Torture for Dummies: Exploding the "ticking bomb" argument

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?

Questions like these have been pondered and disputed since the invention of the college dorm, but rarely, until the past couple of weeks, unstoned. Now the last of these golden oldies—about the terrorist who knows where the bomb is set to go off—is in the news. Not because it has happened, but because of Sen. John McCain's proposed legislation forbidding the use of torture by the United States government.


cont'd...

http://www.slate.com/id/2132195/nav/tap1/

if I INTENDED to kill a brazillian people with a bomb that I knew was going to go off in 30 minutes, there is no amount of torture that could get the REAL information out of me. I might go send you off on a 29 minute wild goose chase though after you had drillpressed my eyeballs or whatever you were going to do.

The absolute basis of that torture argument is absurd. A real terrorist wouldn't tell you. I mean, they blow themselves up & stuff. Do you really think a little pain is going to stop them? It would only justify letting the bomb go off.

It's a fake argument. An answerless question, a koan. By responding to it at all with an answer, you have sliced the salami for them.

Torture could get me to admit to that and I was born in 1970.

:hi:

I am amazed at the lack of response by the American people. This could possibly have an effect on us all.

nationalism, wave the plastic flag and stick a fags burn in hell sticker on your bumper, that's okay. But go against AUTHORITY and have an opinion of your own about torture? It's too much work, too much emotional involvement.

It is scary - this head in the sand, big brother knows what's best for all of us crap is what got us here talking about torture to begin with.

There are a LOT of people out there with their heads in the sand.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5594405

It doesn't even generate a buzz on DU, and I know we are proactive in the fight against torture.

those who desire greater detail after the summary will then read.

It's a comfort zone thing - and an unforgiveably lazy thing, but reality.

Sigh. Someone once told me they didn't read anything on DU with more than two paragraphs. Yes, on DU, but that's not all of us.

Thanks for the post.

It's a symptom I suffer from myself sometime. Hopefully it will get more national attention. I don't think McCain will let this happen without a fight.

Off topic: I love your website. Tell Carlos Perez that his favorite quote isn't unknown to me. It was spoken by Bette Davis in "All About Eve." My favorite stage movie of all time. :-)

:rofl:

Hey, I've seen this one before and there's just one way to deal with it that's always worked in the past: you call Clark Kent at the Daily Planet and tell him you need to get in touch with Superman. He then uses his x-ray vision and super hearing to find the bomb just seconds before it goes off.

Yeah, I know what you're thinking: "That's not reality, that's just a comic book". Well, SO IS THE ARGUMENT!!! Nothing so simple, clear-cut and dramatic has ever actually happened in real life, only in fiction. Meanwhile, back in the real world, torture not only produces unreliable confessions of whatever the victim thinks you want to hear, but generally takes days of "softening up" just to get that.