A) unsurprisingly well written. time for me to nitpick without tackling the content for fear of bias though. B) stay in tense! the voice is great throughout but things like: [quote]Just as a medical unit will triage patients – often sacrificing one who may have arrived earlier than others, but would expend too many resources (time, supplies, etc.) to save for the benefit of someone else who may arrive later, but is more easily treated – so too is torture a means of outweighing the harm of one action with the good of its result[/quote] i) you between present, past, and future tense here. ii) this is a run on. the little hyphenated section is really messing around with me XD iii) might be some dangling modifiers somewhere there. let's see... it should be more like [quote]Just as medical units triage patients- often sacrificing one who, in spite of arriving earlier than others, expends too many resources (time, supplies, etc.) and instead saving for the benefit of another patient who arrives later and is easier to treat- so too is torture a means of outweighing the harm of one action with the good of its result.[/quote] [still a runon, i'd break it up if i were you, but if you'd like to stick with the sentence, this is the way i'd write it.] C) the interrogative sentences are clicheeeeee and kinda unnecessary. seems like it's just there to lengthen the essay. like, uh [quote]A fair rebuttal is that torture is ineffective; however, is that really a valid response?[/quote] erm... if it's already deemed a fair rebuttal, why cast doubt on the validity of it as a response? and what's the point of the question in general? it seems far too much like you're trying to throw your topic sentence out there in a "look at this" fashion. i'd try to integrate it better with the rest of the work. D) [quote]torture because it’s intrinsically[/quote] [quote]because it's[/quote] [quote]it's[/quote] [i]no contractions![/i] E) again, turkey, your vocabulary and sentence construction is consistently amazing. try to remove extra words that just seem there to take up space. ex. [quote]The entire supposition of torture proponents is that torture is extrinsically good because of the good it causes.[/quote] [quote]Torture proponents' suppositions are that torture is extrinsically good due to the good it causes.[/quote] --- basically just fix these problems with the rest of the sentences too. other than that super impressed [and, again, unsurprised XD]. especially at the lack of faulty subordination. with a revision or two it'd be perfect! oop didn't see this [quote]Is my language too flowery? (i.e., am I using big words just to sound smart) Do I ignore counterarguments? Do I have any filler? Can anything be cut?[/quote] A) no! B) no! C) yes!