In the 1982 article "The Case for Torture", Michael Levin explains why torture should be "morally obligatory" in various situations related to terrorist intelligence. . Levin's strongest argument is that he believes torture should (and must) be used to "prevent future harm" as a means of national security. Rather than arguing for a specific situation, his essay argues for the widespread use of torture to a public that appears to have a negative perception of the use of torture during this period (he argues is an assumption based on his opening statement suggesting that "It is generally accepted that torture is prohibited...regimes suspected of using it risk incurring the wrath of the United States"). Some of the issues raised in this article that Levin argues against include the constitutionality of torture, individual human rights (of the terrorist against the innocent), the moral obligation of a country or authority to save innocent at all costs, to attribute and affirm their guilt. to non-innocent parties, and the moral fear that a country will become like its enemies ("...won't 'WE' turn into 'THEM?' Questions like these are fallacious...") . Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay One of the first questions raised in the article and in class discussion was that of constitutionality: what human rights, under American law, are individual and how torture is (or n is not) a violation of these rights. Levin's argument falls along the lines of terrorist choice, asserting that when a terrorist chooses to put the lives of innocent people in danger, he is giving up his constitutional rights: “What do we do? If we follow due process, wait for his lawyer, bring him to justice, millions of people will die. If the only way to save these lives is to subject the terrorist to the most excruciating suffering possible, what reasons can we justify not doing so? Levin believes that in a situation where innocent lives are at stake, "millions of lives trump unconstitutionality", appealing to morality to trump an individual's human rights. The argument heard in our class discussions against this is rooted in a slippery slope argument: if we deny one individual's human rights, what stops the government from denying the rights of other individuals, even “innocent” individuals? According to Levin, the dividing line lies in the choice to commit a terrorist act, but the slippery slope lies in the methods of repression used by the government. Who decides what is defined as a terrorist act, and how can we know that this definition will not be used against specific racial, cultural, or social minorities? This also carries over to the question of culpability. The question of proof of guilt was brought up much more in the discussions than in Levin's article. Levin doesn't develop much argument about how proving guilt or attributing it would work in any real bureaucratic sense, but instead leaves his argument as follows: "Nevertheless, a line demarcating the legitimate use of torture can be drawn . Torture only the obvious culprits, and only for the purpose of saving the innocent, and the line between “US” and “THEM” will remain clear.” Because he doesn't offer many arguments to justify this, the class discussion turned. 548-50.