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 the torturing herself. I relate deeply to this. As a mother, my reaction to this argument is exactly what Levin wants it to be: emotional. There is something visceral about my response here that makes me say, “YES! Do it! Do anything to save my child!”

But therein lies the problem. My response is emotional. Visceral. Selfish. And that is the very reason that I don’t trust it.

There are many great reasons that I am not responsible for our nation’s policy on torture. And one of them is this: I’m not a leader. I don’t think big. I am selfish and emotional and driven by my gut, especially when it comes to my children. Just as many mothers and fathers are. 

But a leader of a nation must be able to put aside their gut and make rational decisions that are best for the most people. And torturing terrorists is not—in my actual, rational opinion—the best plan for the most people. Despite Levin’s arguments, torturing people does set a precedent for "Us" to start looking an awful lot like "Them." Neither does torturing people further our national interests, morally or ethically. It also breaks international laws that the United States has signed on to, and in some cases, that we have helped to write.


I hope that someday a mother will be the leader of this nation. And that when the inevitable day comes in which that President and Mother is asked to make a difficult decision about whether or not to torture a "Them," she will not be me. She will think bigger, more globally, and more long-term than Levin’s hypothetical victimized mother, and she will make the bigger, more global, and more long-term decision to always say “no” to torture. I’ll vote for her.

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