Date of Award
Spring 2011
Document Type
Undergraduate Thesis
Department
Global Honors
First Advisor
Rob Crawford
Abstract
In the aftermath of the Abu Ghraib investigation and the 2009 CASUSS report on post-9/11 interrogation practices, the question of state-sanctioned torture has become the subject of much public and scholarly debate. In this thesis, the author examines three arguments in support of lawful torture: Alan Dershowitz’s Law of Necessity and the concept of “torture warrants,” Michael Walzer’s “problem of dirty hands,” and Richard Posner’s notion of Constitutional interpretation in times of emergency.
Recommended Citation
Balla, Dieudonné, "The Torture Debate: What the Scholars and the Intellectuals Are Saying" (2011). Global Honors Theses. 6.
https://digitalcommons.tacoma.uw.edu/gh_theses/6