Torture is bad

It is 4:45 so I am going to make this post very point form-y. I am doing my essay on the immorality of torture.

Torture is bad.
People defend torture by considering the ticking time bomb scenario.

Ticking time bomb scenario (TTBS) says Mr. X has planted a bomb somewhere in the city. You have caught Mr. X. You have tried to get him to tell you where the bomb is. He won’t tell you where the bomb is. Are you morally obligated (or allowed) to torture him?

Suppose it is morally permissible to torture him. Then we can consider two cases. One where he is tortured in a public setting, meaning the public is aware he is being tortured and why. Or two, he is being tortured under the radar so no one knows he is being tortured.

In case one we will have to create some legal framework to define who can be tortured. Dershowitz considers the idea of forcing people to acquire warrants from judges before torturing people. This is flawed because judges can be appointed, so you can simply appoint a judge who will always agree to torture. Any legal framework has the potential to be flawed and corrupted. Having this legal framework gives the state the power to revoke any individuals universal human rights (article 5). This is a lot of power to give to the state. Also need to define a set of torture practices

In case two we have no idea who is being tortured so it is unclear whether or not they are actually guilty of anything. If they are being tortured under the radar it is impossible to know what sort of torture practices they are employing. No one can be held accountable. If people tortured under the radar then technically they will be taken without warning and tortured.

Both cases seem to have flaws. Another flaw lies in the idea of the TTBS. TTBS requires the law enforcement to have a lot of information about the perpetrators. Namely they need to know who is causing the attack and enough intel to be able to kidnap a particular member. The odds of this happening are low. A more practical situation would be the police have caught a man who MAY know something about the bomb. Do we torture him?

If we say yes then technically we are torturing an innocent man since we don’t know if he actually knows anything. Since we are torturing an innocent man what is to stop me from torturing his family or friends? How long do we torture him for? Days? Weeks? Months? Should this be done in the public’s eye or behind closed doors? Another realistic scenario could be we have 10 men, 9 innocent, 1 guilty. Do we torture all 10 in the hopes of finding the bomb? Once we start torturing innocent people it may not be clear whether or not what they say is true or not. If someone is being inflicted with immense amounts of pain they will be put into flight mode. They will say whatever they have to to get out of the situation. This can lead to bad information and thus wasted time.

The sheer act of torture in and of itself is evil. It dehumanizes people. To inflict torture is to inflict intense physical and psychological pain. I need to think of more arguments for this idea. I feel the idea that it is so evil and dehumanizing is important. Maybe something along the lines of, as soon as we embrace the notion of torture we have become less human? If the only way to save a group of people is to become a monster and do horrific things to our fellow man, is that something we should do? Is it justified to take in and become evil to save lives? I feel this is stuff I hear in anime’s.

Any other input or ideas as to why torture is bad would be much appreciated.

5:00 a.m. Time to get some sleep. Going to be running on very little sleep the next few days. Complex assignment and midterm monday, this essay and real analysis assignment wednesday. I may ask for an extension on the real analysis assignment though.

Hopefully this post was coherent.