Why I'm Not The President
For years, my AP Lang students have begun their year by reading and analyzing an essay by Michael Levin entitled “ The Case for Torture .” The essay’s thesis is that torture is acceptable, and even “morally mandatory,” in situations in which lives can be saved through the torture. Every year, I re-read this essay, which is quite articulate and persuasive, and finish the essay agreeing with the author, only to forcibly and consciously remind myself that there is something in my gut that tells me that torture is wrong, under all circumstances. Aside from the glaringly obvious argument that torture doesn’t work, that it often elicits false confessions or false memories that don’t actually save lives, there is one other important issue that I have with Levin’s argument. Paragraph 6 of the essay makes the argument that a mother whose newborn baby has been kidnapped would not only condone the torture of the kidnapper in order to retrieve her child, but might even go so far as to do...
