Because It Is Wrong: Torture, Privacy and Presidential Power in the Age of Terror [Deckle Edge] [Hardcover]

Charles Fried (Author), Gregory Fried (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 6, 2010

Elevating the torture and privacy debate, this book brilliantly challenges the knee-jerk responses of those in media and government.

Can torture ever be justified? When is eavesdropping acceptable? Should a kidnapper be waterboarded to reveal where his victim has been hidden? Ever since 9/11 there has been an intense debate about the government’s application of torture and the pervasive use of eavesdropping and data mining in order to thwart acts of terrorism. To create this seminal statement on torture and surveillance, Charles Fried and Gregory Fried have measured current controversies against the philosophies of Aristotle, Locke, Kant, and Machiavelli, and against the historic decisions, large and small, of Jefferson, Lincoln, and Pope Sixtus V, among many others. Because It Is Wrong not only discusses the behavior and justifications of Bush government officials but also examines more broadly what should be done when high officials have broken moral and legal norms in an attempt to protect us. This is a moral and philosophical meditation on some of the most urgent issues of our time. 6 black-and-white illustrations

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The father-son writers responsible for this lucid, meticulous text draw on their individual scholarly backgrounds to scrutinize the ethics of torture and privacy violations in the Bush era. Charles Fried, professor of law at Harvard University, and son Gregory Fried (Heidegger's Polemos), chair of philosophy chair at Suffolk University, eschew a consequentialist approach in favor of determining the inherent ethical value of the "the two signal controversies" of the age accompanied by examples gleaned from visual arts, film, and history. The authors conclude that torture, insofar as it violates the physical and psychological wellbeing of human beings, can be considered "absolutely wrong." Conversely, they do not see privacy as absolute and sacred, and they make allowances for situations in which the government might need to violate it. While the authors agree that the Bush administration's torture program constituted a clear offense, they disagree about prosecuting those responsible--one advocates for prosecution as a moral imperative, the other frames it as a practical and political matter--in an impasse that provides a fitting conclusion for this intriguing academic inquiry.
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From Booklist

Fried, a philosophy professor, and his father, legal scholar Charles Fried, here team up to offer an uncommon—and uncommonly insightful—critique of the legal and philosophical arguments for government-sanctioned torture and pervasive electronic surveillance. At its core is a bold deontological assertion: torture is absolutely wrong because violating a human being “grossly offends the bedrock premise that every human being is a locus of inestimable value,” and it profanes the dignity of torturer and tortured alike. Privacy, by contrast, is an important value that also arises from respect for human dignity, but violations of privacy are quite different from violations of a person’s physical integrity. In part a rejection of Alan Dershowitz’s suggestion that torture might be productively and hygienically deployed though judicial “torture warrants,” the Frieds are also motivated by a visceral reaction to the inhumanity of torture as elucidated by art, a theological belief that humans are the reflection of the divine, and a concern that the future of everyday ordinary morality may itself hang in the balance of these debates. Compelling, wise, and complicated enough to invite serious discussion, this selection elevates an important debate. --Brendan Driscoll

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 222 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; First Edition edition (September 6, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393069516
• ISBN-13: 978-0393069518
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #436,230 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Tough call, September 30, 2010

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Hande Z (Singapore) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Because It Is Wrong: Torture, Privacy and Presidential Power in the Age of Terror (Hardcover)

The authors dealt with two issues: torture and privacy and questioned whether the public rights under the Constitution must be protected against torture and invasions of privacy 'at all costs' or can they be permitted under certain circumstances. The issues are difficult to handle and the answers might not be absolutely clear (although to the authors they are). On paper the authors are a formidable pairing of a law professor and a philosophy professor, but the more well-read reader may find their arguments lacking in depth, and in the various places where they refer to the authority of God as a source of authority, the non-religious reader may not be impressed. There is much more rhetoric than argument, but the authors are learned men, well-skilled in seems, in the art of persuasion: "If it is the leader's ultimate responsibility to be prepared to lose even his soul in a cause that all can understand, then his may be the most extreme, the most costly kind of moral heroism. But some some point, the world will perish and the heavens will fall. Must they take our souls with them?" The many instances of official breaches from Jefferson to Lincoln to Bush clearly and briefly told, however, are thought-provoking. It is a (short, 169-page) book for the citizen. The scholar will need to look elsewhere.

5.0 out of 5 stars Because Humans Are Sacred..., March 7, 2011

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Reader (Arlington, Virginia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Because It Is Wrong: Torture, Privacy and Presidential Power in the Age of Terror (Hardcover)

"Because It Is Wrong" is a short but profound book about the morality and legality of torture in the war on terror. It is very tightly argued: the reader needs to pay attention to every sentence -- and maybe read the book twice -- to follow the reasoning fully. But that doesn't mean the book is rushed. On the contrary, its main value is the way it cuts directly to first principles -- and once we accept its basic idea that consequentialism doesn't capture our moral intuitions about the way people should be treated, then lurid "ticking bomb" scenarios lose their grip on our thinking. Conservatives will hate "Because It Is Wrong" because one of the authors, Charles Fried, was Reagan's Solicitor General. His evident disgust with the brutalities and crimes of the Bush II Administration will strike these readers as apostasy. But other readers willing to read the book carefully will find it thought-provoking and eloquent.

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Lacks depth, December 28, 2010

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newyorkchick - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Because It Is Wrong: Torture, Privacy and Presidential Power in the Age of Terror (Hardcover)

Charles and Gregory Fried make a good point here, and a valid one, but the essence of their argument can be gleaned from the title alone. In their eyes, torture is wrong because it is wrong, period. There's not much you can say to support such an absolutist, simplistic argument, which explains why the book is so short (even with the wholly irrelevant diversion about privacy and government snooping.) If you agree with the Frieds, you'll likely be applauding all the way through, but the book doesn't do much to persuade those of us who are unsure or think the situation might be more complicated. I wouldn't recommend this.