Monday, April 25, 2011

Torture Part 2: Physical

To define physically hurting a person, one must be causing the recipient distress in a bodily manner. To define the extreme physical pain required for torture becomes a case by case scenario. If a person is restrained and the torturer has the objective of breaking their will for some purpose, then all that is left is to cause severe physical pain. If, for instance, the torturer decided to simply slap the recipient, then the pain is not necessarily extreme. It is highly unlikely that a terrorist in a ticking-bomb scenario would give in to his captors if they were causing him a physical distress that could be easily managed. Excessively harming the person, such as cutting them in multiple places, searing their skin with hot irons, drilling through their teeth or sticking needles underneath their fingernails is a case where the recipient may, eventually, reveal the information. However, since the method used to obtain this information has now reached a point of extreme physical violence, then the case has become one of torture. To define "extreme physical pain" in any case is subjective, although there the eventuality to which a majority would agree that there is, in fact, a discernible point of "extreme" on a case by case basis.

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