Avengers and Philosophy: Earth's Mightiest Thinkers, The by Mark White
Authors: Mark White
Ads: Link
the enemy. Is the emperor correct in his assessment, though? Is threatening Captain Marvel with the execution of his friends and allies—indeed, forcing him to witness their demise unless he makes the Projector—a kind of torture?
Plausibly, yes—and that’s even if the emperor is bluffing. An action designed to make prisoners of war suffer significant mental duress so that they will provide information falls under the category of torture. Examples include regularly causing people sexual humiliation, forcing them to witness the desecration of objects they hold sacred, depriving them of sleep, or making them listen to their fellow prisoners suffer physical violence. In the case of Captain Marvel, threatening him with having to witness his friends’ deaths unless he does something is torture. So are the Skrulls morally permitted to do this?
The very fact that the action counts as torture might be enough to determine the answer. To many people, it makes no sense to ask whether torture is wrong. But most military ethicists leave it an open question as to whether all acts of torture are impermissible, and even people who assert that torture is always wrong have different opinions as to why it’s wrong. For some, it all boils down to consequences. On this view, torture—whether practiced or merely threatened—leads to more bad consequences than good ones. Rather than useful information, the thinking goes, bad information is obtained, leading to ineffective actions, and perhaps retaliatory abuse. This view aligns itself nicely with the moral theory called consequentialism , which maintains that actions are right or wrong depending solely on the outcomes of those actions: specifically, whether those actions maximize the overall good.
On a different view, torture is impermissible even if the consequences are good—even if valuable information is gleaned that leads to effective action and our soldiers aren’t endangered because of it. According to this view, torture fails to treat enemy soldiers and combatants with the moral respect that all persons are owed. Following the philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), supporters of this position see torture as treating persons merely as means and not at the same time as ends in themselves. 8 Causing someone significant mental duress just to get them to provide useful information is tantamount to using this person instead of respecting him or her as a whole person. This way of thinking about torture falls broadly into deontology , which holds that there is more to the morality of actions than their consequences alone; instead, there is moral status inherent in an act itself, regardless of its outcome. 9
We will leave it open as to which of these arguments better explains the common intuition regarding torture; it is enough to acknowledge that several lines of reasoning are available to support opposition to it. And if we accept that torture is wrong, we can conclude that even if the Skrulls are fighting a just war against the Kree, and even if the Projector would bring it to a close without costing lives, it is still wrong for them to torture Captain Marvel in pursuit of their goal. If we relax some of these questionable assumptions, we can say further that whatever circumstances led the Skrulls to being dragged into this war, they are no longer innocent participants in it.
And the war Rages On
Who wins the Kree-Skrull War? Neither side, really. In the particular story we’ve been focusing on, a beaten—but by no means defeated—Supreme Intelligence comes into the mix at the last minute and empowers the honorary Avenger Rick Jones to put an end to that round of fighting. But as those familiar with these two alien races know, this is hardly the end of the matter. More recently, the Skrulls invaded Earth yet again in Secret Invasion (2008–2009), which painted a much darker picture of their involvement in Earth’s affairs. For now, though, we must
Plausibly, yes—and that’s even if the emperor is bluffing. An action designed to make prisoners of war suffer significant mental duress so that they will provide information falls under the category of torture. Examples include regularly causing people sexual humiliation, forcing them to witness the desecration of objects they hold sacred, depriving them of sleep, or making them listen to their fellow prisoners suffer physical violence. In the case of Captain Marvel, threatening him with having to witness his friends’ deaths unless he does something is torture. So are the Skrulls morally permitted to do this?
The very fact that the action counts as torture might be enough to determine the answer. To many people, it makes no sense to ask whether torture is wrong. But most military ethicists leave it an open question as to whether all acts of torture are impermissible, and even people who assert that torture is always wrong have different opinions as to why it’s wrong. For some, it all boils down to consequences. On this view, torture—whether practiced or merely threatened—leads to more bad consequences than good ones. Rather than useful information, the thinking goes, bad information is obtained, leading to ineffective actions, and perhaps retaliatory abuse. This view aligns itself nicely with the moral theory called consequentialism , which maintains that actions are right or wrong depending solely on the outcomes of those actions: specifically, whether those actions maximize the overall good.
On a different view, torture is impermissible even if the consequences are good—even if valuable information is gleaned that leads to effective action and our soldiers aren’t endangered because of it. According to this view, torture fails to treat enemy soldiers and combatants with the moral respect that all persons are owed. Following the philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), supporters of this position see torture as treating persons merely as means and not at the same time as ends in themselves. 8 Causing someone significant mental duress just to get them to provide useful information is tantamount to using this person instead of respecting him or her as a whole person. This way of thinking about torture falls broadly into deontology , which holds that there is more to the morality of actions than their consequences alone; instead, there is moral status inherent in an act itself, regardless of its outcome. 9
We will leave it open as to which of these arguments better explains the common intuition regarding torture; it is enough to acknowledge that several lines of reasoning are available to support opposition to it. And if we accept that torture is wrong, we can conclude that even if the Skrulls are fighting a just war against the Kree, and even if the Projector would bring it to a close without costing lives, it is still wrong for them to torture Captain Marvel in pursuit of their goal. If we relax some of these questionable assumptions, we can say further that whatever circumstances led the Skrulls to being dragged into this war, they are no longer innocent participants in it.
And the war Rages On
Who wins the Kree-Skrull War? Neither side, really. In the particular story we’ve been focusing on, a beaten—but by no means defeated—Supreme Intelligence comes into the mix at the last minute and empowers the honorary Avenger Rick Jones to put an end to that round of fighting. But as those familiar with these two alien races know, this is hardly the end of the matter. More recently, the Skrulls invaded Earth yet again in Secret Invasion (2008–2009), which painted a much darker picture of their involvement in Earth’s affairs. For now, though, we must
Similar Books
