Their claims of reminiscing of the lax moral teachings of the 17th century Jesuits
他们声称要上溯到缺乏道德教育的17世纪的耶稣会修士
which occasioned Blasé Pascal's furious satirical attacks on casuistry in general.
他们对帕斯卡式的诡辩发起了愤怒的攻击和讽刺
Pascal's case devastated the reputation of casuistry for centuries by arguing and reasoning
帕斯卡在后来的几个世纪使得诡辩的名声一直无法恢复
about possible exceptions to the universal law rules of Christianity led inevitably to condoning the most offensive practices.
他通过推理得出了不适用于基督教法律的一些例外这就导致了对最应该受处罚的一些行为的宽恕
And indeed this appears at first blush to be what is happening in our day with respect to the justification of torture.
乍看起来这就像是我们今天对虐囚行为的开脱一样
The practical response however to claims such as those put forth in the famous Biden Memo,
对这些看法如在着名的拜登备忘录中的
or in attorney general Mukasey's testimony is not necessarily to condemn them
以及大法官Mukasey的证词较为实际的做法是
as Pascal condemned the Jesuits by invoking any abstract universal principle but rather to point out the specific flaws in their reasoning.
是并不一定要谴责他们就像帕斯卡通过援引抽象的普遍原则谴责耶稣会士那样
As Johnston and Turman write, the distinction to be made,
而是应该指出他们逻辑中的漏洞像Johnston和Turman写的那样
quote "is not between a high minded ethics of pure principle and in an inevitably debased morality of cases and circumstances,
应该做出的区分并不是 "不是在崇高的伦理和纯粹的原则与不那么光彩的在具体的情况中做出的道德选择间的
it is between good casuistry which applies general rules to particular cases with discernment and bad casuistry
而是在好的将普遍原则应用到具体例子上的有洞见的好的诡辩与做同样的事情
which does the same thing sloppily."
但是做得不好的诡辩"
In the situation at hand it seems that the administration has engaged in bad casuistry in a number of ways.
就目前的情况看政府在几个方面都沦为坏的诡辩了
It has made unjustified generalisations from exceptions by claiming
它通过个例做出了不公正的普遍性推断
that the ticking bomb case can be thought of as a useful paradigm to apply to the situation of detainees
即认为定时炸弹这种情况适用于每个与那个案例并不
that do not resemble that case, it has exaggerated the differences between a paradigm piece of torture,
相似的被拘押者身上这种刑罚对被拘押者造成了永久的身体上的伤害
that which causes sustained and permanent physical damage and its allowed these cases of cruel and degrading human treatment,
它允许对被拘押者进行残酷和不人道的对待