Abstract

The blurb of Matthew Kramer’s book, Torture and Moral Integrity: A Philosophical Enquiry, states that the book “seeks to explain why interrogational and other types of torture are always and everywhere morally wrong.” This might give the prospective reader the impression that the book takes an absolutist stance against torture, but this impression would be misleading. The explanation of the discrepancy between the book’s self-presentation and what it is actually saying lies in the idiosyncratic terminology Kramer employs throughout the book. Expressed in normal terminology, the book argues for the following: most forms of torture are wrong, are impermissible, but some forms of torture are permissible..