Theorizing about Torture

Abstract

What are the possibilities for theorizing torture independently from the question of whether or not it “works”? This question has to be posed because to ask whether or not torture works is to narrow our focus to its instrumentalities; to tolerate largely irrelevant debate, based on unrealistic assumptions, about acceptable circumstances for torture’s use. It is to give rise to theorizing aimed not at understanding torture but at justifying it, by contriving to have us view the practice from the standpoint of a hypothetical torturer. To theorize about torture would seem to call for a different kind of question, one concerned with what work torture does. A question of this sort would invite us to attend to the relation of the torture situation—in which a totally dominated person is subjected to torment inflicted in the name of a public authority, for a function or functions that remains to be determined—to the state idea. Beyond torture’s instrumentality, its epistemology of pain, and debates about human dignity, it is the special structure of domination, the arbitrariness of interference, and its relationship to public authority that make torture distinctive, and politically significant.