audiobook Soviet Veterans of World War II: A Popular Movement in an Authoritarian Society; 1941-1991 by Mark Edele in History

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.