Dershowitz on Torture Warrants
Unit 4: Torture and the Death Penalty
In Unit 1, we were introduced to philosophy, ethics, and arguments. In Unit 2, we looked at the beginning and end of life, and in Unit 3, we learned about self-defense, including its application to the ethics of war. The topic for Unit 4 is torture and the death penalty. The reason why we are considering torture and the death penalty together is that both are things that some people believe should be simply out of bounds - not okay under any circumstance, no matter what. At the same time, both topics connect strongly to our topics from past and future units in similar ways. In the following two classes, we will see connections to the morality of self-defense and to the issues that we have discussed about the relationship between law and morality. And by week 12, we will see one version of a conflict between two very general values - procedural justice and distributive justice - that will concern us throughout Unit 5 of the course. But for today we're going to warm up slowly to the topic with a very short piece of reading that is written for a general audience.
Alan Dershowitz
Alan Dershowitz, who spent his career at Harvard Law School, is a controversial figure. You may have seen him as a regular commentator on CNN, or more recently as a prominent defender of President Trump through his impeachment, and you can read about him here. In addition to assisting in O.J. Simpson's criminal defense at the appellate stage, Dershowitz has also been involved in other extremely high-profile defense cases, including the defense of Jeffrey Epstein's prosecution for soliciting sex from minors and obscenity charges against one of the actors in the controversial early pornographic film, Deep Throat, which is related to his reputation for being an outspoken defender of civil liberties. The 1990 movie Reversal of Fortune, starring Jeremy Irons and Glenn Close, is based on Dershowitz's own telling of one of his most famous criminal defense cases.
Torture Warrants
Plausibly the biggest and most controversial idea that Dershowitz has been famous for in the last fifteen years is his defense of the idea of what he calls 'torture warrants'. The idea of torture warrants is simple, and I'll let you read Dershowitz's own explanation. He has explained and defended this idea many times, most prominently in an article called 'Tortured Reasoning' which you can read here, if you are interested. But for class, the assignment is a much shortened and simpler statement of his view, an article called 'The Case for Torture Warrants'. Dershowitz's basic idea is not complicated, so everything that I think is important about it appears in this shorter article. But pay very close attention to try to figure out what Dershowitz thinks the relationship is or should be between the law and morality.