Notes of Should the Ticking Bomb Terrorist Be Tortured?

The paper is about whether we should torture terrorists in order to get lifesaving information and prevent tragic events. 

In a democracy there is always a choice. The Fifth Amendment prohibits compelled self-incrimination, i,e., statements elicited by means of torture may not be considered as evidence against the defendant who was tortured. The Geneva Convention Against Torture prohibits all forms of torture and provides for no exceptions. The US adopted the convention with one condition: only to the extent that it's consistent with the Eighth Amendment (may not prohibit use of torture to obtain critical info that can save lives).

Putting legislative procedures aside, one key question is: Is torturing terrorists morally okay? 

Some people argue that torture usually doesn't work since it produces many false confessions and misinformation. However, torture sometimes DOES work. Indeed, the author considered it impossible to avoid the moral dilemma by denying the empirical reality that torture sometimes works. 

Another objection to implementing torture is that total amount of terrorism might not decrease even when info extracted by means of torture helps stop a terrorist plot. In fact, preventing one terrorist plot may not significantly reduce total number of civilian deaths, though it makes a difference to those who would have been killed in the thwarted plot. However, the author believed the argument is weak in terms of mega-terrorism. 

The US government often renders suspects to countries that practice tactical interrogation (i.e., torture) so as to get info that otherwise couldn't be obtained in the US. 

The ticking-bomb case: a terrorist group states that it has concealed a nuclear bomb somewhere in the city and the authorities have capture the leader of the group. The leader knows the location of the bomb, but he refuses to cooperate. Suppose that torture is guaranteed to let him tell the location, is it justifiable to implement the torture?

Some countries, such as Israel, publicly acknowledge that it may be proper t o administer nonlethal torture in preventing terrorism, but the action doesn't become a precedent for other nations. Besides, if the US allowed nonlethal torture in the ticking bomb case, the declaration would greatly change the international law, which the US helped define.

Jeremy Bentham, the utilitarian, was against an absolute prohibition of torture. He believed that if the torture of one guilty person could help save hundreds of innocent people, then torture is necessary.

Possible reasoning for this argument: the guilty person is illegally withholding info needed to prevent innocent people from dying; pain is a lesser and more remediable harm than death; the lives of many innocent people should be valued more than the bodily integrity of one guilty person. Besides, what moral principle could justify the death penalty for past individual murders while at the same time condemn nonlethal torture to prevent future mass murders? (personally I think this is the most insightful opinion in the paper)

Possible reasoning against this argument: should torture become legit, it would constitute a symbolic setback in the worldwide campaign against human rights abuses. In other words, torture might be abused.

The punch line: in a particular case, the benefits of torture might outweigh its costs, but if the torture is institutionalized, it's highly possible that torture will be abused.

The author argued that the utilitarian reasoning is flawed because it has no inherent limiting principle: under a simple-minded quantitative case utilitarianism, anything goes as long as the number of people tortured or killed doesn't exceed the number that would be saved.

Choices under a democracy:
no torture even to prevent massive terrorism; no torture except with a warrant authorizing nonlethal torture; no "officially" approved torture but its selective use beneath the radar screen.

The author believed that a formal requirement of a judicial warrant as a prerequisite to nonlethal torture would decrease the amount of physical violence directed against suspects. He also believed that the rights of the suspect would be better protected with a warrant requirement.