More on Martin Seligman

As Graeme Wood reports here (together with a thoughtful discussion of the ethics of scientific experimentation on non-human animals), and as was already noted here, Prof. Seligman claims that the charges of having assisted in the development of torture techniques – as opposed to teaching military personnel how to resist them – are out of place. This, of course, is why I went ahead and deleted my original post. But clearly it will be either Scott Horton or Jane Mayer who will have a good deal more to answer for than I do.

[ANOTHER UPDATE: Scott Horton's full interview with Jane Meyer is here, and the defense that Wood cites - that Seligman briefed the CIA only about techniques for resisting torture - is pretty clearly contained therein. But in the version of Horton's summary of the book that Andrew Sullivan posted last night, and which I quoted originally, no such qualifications appear, and Seligman is pegged as having "assisted [the CIA's contractors in the process" of developing torture techniques. So something has definitely gone awry.]

Filed under: torture