In Plato’s Gorgias, Polus describes the punishment for a usurper’s unjust attempt to make himself a tyrant: the failed usurper is racked, mutilated, and, after having had all sorts of further injuries inflicted on him, must watch the same done to his wife and children before he has his eyes burned out and is impaled or tarred and burned alive (Benjamin Jowett translation). Sophocles took for granted the justice of this way of executing the man. To Plato, such torture evidently seemed perfectly moral and perfectly natural. That was 2,400 years ago. Now, a survey of Amnesty International’s research files from 1997 to mid 2000 found reports of torture or ill-treatment by agents of the state in over 150 countries (Amnesty International, 2003). In more than 70 countries, the victims included political prisoners, but ordinary criminals and criminal suspects had reportedly been victims of torture or ill-treatment in over 130 countries. People had reportedly died as a result of torture in over 80 countries. In 2011, there were plausible reports of state-inflicted torture in 101 nations (Amnesty International, 2012). In sum, throughout modern history up to the present day and across cultures, innumerable societies have practiced and condoned torture to enforce state authority (Conroy, 2000; Lazreg, 2008; Otterman, 2007; Peters, 1985). Many people have devoted a great deal of careful thought and technical ingenuity to designing procedures and tools to make torture as painful as possible (Donnelly and Diehl, 2011).

Motives of leaders who order torture

Leaders order torture when they perceive that the people to be tortured are resisting and threatening the leaders’ legitimate authority. Authorities are entitled to answers from those beneath them, so they feel justified in torturing if the answers are not forthcoming. Authorities are entitled to deference and loyalty, so they feel justified in torturing traitors. Indeed, Collins (1974) posits that the aim of torture is “to enforce submission. The cruelty is not incidental; it is the main purpose” (Collins, 1974: 420). Likewise, Collins argues that authorities order amputation, gouging out of eyes, castration, and other mutilations expressly to humiliate. Historically, in the exceptionally stratified conquest societies that practiced torture and mutilation, “these cruelties are not only deliberate, they are ceremonially recurrent defenses of the structure of group domination” (Collins, 1974: 421).