Torture for Dummies:Exploding the "ticking bomb" argument

Torture for Dummies
Exploding the "ticking bomb" argument.
By Michael Kinsley
Posted Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2005, at 2:24 PM ET


What if you knew for sure that the cute little baby burbling and smiling at you from his stroller in the park was going to grow up to be another Hitler, responsible for a global cataclysm and millions of deaths? Would you be justified in picking up a rock and bashing his adorable head in? Wouldn't you be morally depraved if you didn't?

Or what if a mad scientist developed a poison so strong that two drops in the water supply would kill everyone in Chicago? And you could destroy the poison, but only by killing the scientist and 10 innocent family members? Should you do it?

Or what if an international terrorist planted a nuclear bomb somewhere in Manhattan, set to go off in an hour and kill a million people. You've got him in custody, but he won't say where the bomb is. Is it moral to torture him until he gives up the information?
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http://www.slate.com/id/2132195/fr/rss/

Thanks for posting it..

before he jumped out of the plane in the Pacific in the 40s . . .

it would be worth it. Maybe we could have a world wide fund raising event: BUSHWACKING.
Bet it would top any other.

Just like shooting some-one is normally illegal, or speeding.

But if a cop does these things in the course of his duties and it's proved that he made the right decision then that's normally taken into account.

But that doesn't mean it should be legal for cops to go around speeding and shooting people all the time.

Cops speed so frequently that it is unusual to see one going the speed limit. Cops pretty much shoot anyone they feel is a percieved threat. A cop who kills somebody who never had a weapon doesn't even lose his job in most cases.

So we'll just make torture illegal but ignore infractions of the law; like we do with cops? This helps the US how?

they gotta hire Jack Bauer, he gets results.

1) "And what if terrorists were going to wake up Godzilla? Why, torture could save all of Japan!" Except, of course, for the fact that Godzilla doesn't exist ... just like the ticking time bomb scenario. There simply never has been, and never will be (outside of a movie script) such a case where torture would be so clear-cutly useful, entirely ignoring questions of its morality.

2) "What if there was a ticking time-bomb, but no prisoner? Is that same million lives worth, say, actually granting their demands?" It's an article of faith that you just don't negotiate with terrorists ... but then, it's supposed to also be a given that you just don't torture. What does a "rational moral calculus" say about weighing a handful of released prisoners or some material payment (cash, weapons, whatever) against countless innocent lives? If you think we can afford to be absolute against negotiation regardless of the cost, then we can be absolute against torture regardless of the cost.