Torture and Dualism

Matthew Schmitz sees the torture debate as an opportunity to attack dualism:

The body is not property that can be disposed of however one wants. This Lockean view, that we are citizens who “have” bodies (instead of being citizens who are bodies) leads to a state that, just as it can seize property when it wants to build a highway, can torture a body when it wants to win a war. Maybe this means that we all deserve blame for torture to the extent that we buy into a shared cultural idea that undergirds many of the not-so-bad things we do, but is ultimately capable of buttressing brutality.

The philosophical ideals that legitimize dubious practices must be reevaluated in the wake of several crippling critiques. Any claim that the mind and body are separate entities is deeply flawed in light of the discoveries of modern neuroscience. Although Schmitz's torture-dualism link is somewhat tenuous, belief in the immaterial as a means to assuaging the guilt and responsibility of questionable practices is a deeply entrenched American practice. There is no doubt that men and woman in stripes seek vindication from something immaterial--a God or a flag. Furthermore, there is no doubt that men in power continue to exploit this belief of the immaterial to serve their own ends. I am troubled by those who feel vindicated -- even compelled -- by God or country to employ insidious means to reach questionable and uncertain ends. What makes this enterprise inevitably disastrous is that there is no way to gauge the legitimacy of claims with respect to the non-existent immaterial world. Any atrocity is possible when people can be manipulated by a concept where one can never, by definition, look to facts for answers.