Response to Hitchens

Question 1: Hitchens uses a few strategies to argue his viewpoint, however, the one that stands out the most is his own personal experience. Is someones argument automatically invalid if they haven't experienced it? What does this say about parallel arguments that involve a viewpoint on experiences that must be experienced in order to have a strong opinion?

Question 2: Based on what Hitchens explains about "terrorist school" and training for torture, what do you think Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would say about waterboarding?

Question 3: The argument on indicting the US on grounds of torture brings to mind the idea of subjective opinions. Do you think that torture may have an intrinsic moral essence? Might there be a "absolute" right or wrong regarding torture without making the intention relevant?

Response to Question 3:

I feel that this question very interestingly hold philosophical value. A philosophy will teach you about philosophers like Dostoyevsky. There is just something about killing an infant that implies some kind of intrinsic immorality. There is virtually no argument absolving someone for killing an infant. Any angle you attack it from has a foundational fallacy. 

So in relation to Hitchens, an indictment against the US becomes a question of which side's morality is superior. In that general context, it's quite obvious that the answer is neither. Of course, morality is pretty much a concept generated by mind. Other than the question of the mind, every carbon-based molecule (which is everything) is atomically a series of forces that are interpreted by us as mathematical equations and, subsequently, everything that occurs is- from a scientific viewpoint- a random sequence of molecules coming into contact with other molecules. However, the subject matter in this particular argument regarding torture is a little different. Like killing babies, is there something intrinsically wrong with a helpless human being. Forget the intention. I know that the contention for torture is that it used to extract information for whatever benefit. But forget the intention (as Gabe said in class "intentions pave the pathway to hell"). How can waterboarding a human being be a good thing? Even if it is saving a nation from destruction, what about the prisoner? The prisoner is on the other side of that. His nation, system of beliefs, values, family, friends, honor, integrity, is irrevocably destroyed. 

I think Hitchens should have expanded on this. I understand that his point to get across was that waterboarding is torture. On that note I can agree, but i feel that my question is inevitably blatant when discussing his argument. No doubt, his rhetoric in this article is pretty solid. Personal anecdotes evoking pathos as well as describing waterboarding's effects on the U.S.'s diplomatic publicity to conjure logos work hand in hand here. But intellectualizing an argument, I feel, will do much to enhance the weight of an argument. If you can appeal to the reader's introspective psyche, you can go far in demonstrating a convincing argument. Look at Descartes' Meditations. A bit of rationalizing can do a lot.