Respect, Race, and Torture

If you’ve got enough time this finals season to go through the Spec archives, I strongly recommend Candyce Phoenix’s 2006 op-ed, “Test-Tube Identities.” (I know that she and I are probably the only people who remember the op-ed, but hey, this is my column now, and I make no appeal to relevance.) Here is her argument: we can now test people for their exact racial makeup. While this might help people sort out their personal identities, it might just as easily encourage studies into race and intellectual ability, and it might reignite support for eugenics. Phoenix concludes with what I believe are two contradictory statements: “Social conflict should never stand in the way of scientific advancement, but we cannot allow scientific advancement to stand in the way of social progression.”

I’m not convinced that the progress in race relations we’ve made, however small, could be upset by scientific advancement, but I won’t argue that here. Instead, I’ll go along a more controversial route. Suppose that we find, however unlikely, that some races are more intelligent than others. Suppose further that we find that these intellectual differences aren’t just the product of different environments, but innate. What happens then? Do we have to conclude that some races are morally or politically inferior to others?

I don’t think so for the same reason that I don’t think I’m morally inferior to Maxim Pinkovskiy just because he’s smarter than I am. Equality in the political or moral sense doesn’t seem to rest on ability or intelligence but on mere human existence. That you are a person with life plans is enough to merit my respect, and that I am a person with life plans is enough to merit yours. That we are unequal, perhaps in many serious ways, maybe even genetically, is not sufficient to invalidate that right to respect.

This concept of respect, once you notice it, seems to crop up everywhere in philosophy. Suddenly, questions like “Why should we live in a democracy?” and “Why should I tell the truth?” can be answered with “because we are all deserving of respect.” Even questions very far away from politics or ethics tie into it. The question “Do I have free will?” as Robert Nozick pointed out, boils down to the more fundamental questions

“Am I special? Am I deserving of consideration?” Respect, it seems, is a powerful philosophical force.

Now let’s apply that idea of respect to something a little more current. Earlier this month, the Justice Department released another of John Yoo’s “torture memos.” This one authorized any violence against terrorists that didn’t “shock the conscience,” and even some violence that did.

I find these torture memos repulsive­—not just because they violate international treaties (though they do), not just because they cripple our reputation abroad (though they do), and not just because they were deemed unnecessary by members of Bush’s own administration (though they were). I find them repulsive because they undermine our capacity for human respect.

But why should we respect terrorists’ humanity? Isn’t that a little like respecting the freedom of a felon?

People have rights necessary for self-respect, and there are certain things the state can’t do without violating those rights and undermining that self-respect. Now if someone says to me, “people have the right to free speech unless the government has something to gain by ending that right,” then I do not really have the right to free speech. My permission to speak freely is contingent on my not offending the government. Similarly, if someone says to me, “people have the right not to be tortured unless the government has a great deal to gain by ending that right,” again, the right doesn’t exist. Now, do terrorists forfeit their right not to be tortured when they wage war on the United States? Maybe, maybe not. But that’s a question about how we can punish terrorists, which is separate from how we can interrogate them (and besides, even John Yoo wouldn’t recommend torture as punishment). Regardless, if the state is to take my rights seriously, it must take everyone’s rights seriously. The state cannot respect my right to avoid torture if it tortures others, even if the others are terrorists.

In this short little column, I’ve tried to cover far more than I should have. But to sum everything up: (1) respect seems to be more important than surface inequalities. (2) In fact, respect seems to underlie all sorts of important philosophical questions. And (3), people and governments can only respect one person when they respect every person. And if rights are a necessary part of respect, well, they can’t be thrown away just because it would be advantageous to do so.

Because this is my last piece, and hey, all columnists get reflective at the end of the year, let me end with something completely off-topic. Philosophy can be a terrifically abstract topic, filled at both the undergraduate and professional levels by blow-hards and sophists. But sometimes—this is something I’ve tried to show in my column—it can be a great deal of fun, and occasionally, unexpectedly, and amazingly, it can be important.

Brendan Ballou is a Columbia College junior majoring in philosophy. Philosophical Explanations runs alternate Tuesdays. Opinion@columbiaspectator.com