We want to explore the questions raised in all this with William Placher, professor of religion and philosophy at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana. He joins us from Indianapolis. Professor Placher, welcome.
What are the values here in all this -- the values in conflict that we can keep in mind as we try to think about it?
Professor WILLIAM PLACHER (Religion Department, Wabash College, IN): Philosophers would generally talk about two competing ways of looking at questions like this. Utilitarians would say that we ought to judge what's right by what produces the greatest good for the greatest number. So if one person has to suffer to benefit a whole bunch of people, then, fair enough. People like the philosopher Immanuel Kant, by contrast, tend to say that there are some things it's just wrong to do to a human being, regardless of consequences, good or bad.ABERNETHY: And what about religious considerations, in addition to the philosophical ones?
Prof. PLACHER: Well, Christians have usually been Kantians in terms of that contrast. We've tended to believe that every human being is made in the image of God and therefore deserves a kind of respect that overrides issues about consequences. Also, Christians are very conscious that human beings are sinners. And therefore we are convinced that none of us really deserve or can be allowed the kind of absolute power over another human being that a situation of torture often involves.
Prof. PLACHER: Well, of course, we laypeople don't know the details of what's going on -- positive or negative. But if we look, for instance, at those pictures from Abu Ghraib, admittedly an extreme case, we see that these aren't people reluctantly dragged into doing something they hate in order to elicit information. These are people having a sick kind of fun, and that goes back to that worry about human sin that I mentioned a moment ago.
Prof. PLACHER: It is hard. I think part of what we have to do is judge the reliability of who's telling us what on the basis of past experience. Part of what we have to do is to remember that even if we get benefits from this kind of questioning, we also pay a price in terms of the world's view of the United States and the way people perceive us if they see us doing things that they find appalling.
