¹ Waldron, Jeremy, ‘What Can Christian Teaching Add to the Debate about Torture?’, Theology Today 63/3 (Oct. 2006), pp. 330–43, 331CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

² Ibid.

³ Ibid., pp. 331–2.

⁴ Ibid., pp. 335–6 (emphasis in the original).

⁵ Ibid., p. 337.

⁶ Ibid.

⁷ For a very helpful overview of the relevant arguments on the absoluteness of moral norms, specifically focused on the relevance of these debates to the question of torture, see Levinson, Sanford, ‘Contemplating Torture: An Introduction’, in Levinson, (ed.), Torture: A Collection (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 23–43Google Scholar. He cites Charles Fried as one who regards an exceptionless prohibition against torture as fanatical (see pp. 32–4).

⁸ Waldron, ‘Christian Teaching’, p. 337.

⁹ Ibid.

¹⁰ This has occurred more recently than many of us realise, or would care to contemplate. As Mark Osiel has shown, the support of much of the Catholic hierarchy and clergy played a critical role in justifying torture during the ‘dirty war’ in Argentina; see ‘The Mental State of Torturers: Argentina's Dirty War’, in Levinson (ed.), Torture, pp. 129–41.

¹¹ And have in fact so argued; see Nature as Reason: A Thomistic Theory of the Natural Law (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005), pp. 248–324.

¹² Waldron, ‘Christian Teaching’, p. 336.

¹³ More disturbingly, it is possible to defend torture by appeal to divine commands, or related theological and religious considerations, which override the (merely) human claims of individuals who supposedly pose a threat to divinely sanctioned institutions or ideals. This seems to have been one factor behind the willingness of church officials to lend their support to the practice of torture in Argentina. Osiel reports that the chief bishop for the army preached that the anti-guerrilla struggle ‘is for the Argentine Republic, for its integrity, but for its altars as well . . . This is a struggle to defend morality, human dignity, and ultimately a struggle to defend God . . .’ (‘Mental State’, p. 132).

¹⁴ Cited in Levinson (ed.), Torture, p. 40.

¹⁵ Admittedly, the concept of torture, like any other normative concept, must be interpreted in order to be applied to specific (putative) acts of torture, and the processes of interpretation will always include ineliminable elements of ambiguity, leading to borderline cases in which the application of the prohibition is in doubt. Notoriously, officials within the most recent Bush administration, together with some sympathetic legal scholars, appealed to the necessity of interpretation in order drastically to limit the scope of the prohibition against torture. But, as Waldron argues in some detail, there is a very considerable difference between this kind of invidious reinterpretation – invidious because it is intended precisely to subvert the norm – and a genuine attempt to interpret and apply a norm in an ambiguous case, with due respect for the considerations which give the norm its rationale and point. See Waldron, ‘Torture and Positive Law: Jurisprudence for the White House’, Columbia Law Review, 100/2 (2005), pp. 101–172, 111–129.

¹⁶ As David Luban argues, this line of argument can readily be subverted by a plausible justification for torture, since it opens up the possibility that someone might carry out torture for defensible or good motivations, in such a way as to obviate the cruelty of the act; see Luban, , ‘Liberalism, Torture, and the Ticking Bomb’, Virginia Law Review 91/1 (2005), pp. 1425–61Google Scholar. In such a case, the torturer is ‘not a cruel man or a sadistic man or a coarse, insensitive man’, but rather, ‘a conscientious public servant’ (p. 1441). Luban himself is not persuaded by this line of argument, and neither am I; some kinds of actions are intrinsically cruel.

¹⁷ Waldron, ‘Christian Teaching', pp. 337–8.

¹⁸ James Barr argues that this interpretation of the image of God motif is at least congruent with the relevant scriptural texts; see his Biblical Faith and Natural Theology (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), pp. 156–73. In the medieval West, this interpretation was mediated through patristic sources, among them John of Damascus, who is best known today through Aquinas’ citation. Ironically, the substance of John's theology appears to have been less central for Aquinas than for many of his predecessors and contemporaries; for details, see Lottin, Odon, ‘La psychologie de l'acte humain chez Saint Jean Damascène et les théologiens du XII siècle occidental’, Psychologie et morale aux XII et XIII siècles, vol. 1 (Louvain: Abbaye du Mont César, 1942), pp. 393–424Google Scholar. Finally, Cronin, Kieran offers a contemporary theological defence of a similar interpretation in his Rights and Christian Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 233–66Google Scholar.

¹⁹ Summa Theologiae, Prima Secundae, introduction.

²⁰ ‘Theology, International Law, and Torture: A Survivor's View’, Theology Today 63/3 (Oct. 2006), pp. 344–8, 345.

²¹ Ibid., p. 346.

²² Ibid., pp. 346–7.

²³ On the interconnections between private and public good, see e.g. the Summa Theologiae, I-II 92.1 ad 3, II-II 47.10; on the superiority of the spiritual good of the individual to the common good, ibid. II-II 152.4 ad 3, and cf. II-II 104.5.

²⁴ Luban makes this point very forcefully; see ‘Liberalism, Torture, and the Ticking Bomb’, pp. 1445– 52.

²⁵ Again, Luban develops this line of argument forcefully, ibid., pp. 1429–40. Jeremy Waldron argues more specifically that the prohibition against torture is an archetypical expression of broader ideals of due process and governmental restraint – which is to say, ‘by virtue of its force, clarity, and vividness expresses the spirit that animates the whole area of law’ in question. (‘Torture and Positive Law: Jurisprudence for the White House’, Columbia Law Review, 100/2 (2005), pp. 101–72, 143; the overall argument comprises pp. 140–72). Thus, any attempt to derogate from the prohibition against torture will have the effect of undermining fundamental principles of government restraint and rule of law – which is to say, it will promote a kind of tyranny. Both Luban and Waldron appear to believe that this consideration, by itself, is sufficient to justify an absolute prohibition against torture, and I am inclined to agree with them; I refer to it as lesser only in comparison to the spiritual capabilities of the individual undermined by torture, which I regard as the highest natural goods.

²⁶ Pennington, Kenneth, The Prince and the Law, 1200–1600: Sovereignty and Rights in the Western Legal Tradition (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993), p. 157Google Scholar; he goes on to challenge the widely held view that torture was a widespread part of judicial practice in the thirteenth century, and to document expressions of deep reservations about, and outright prohibitions of, the practice of torture in laws and jurisprudence at this time; ibid., pp. 157–60.

²⁷ Waldron, ‘Christian Teaching’, p. 339.

²⁸ Ibid., p. 338.