Abstract
In his account of torture, Jean Améry describes not only the act of torture and the experience of the person being tortured, but also the torturers themselves, with their particular psychology. Améry claims that the torture was done by people fully intent on inflicting pain, rather than by mere “bureaucrats of torture”, as some might argue. This description is important for two reasons. First, it is important for understanding the act of torture itself. Torture, I argue, is considered to be a unique moral wrong not for the suffering it inflicts, but for the cruelty it typically manifests. Secondly, the fact that the act of torture reflected something deep in the perpetrators’ personality may explain why blame for the crime remains appropriate long after it had been committed.
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Notes
- 1.
It should be said, however, that the suffering caused by torture can differ in kind and not only in intensity. For example, the victim of torture is made to anticipate and be fully aware of his pain, in a way that victims of other forms of violence are not. At the same time, it is at least possible in principle for some other forms of violence to cause greater suffering than some forms of torture. I am grateful to Yochai Ataria for pressing me on this point.
- 2.
Arguably, cruelty is analytically wrong: it is what some might call a thick normative concept or a normative concept with some descriptive elements. See discussion in Elstein and Hurka (2009).
- 3.
A person need not be heartless or cruel from birth, as it were. It is quite possible that such characteristics develop gradually in the torturer.
- 4.
Interestingly, Augustine argued that the real evil in war is not the death and suffering, but the love of violence, or cruelty, that is often on display (1994, 22.74).
- 5.
Some may argue that the violence applied in this case does not in fact amount to torture, since the detainee is not entirely defenseless: he is rather in a position of power, while the interrogator is the one struggling to find a way to defend the child. See discussion in Sussman (2005, p. 16), for example.
- 6.
Dana Nelkin is using this thought experiment to examine whether psychopaths can be appropriately described as cruel. See Nelkin (2015, p. 367).
- 7.
For example, kindness requires actively taking other people’s interests and well-being as a reason for action. To qualify as cruel, on the other hand, it is enough that a person fails to care about other people’s suffering.
- 8.
Indeed, some take Hume’s claim to explain moral excuses. See, for example, Brandt (1958).
- 9.
This distinction also applies to the closely related concept of responsibility. See Khoury (2013).
- 10.
In one place, Améry describes his wish that “two groups of people, the overpowered and those who overpowered them, would be joined in the desire that time be turned back and, with it, that history become moral. If this demand were raised by the German people … [t]he German revolution would be made good, Hitler disowned.” See Améry’s “Resentments” (1980, p. 78).
- 11.
I am deeply indebted to Dana Gur, Yochai Ataria, and Eli Pitcovski for their helpful comments on earlier drafts.
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Fish, E. (2019). Torture and Torturers. In: Ataria, Y., Kravitz, A., Pitcovski, E. (eds) Jean Améry. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28095-6_6
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