Is Interrogational Torture Morally Justified Under Finnis' Nine Requirements Of Practical Reasonableness?

• Author: Hugh J. McCarthy
• Position: BCL (Int) and BCL (candidate) (Oxon.)
• Pages: 77-84

[2012] COLR

77

IS INTERROGATIONAL TORTURE MORALLY JUSTIFIED UNDER

FINNIS’ NINE REQUIREMENTS OF PRACTICAL REASONABLENESS?

Hugh J. McCarthy*

INTRODUCTION

John M. Finnis has made a valuable contribution to the Natural Law tradition. In Natural Law

and Natur al Rights Finnis built on the earlier work of Saint Thomas Acquinas who had identified

seven basic goods as being intelligibly choice-worthy as ends within themselves.1 These are Life,

Knowledge, Play, Aesthetic Experience, Friendship, Religion and Practical Reasonableness

(„PR‟), the focus of this essay. Within PR Finnis enunciated Nine Requirements of Practical

Reason that offer a methodological pathway enabling one to realise the other basic goods, whilst

simultaneously being a basic good in itself. This essay considers interrogational torture in the

modern war on terror in light of Finnis‟ Nine Requirements of Practical Reason. The following

analysis is thus located within the wider architecture of Acquinas‟ seven basic goods as interpreted

through the apparatus of Finnis‟ precise analytical framework. The purpose of this exercise is to

ascertain the morality of interrogational torture.

The remainder of this essay proceeds as follows. Part I articulates the scope of PR as a basic good.

Part II sets out the contours of a specific moral action – namely interrogational torture. In Part III

each of Finnis‟ Nine Requirements of Practical Reasonableness are employed as heuristic devices

to ascertain the morality of said action in Part II. Part IV concludes and ultimately determines the

morality of the action on the basis of the foregoing analysis. It will be shown that interrogational

torture is not a morally justifiable action under the rubric of Finnis‟ NRPR.

1 Practical Reasonableness as a Basic Good

The first principle of Practical Reason (PR) is a command; do good and avoid evil.2 PR has a

twin-function. First, it acts as a moral compass in our reasoning process to render our choices

intelligible. Thus, PR is a means to participate in other basic goods as an end. Second, by

engaging in the deliberation process known as practical reasoning, one participates directly in the

basic good of PR as an end in itself.3 „Prudentia’ is what Finnis, and Aquinas before him, called

„the intellectual virtue of deliberating well.‟4 Finnis5 derived nine moral norms concerning „what

one must do, or think, or be if one is to participate in the basic value of PR.‟6 The product of these

* BCL (Int) and BCL (candidate) (Oxon.)

1 R George „Natural Law‟ 31 Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy 171, 178. ( hereinafter George).

2 G Grizes „The First Principles of Practical Reason: A Commentary on the Summa Theolog iae, 1-2 Question 94,

Article 2‟ 10 (1965) Notre Dame Law School Natural Law Forum 168, 169. (Quoting from Summa Theologica (q94,

a2, 47).)

3 J Finnis „Foundations of Practical Reason Revisited‟ (2006) 50 American Journal of Jurispr udence 109, 119]

(Finnis, FPRR).

4 ibid.

5 Professor John M. Finnis is the Professor of Law and Legal Philosophy at the Univers ity of Oxford and the Biolchini

Family Professor of Law at Notre Dame Law School. Finnis is the author of Natu ral Law and Natura l Rights.

6 J Finnis „The Basic Requirements of Practical Reasonableness‟ in J Finnis Natur al Law and Natura l Rights

(Clarendon Press Oxford 1980) 102 (hereinafter Finnis, NLNR).