One of the things I have been noticing over the years, is that consistently more and more of my students argue that torture is a justifiable practice given specific situational criteria. Almost universally, these students take a consequentialist approach when evaluating this issue. What I find so striking is that I think the very issue of tortue has become normalized since the introduction of enhanced interrogation techniques by the Bush administration. Its hard to imagine many people arguing to defend torture prior to the events of September 11th and yet I find, to my surprise, that most people do today. But what does that mean? For instance, consider that if torture becomes normalized then what specific moral principle have we lost that we earlier had? Has there really been a large moral shift on this question since 9/11?
What do you think?