Spirituality and the Ethics of Torture PDF Download

Author: D. Jeffreys
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230622577
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 195

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Book Description
What exactly is torture? Should we torture suspected terrorists if they have information about future violent acts? Defining torture carefully, the book defends the idea that all people are valuable, and rejects moral defenses of torture. It focuses particularly on practices like sensory deprivation, which perniciously attack the human psyche.

Author: Derek S. Jeffreys
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781349380329
Category : Torture
Languages : en
Pages : 191

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Book Description
This book shows how torture spiritually assaults the person. The "war on terror" has sparked great debate about torture. What exactly is torture? Should we torture suspected terrorists if they have information about future violent acts? Defining torture carefully, the book defends the idea that all people are valuable, and rejects moral defenses of torture. It focuses particularly on practices like sensory deprivation, which perniciously attack the human psyche. It also calls for an absolute ban on all torture, and urges Americans to repent for the torture the U.S. committed in the "war on terror."

Author: John Perry
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Author: Mario I Aguilar
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317503082
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 162

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Book Description
If God can be used by the powerful to justify violence in the name of order, he can also be used by the weak to illuminate the position of the victims of political conflict. Religion, Torture and the Liberation of God explores the theological possibilities of a God who is a prisoner and a victim of torture. The book relocates God to the horrors of the military abuse of human rights in Chile and the systematic rape of women in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Aguilar argues that this theological exercise offers us new ways of understanding the abuse of power, whether it be the clerical abuse of children, violence against women, or homophobia. This examination of torture and rape becomes, through a theology of praxis and compliance, an examination of solidarity, love and affection. The book concludes with an exploration of the possibilities of a tortured God who liberates.

Author: George Hunsinger
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 080286029X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Book Description
In this hard-hitting volume two dozen scholars, activists, military officers, and religious leaders call for an immediate end to the practice of torture, paying particular attention to its use in the American war on terror. Torture Is a Moral Issue begins with background material, including vivid firsthand accounts from a torture survivor and a former U.S. interrogator in Iraq. The heart of the book contains respectively Christian, Jewish, and Muslim arguments against torture, and the final part charts a way forward toward a solution, offering much principled yet practical advice. Included as an afterword is an interview with Darius Rejali, one of the world's foremost experts on torture and democracy. Contributors: Taha Jabir Alalwani William T. Cavanaugh John Conroy Edward Feld David P. Gushee Yahya Hendi Scott Horton George Hunsinger Adm. John Hutson Tony Lagouranis Ellen Lippman Ingrid Mattson Ann Elizabeth Mayer Marilyn McEntyre Gen. Richard M. O'Meara Dianna Ortiz Darius Rejali Louise Richardson Kenneth Roth Fleming Rutledge Melissa Weintraub Carol Wickersham

Author: D. Jeffreys
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137311789
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Jeffreys explores the spiritual consequences and ethics of modern solitary confinement and emphasizes how solitary confinement damages our spiritual lives. He focuses particularly on how it destroys one's relationship to time and undermines our creativity, and proposes institutional changes in order to mitigate profound damage to prisoners.

Author: Rebecca Gordon
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019933644X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 227

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Book Description
The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 reopened what many people in America had long assumed was a settled ethical question: Is torture ever morally permissible? Within days, some began to suggest that, in these new circumstances, the new answer was "yes." Rebecca Gordon argues that September 11 did not, as some have said, "change everything," and that institutionalized state torture remains as wrong today as it was on the day before those terrible attacks. Furthermore, U.S. practices during the "war on terror" are rooted in a history that began long before September 11, a history that includes both support for torture regimes abroad and the use of torture in American jails and prisons. Gordon argues that the most common ethical approaches to torture-utilitarianism and deontology (ethics based on adherence to duty)-do not provide sufficient theoretical purchase on the problem. Both approaches treat torture as a series of isolated actions that arise in moments of extremity, rather than as an ongoing, historically and socially embedded practice. She advocates instead a virtue ethics approach, based in part on the work of Alasdair MacIntyre. Such an approach better illumines torture's ethical dimensions, taking into account the implications of torture for human virtue and flourishing. An examination of torture's effect on the four cardinal virtues-courage, temperance, justice, and prudence (or practical reason)-suggests specific ways in which each of these are deformed in a society that countenances torture. Mainstreaming Torture concludes with the observation that if the United States is to come to terms with its involvement in institutionalized state torture, there must be a full and official accounting of what has been done, and those responsible at the highest levels must be held accountable.

Author: Bruce Lincoln
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226481913
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 195

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Book Description
How does religion stimulate and feed imperial ambitions and violence? Recently this question has acquired new urgency, and in Religion, Empire, and Torture, Bruce Lincoln approaches the problem via a classic but little-studied case: Achaemenian Persia. Lincoln identifies three core components of an imperial theology that have transhistorical and contemporary relevance: dualistic ethics, a theory of divine election, and a sense of salvific mission. Beyond this, he asks, how did the Achaemenians understand their place in the cosmos and their moral status in relation to others? Why did they feel called to intervene in the struggle between good and evil? What was their sense of historic purpose, especially their desire to restore paradise lost? And how did this lead them to deal with enemies and critics as imperial power ran its course? Lincoln shows how these religious ideas shaped Achaemenian practice and brought the Persians unprecedented wealth, power, and territory, but also produced unmanageable contradictions, as in a gruesome case of torture discussed in the book’s final chapter. Close study of that episode leads Lincoln back to the present with a postscript that provides a searing and utterly novel perspective on the photographs from Abu Ghraib.

Author: Rebecca Gordon
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780199373291
Category : Terrorism
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 reopened what many Americans had assumed was a settled ethical question: is torture ever morally permissible? Rebecca Gordon argues that institutionalised state torture remains as wrong today as it was before those terrible attacks, and shows how U.S. practices during the 'war on terror' are rooted in a history that includes support for torture regimes abroad and for the use of torture in the jails and prisons of America.

Author: Ron E. Hassner
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501762044
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 243

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Book Description
Does torture "work?" Can controversial techniques such as waterboarding extract crucial and reliable intelligence? Since 9/11, this question has been angrily debated in the halls of power and the court of public opinion. In Anatomy of Torture, Ron E. Hassner mines the archives of the Spanish Inquisition to propose an answer that will frustrate and infuriate both sides of the divide. The Inquisition's scribes recorded every torment, every scream, and every confession in the torture chamber. Their transcripts reveal that Inquisitors used torture deliberately and meticulously, unlike the rash, improvised methods used by the United States after 9/11. In their relentless pursuit of underground Jewish communities in Spain and Mexico, the Inquisition tortured in cold blood. But they treated any information extracted with caution: torture was used to test information provided through other means, not to uncover startling new evidence. Hassner's findings in Anatomy of Torture have important implications for ongoing torture debates. Rather than insist that torture is ineffective, torture critics should focus their attention on the morality of torture. If torture is evil, its efficacy is irrelevant. At the same time, torture defenders cannot advocate for torture as a counterterrorist "quick fix": torture has never located, nor will ever locate, the hypothetical "ticking bomb" that is frequently invoked to justify brutality in the name of security.