feotakahari

This is known as the ticking time bomb scenario. The most common formulation is that the bomb will destroy a city, which is less personal and easier to evaluate. If Hurst has no objections, let’s work with that instead. (If Hurst does have objections, let’s work with that anyway.)

Assuming I’m certain of success and there’s no other solution, I would laud torturing a terrorist to prevent a bomb from destroying a city. Lee Hurst can have that one.

Assuming I’m certain of success and there’s no other solution, I would laud torturing a terrorist’s young child to prevent a bomb from destroying a city. Let’s give Hurst that one, too.

Assuming I’m certain of success and there’s no other solution, I would laud killing half a city to prevent a bomb from destroying the whole city. Let’s throw that in Hurst’s face.

This is what you get when you draw your moral dilemmas too narrowly. In the world we actually live and act in, you’re not certain you can torture anything out of this person in the span of one hour. In the real world, you also don’t know that there’s no other way you or anyone else could possibly find the bomb. And from past history, there’s a very high chance that real-world you doesn’t even know if the person you’re torturing has any information about where the bomb is located! Real-world you doesn’t know if, once they tell you where the bomb is, they’re lying to bait you into wasting time and resources. Real-world you doesn’t know if they’re making up the first location that comes to mind so you’ll stop torturing them for at least a little while. Odds are that when real-world you is arguing about whether folks over at Guantanamo should be allowed to torture people, real-world you has never been present at a torture session and never seen what torturers actually do. 

So if you’re going to argue for torture, don’t pretend this is an episode of 24. Talk about what’s actually happening in the world we live in, because that’s where prisoners in many countries are currently being tortured while you argue your hypotheticals.