. It also is not what one would have expected if rape victims were picked for their physical vulnerability. Thornhill and Palmer also assert that rape is a relatively effective way of producing conception. They claim that roughly 5% of rape victims become pregnant.
Third, Thornhill and Palmer point out that the notion that rape is an evolutionary adaptation explains the way in which rape is often carried out. In particular, it explains why rapists usually do not cause gratuitous injury to victims. That is, they rarely inflict a serious or fatal injury that would preclude conception or birth. Thornhill and Palmer note that it explains why it is more likely that a rape victim will more likely suffer a vaginal rape, rather than an oral or anal one, if she is in her fertile years than if she is not. Again, all of this fits with the notion that rape was encoded because of its contribution to reproductive success.
Fourth, the researchers point out that the desire for rape appears to be fairly widespread in males. They note that studies indicate that many normal men (for example, college students and community volunteers) are significantly sexually aroused by depictions of coercive sex, including ones that involve physical aggression. Again, this is what we would expect if rape where an evolutionary adaptation because it would allow for opportunistic reproduction.
This theory has striking implications. Feminist writer Susan Brownmiller and numerous other feminist writers have claimed that rape is not motivated by sexual desire, but by hostility toward women or by a desire to control them. This theory does not fit the data. In particular, the theory is unable to explain why such desires have led to a targeting of victims and means of victimizing them that is so closely tied to reproduction. It fits poorly with the observation that rapists favor women in their reproductive years and statistically in time in which they are at their peak attractiveness. It fits uneasily with the similar pattern of rape in human beings and their closest ape relatives. The theory runs aground on studies that indicate that most rapists cite sexual desire as a cause of their actions.
The theological view that human beings are created by God in his own image also fits poorly with this data. After all, it is hard to imagine why God would want his most prized creation to walk around with such evil and destructive desires. Even if God wanted to make it hard for humans to be moral by tempting them, it is hard to believe that he couldn’t have picked a less cruel way of doing so.
The theory also has implications for what to expect of men, especially young men in their peak sexually competitive years. It tells us that we can expect a significant number of them to have rape-thoughts and -desires. This likely includes the seemingly kind-hearted college-aged male who is your son, grandson, nephew, son-in-law, etc. Whether the most effective way to stop men from acting out on these desires is to strengthen criminal penalties, educational programs that focus on making men aware of these desires and the need to control them, discouraging women from dressing in provocative ways, or other means is in part an empirical question and not one that can be answered by common sense. For example, the penalties for rape are already quite strong (in the U.S. in 1992, the average rapist was sentenced to 11.8 years and served 5.4 years).
In any case, there is a dark side to man and one that is hard-wired into him.
Rape and Evolution
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
October 19, 2009
The way in which we think is the result of how our brains are wired. Evolution tells us that the way in which our brains are wired is in part the result of the way in which wiring patterns affected reproductive success over millions of years of our history. Evolution provides an insightful look into this history. It can be troubling in that it suggests that many of our violent and ugly desires are at least in part genetic. Perhaps the best example of this is rape.
Men and women often use different reproductive strategies. In animals like human beings where offspring depend on their parents for years, females must invest significant time and bodily resources in order to reproduce and raise their offspring. In contrast, men can father many more offspring with much less time and bodily resources. This gives them an incentive to have as many mates as possible. This is not true for females. The male reproductive strategy explains why males more strongly desire casual no-string-attached sex than do females. On this account, then, the male reproductive strategy was hard wired into their brains through their genes. This same account also explains why males desire rape-sex when females do not.
In A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion, biologist Randy Thornhill and anthropologist Craig T. Palmer defend the notion that rape is a behavioral pattern that evolved because it was genetically advantageous. Their argument rests on several types of evidence. It should be noted that their arguments are highly controversial.
First, Thornhill and Palmer argue that the theory fits cleanly with the presence of rape in our closest relatives and across human cultures. They note that male rape of females is found in our closest relatives (chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans). They claim that it is also found in every human society. In addition, they note, it is widespread in the animal kingdom. Mammals, birds, and insects all engage in coerced copulation. Whenever you see a behavioral pattern that is found in our closest relatives and in all human societies, there is good reason to believe that it is either an evolutionary adaptation or a by-product of one.
Second, Thornhill and Palmer note that the theory explains how victims are chosen. Rape victims are overwhelmingly in their peak reproductive years (13-35, mean age 24). This is what one would expect of a behavior that is favored because it led to increased reproduction. This age distribution differs from other violent crimes. It also is not what one would have expected if rape victims were picked for their physical vulnerability. Thornhill and Palmer also assert that rape is a relatively effective way of producing conception. They claim that roughly 5% of rape victims become pregnant.
Third, Thornhill and Palmer point out that the notion that rape is an evolutionary adaptation explains the way in which rape is often carried out. In particular, it explains why rapists usually do not cause gratuitous injury to victims. That is, they rarely inflict a serious or fatal injury that would preclude conception or birth. Thornhill and Palmer note that it explains why it is more likely that a rape victim will more likely suffer a vaginal rape, rather than an oral or anal one, if she is in her fertile years than if she is not. Again, all of this fits with the notion that rape was encoded because of its contribution to reproductive success.
Fourth, the researchers point out that the desire for rape appears to be fairly widespread in males. They note that studies indicate that many normal men (for example, college students and community volunteers) are significantly sexually aroused by depictions of coercive sex, including ones that involve physical aggression. Again, this is what we would expect if rape where an evolutionary adaptation because it would allow for opportunistic reproduction.
This theory has striking implications. Feminist writer Susan Brownmiller and numerous other feminist writers have claimed that rape is not motivated by sexual desire, but by hostility toward women or by a desire to control them. This theory does not fit the data. In particular, the theory is unable to explain why such desires have led to a targeting of victims and means of victimizing them that is so closely tied to reproduction. It fits poorly with the observation that rapists favor women in their reproductive years and statistically in time in which they are at their peak attractiveness. It fits uneasily with the similar pattern of rape in human beings and their closest ape relatives. The theory runs aground on studies that indicate that most rapists cite sexual desire as a cause of their actions.
The theological view that human beings are created by God in his own image also fits poorly with this data. After all, it is hard to imagine why God would want his most prized creation to walk around with such evil and destructive desires. Even if God wanted to make it hard for humans to be moral by tempting them, it is hard to believe that he couldn’t have picked a less cruel way of doing so.
The theory also has implications for what to expect of men, especially young men in their peak sexually competitive years. It tells us that we can expect a significant number of them to have rape-thoughts and -desires. This likely includes the seemingly kind-hearted college-aged male who is your son, grandson, nephew, son-in-law, etc. Whether the most effective way to stop men from acting out on these desires is to strengthen criminal penalties, educational programs that focus on making men aware of these desires and the need to control them, discouraging women from dressing in provocative ways, or other means is in part an empirical question and not one that can be answered by common sense. For example, the penalties for rape are already quite strong (in the U.S. in 1992, the average rapist was sentenced to 11.8 years and served 5.4 years).
In any case, there is a dark side to man and one that is hard-wired into him.
07 October 2009
Torture: Self-Defense Argument
The Objectivist
Interrogational Torture: Justified Self-Defense
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
October 5, 2009
The Abu Ghraib scandal will likely prevent the U.S. from using interrogational torture in the future, even as the U.S. withdraws from Iraq and Afghanistan. The scandal surrounded a Baghdad Correctional Facility (also known as the Abu Ghraib prison), where there was haphazard and cruel treatment of prisoners by soldiers in the 320th Military Police Battalion. The New York Times reported that the investigation uncovered evidence that the soldiers did the following to detainees: forcibly sodomized one, poured phosphoric acid on others, tied ropes to detainees’ genitalia and then pulled them across the floor, jumped on a detainee’s leg (one already damaged through gunfire) with such force that it would not heal properly, beat them, urinated on them, etc. The U.S. found at least one case of homicide. There were also allegations of rape (including a fourteen year old Iraqi girl) and other cases of homicide. It was estimated by Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, the Abu Ghraib prison commander, that 90% of the detainees were innocent.
Eleven soldiers were convicted for these abuses and did prison time. In addition, seventeen soldiers and officers were removed from duty. Karpinski was demoted, in effect ending her military career. The American Civil Liberties Union leaked a 2004 FBI memo which indicated that President Bush explicitly authorized the use of extraordinary interrogation tactics by U.S. military personnel. The authorized tactics included sleep deprivation, hooding, loud music, stress positions, and the use of dogs.
Despite the Abu Ghraib mess, the U.S. probably should use interrogational torture. To see the argument for it, consider the following case from MIT professor Judith Jarvis Thomson. A trolley’s brakes don’t work and it is speeding down the tracks where it will run over five workers. The trolley driver, Edward, can turn the trolley onto a side track so that it runs over only one worker. Most people think that it is okay to Edward to do this because it saves four lives. This intuition gets stronger if the one worker disabled the brakes in order to kill the five.
A similar thing is true in cases in which a terrorist is part of an attack on civilians. Consider a case in which a terrorist has helped plant a bomb or initiated an imminent attack and refuses to disclose where the attack will occur. In both cases, by endangering innocents the attackers have forfeited some of their rights and may thus be harmed in the effort to blunt the attack. In the terrorist case, he may be harmed as a way to defend the innocent from his attack.
There are a series of objections. One objection is that even though the terrorists deserve to be tortured, the U.S. shouldn’t do this because the U.S. degrades itself in so doing. This appears to be the objection of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and other Senators who oppose such torture. However, it is less degrading to waterboard a terrorist who is part of an ongoing attack than to sit by and watch him and his buddies blow up innocent people.
Here is another way to consider the degradation issue. A number of recent economic studies indicate that the death penalty saves lives by deterring future murders. If this is correct and if the death penalty does not degrade us, then torture doesn’t do so. After all, most people would prefer torture to execution and the former more directly prevents killings. Similarly, it is hard to see why waterboarding someone for two days is more degrading than locking a young man in a cage for the rest of his life as is done when the state imposes a life sentence. It is certainly less degrading than shooting people with 50 caliber machine guns so that they explode into a pink mist and this is what happens when surgical attempts to stop terrorism fail.
A second objection is that torture doesn’t work. However, there are cases where interrogational torture does appear to have worked. One 1995 case involved Philippine authorities who tortured a terrorist into disclosing a plot to blow up eleven commercial airliners that were carrying roughly four thousand passengers. A 1994 case occurred when Palestinian terrorists kidnapped an Israeli soldier. Israel tortured the driver of the car used in the kidnapping to find where the soldier was being held. In a 2004 Central Intelligence Agency study, the director reports that interrogational torture (labeled “extraordinary interrogation tactics) provided extremely valuable information, including critical threat information. This likely referred in part to the repeated waterboarding of Khalid Shaykh Muhammad, a top al Qaeda planner, logistical expert, and architect of the 9/11 attack that killed nearly three thousand people. His information led to a number of arrests, including terrorists who planned to smuggle explosives into the U.S. and a sleeper operative in New York. Now there is the question whether torture, when done by professionals, often yields useful information and there is simply not enough information to answer it.
A third objection is that even if torture does not wrong anyone and is effective, it still has overall bad effects. It is claimed that interrogational torture strengthens our terrorist enemies by giving the U.S. a terrible image in the Muslim world, alienates allies, creates an environment where other countries will engage in horrendous torture, etc. The cost-benefit analysis is not clear. The U.S. also strengthens terrorist groups, alienates allies, etc. when it uses overwhelming military force to pursue enemies in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan, and occupies the first two. It is the threat of such terrorism that causes such actions and it might be that diminishing of this threat through interrogational torture would decrease the need for such pursuit and occupation. In any case, the cost-benefit analysis is unclear and so both the objection and response are so speculative as to warrant little weight.
A fourth objection is that interrogational torture is illegal and hence should be avoided as part of our respect for the rule of law. There are two statutes that might be thought to apply to U.S interrogators operating overseas: the War Crimes Act and the Torture Convention. Because it is likely that the relevant war-crimes statutes (Geneva and Hague) don’t apply to terrorists, the War Crimes Act probably is irrelevant. It is unclear whether the Torture Convention prohibits carefully calibrated interrogational torture. If it does, the U.S. should consider withdrawing from it and changing U.S. law so that it allows overseas interrogational torture to occur. Perhaps this would be subject to certain safeguards. Such safeguards might include permitting such techniques only when done by highly trained and specialized CIA agents and only when they receive written authorization from the President or, perhaps, cabinet head.
Interrogational torture is a type of defense. It appears to have worked in at least some cases. It is no more degrading than the death penalty and life imprisonment and less degrading than wartime killing. When used correctly, interrogational torture is disturbing but not obviously wrong.
Interrogational Torture: Justified Self-Defense
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
October 5, 2009
The Abu Ghraib scandal will likely prevent the U.S. from using interrogational torture in the future, even as the U.S. withdraws from Iraq and Afghanistan. The scandal surrounded a Baghdad Correctional Facility (also known as the Abu Ghraib prison), where there was haphazard and cruel treatment of prisoners by soldiers in the 320th Military Police Battalion. The New York Times reported that the investigation uncovered evidence that the soldiers did the following to detainees: forcibly sodomized one, poured phosphoric acid on others, tied ropes to detainees’ genitalia and then pulled them across the floor, jumped on a detainee’s leg (one already damaged through gunfire) with such force that it would not heal properly, beat them, urinated on them, etc. The U.S. found at least one case of homicide. There were also allegations of rape (including a fourteen year old Iraqi girl) and other cases of homicide. It was estimated by Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, the Abu Ghraib prison commander, that 90% of the detainees were innocent.
Eleven soldiers were convicted for these abuses and did prison time. In addition, seventeen soldiers and officers were removed from duty. Karpinski was demoted, in effect ending her military career. The American Civil Liberties Union leaked a 2004 FBI memo which indicated that President Bush explicitly authorized the use of extraordinary interrogation tactics by U.S. military personnel. The authorized tactics included sleep deprivation, hooding, loud music, stress positions, and the use of dogs.
Despite the Abu Ghraib mess, the U.S. probably should use interrogational torture. To see the argument for it, consider the following case from MIT professor Judith Jarvis Thomson. A trolley’s brakes don’t work and it is speeding down the tracks where it will run over five workers. The trolley driver, Edward, can turn the trolley onto a side track so that it runs over only one worker. Most people think that it is okay to Edward to do this because it saves four lives. This intuition gets stronger if the one worker disabled the brakes in order to kill the five.
A similar thing is true in cases in which a terrorist is part of an attack on civilians. Consider a case in which a terrorist has helped plant a bomb or initiated an imminent attack and refuses to disclose where the attack will occur. In both cases, by endangering innocents the attackers have forfeited some of their rights and may thus be harmed in the effort to blunt the attack. In the terrorist case, he may be harmed as a way to defend the innocent from his attack.
There are a series of objections. One objection is that even though the terrorists deserve to be tortured, the U.S. shouldn’t do this because the U.S. degrades itself in so doing. This appears to be the objection of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and other Senators who oppose such torture. However, it is less degrading to waterboard a terrorist who is part of an ongoing attack than to sit by and watch him and his buddies blow up innocent people.
Here is another way to consider the degradation issue. A number of recent economic studies indicate that the death penalty saves lives by deterring future murders. If this is correct and if the death penalty does not degrade us, then torture doesn’t do so. After all, most people would prefer torture to execution and the former more directly prevents killings. Similarly, it is hard to see why waterboarding someone for two days is more degrading than locking a young man in a cage for the rest of his life as is done when the state imposes a life sentence. It is certainly less degrading than shooting people with 50 caliber machine guns so that they explode into a pink mist and this is what happens when surgical attempts to stop terrorism fail.
A second objection is that torture doesn’t work. However, there are cases where interrogational torture does appear to have worked. One 1995 case involved Philippine authorities who tortured a terrorist into disclosing a plot to blow up eleven commercial airliners that were carrying roughly four thousand passengers. A 1994 case occurred when Palestinian terrorists kidnapped an Israeli soldier. Israel tortured the driver of the car used in the kidnapping to find where the soldier was being held. In a 2004 Central Intelligence Agency study, the director reports that interrogational torture (labeled “extraordinary interrogation tactics) provided extremely valuable information, including critical threat information. This likely referred in part to the repeated waterboarding of Khalid Shaykh Muhammad, a top al Qaeda planner, logistical expert, and architect of the 9/11 attack that killed nearly three thousand people. His information led to a number of arrests, including terrorists who planned to smuggle explosives into the U.S. and a sleeper operative in New York. Now there is the question whether torture, when done by professionals, often yields useful information and there is simply not enough information to answer it.
A third objection is that even if torture does not wrong anyone and is effective, it still has overall bad effects. It is claimed that interrogational torture strengthens our terrorist enemies by giving the U.S. a terrible image in the Muslim world, alienates allies, creates an environment where other countries will engage in horrendous torture, etc. The cost-benefit analysis is not clear. The U.S. also strengthens terrorist groups, alienates allies, etc. when it uses overwhelming military force to pursue enemies in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan, and occupies the first two. It is the threat of such terrorism that causes such actions and it might be that diminishing of this threat through interrogational torture would decrease the need for such pursuit and occupation. In any case, the cost-benefit analysis is unclear and so both the objection and response are so speculative as to warrant little weight.
A fourth objection is that interrogational torture is illegal and hence should be avoided as part of our respect for the rule of law. There are two statutes that might be thought to apply to U.S interrogators operating overseas: the War Crimes Act and the Torture Convention. Because it is likely that the relevant war-crimes statutes (Geneva and Hague) don’t apply to terrorists, the War Crimes Act probably is irrelevant. It is unclear whether the Torture Convention prohibits carefully calibrated interrogational torture. If it does, the U.S. should consider withdrawing from it and changing U.S. law so that it allows overseas interrogational torture to occur. Perhaps this would be subject to certain safeguards. Such safeguards might include permitting such techniques only when done by highly trained and specialized CIA agents and only when they receive written authorization from the President or, perhaps, cabinet head.
Interrogational torture is a type of defense. It appears to have worked in at least some cases. It is no more degrading than the death penalty and life imprisonment and less degrading than wartime killing. When used correctly, interrogational torture is disturbing but not obviously wrong.
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