Sorry this is a long rant, but it is a subject I get het up about. Thank you for your patience.

Over on Pharyngula there is a bit of a debate going on as to can torture be considered ethical. Not as simply put as is generally torturing others ethical but, to quote the main commenter who supports the idea:

I can’t imagine how it’s possible to believe that torture is alway unethical. I, for one, can imagine scenarios in which ethics would positively require the use of torture. [matt]

Blimey. Ethics require the use of torture eh? Now it might just be me, and the effects of having been taught why the Geneva Convention decided to formalise the “conduct” of warfare, but I can’t get my head round this concept. I am, fortunately, not alone here and a few other commenters on Pharyngula were confused by this. Helpfully, Matt tries to clear things up a bit with a later comment:

Here is a believable situation: Based on good intelligence, the CIA has arrested a terrorist–during the arrest they find bomb building materials and schematics of hospitals and schools. He does not surrender any information under normal questioning. Despite lack of actionable intelligence, you know from interviews with him and others that an un-captured terrorist is soon going to attack a school or hospital.

Admittedly, this sounds like an episode of 24, but I am summarizing the interview I linked to in comment #21. I don’t understand how torturing an admitted terrorist to get information to stop the deaths of many innocent children is unethical.

Ah, to quote the Simpsons[*], “wont anyone think of the children!” Now accepting the fact that this is almost a script from 24/alias/[insert thriller series of choice], we can look at what is being said here and decide if it really is (as I suspect) approaching an ethical minefield.

This is an appeal to the ethical grounds that mistreating one person with the goal of saving a greater number of other people (especially children) is a good thing. For this argument to work you have to accept some basic points:

1. Life has a value based solely on quantity (i.e. torturing 1 person to save 2 is a GOOD THING™)
2. Doing a bad thing for good reasons is a GOOD THINGâ„¢

Unusually, I have no major disagreement[**] with these premises. Society often has to make judgements which end up being the greatest good to the greatest number, and some will always end up suffering. However, I still think Matt is talking out of his backside and that not only is this not a valid way of making torture ethical but even in the situation he presents it is flawed.

If we look at his 24 script example we can address a good few issues in it:

First off, it is believable. Comic references to 24 aside, it is reasonable to think that this scenario is valid in the outset (CIA arrest bomb maker who is refuses to talk). However it rapidly falls down from the basic premise onwards.

I find the need to use schools and hospitals in the example as unnecessary. Does this mean that it would be unethical to torture a terrorist to save (for example) and office block? Or a car factory? Or an abortion clinic? Are we saying here that protection of the sick and young is the reason why the prisoner (who at this time appears to be un-convicted of any crime) is tortured in a way the Inquistion would have approved of?

But more importantly, the mechanics fail. Badly. Here you have a dedicated terrorist who was (I assume) planning to martyr himself for the cause and now refuses to talk during the legal interrogation techniques he is subjected to [***]. For some reason, even though he isn’t talking, he has given you the information that A N Other terrorist is going to blow up the [insert emotional location here] and you don’t have long to find out.

This is getting a touch far-fetched and a touch self-contradictory, but we will continue.

Now, Jack Bauer turns up and the fun begins. The terrorist is tortured. What happens?

Well this is a hypothetical situation[****] so we can play with anything. Obviously the torture breaks the terrorist quickly and he starts saying things. He gives up a name (for the sake of narrative we will call the person Ahmed) and claims Ahmed is the terrorist on the loose.

What happens next?

Well, thousands of years of human study has shown that torture is a good way of getting the prisoner to say whatever he thinks will make the torture stop. Not what is necessarily true, but what ever will make the torturer stop hurting him. The basic premise that torture is required is that this is time sensitive so all our terrorist needs to do is stave off the waterboarding for long enough for Abdullah to blow up the School/Hospital/Orphanage (whatever) and he has not only won, but rendered the torture unethical. In the mean time, the CTU/CIA/FBI/Elevator Inspector Unit are busy running round chasing Ahmed (who might be totally innocent) and diverting resources away from the real threat.

In this case, was the torture ethical? It failed the ethical validity test, in that no one was saved as a result of the torture. If this is too far fetched for you, what about this scenario:

The terrorist gives up Abdullah but genuinely doesn’t know where he is so CTU/CIA (etc, you get the joke) have to use their massive resources to find him – however they are too late and the explosion goes off, with all the dead innocents. The torture of the terrorist did nothing to save anyone. Again, it fails the validity test.

As a third scenario, the CIA made a mistake and the man detained has a similar sounding name to the terrorist but is actually totally innocent and doesn’t know anything. The reason he isn’t giving anything during the traditional questioning is because he doesn’t know anything. The waterboarding commences. In fear for his life, begging to be let free, the innocent man shouts out names which sound plausible until eventually the torturers pick up on one and chase after the wrong person again. Again, the bomb goes off and the torture achieved nothing. Was it ethical do it?

There are possibly an infinite number of examples where the use of torture in this situation is unethical compared to a very small set where it can claim some ethical validity – namely in the 24-esque one where the prisoner has enough information to allow the other terrorist to be caught just in time to prevent the explosion.

The basic requirement to ever judge torture “ethical” is knowing what the outcome will be. Before the torturers begin waterboarding the prisoner they have no way of knowing what value the information they get will have. They could continue their torture until the person dies without getting the information which makes it ethical. Whatever the final outcome, the torture begins as an unethical process.

So, the question I want to ask is does a post hoc rationalisation of an act determine if it is, or isn’t an ethical act? Is the detention and mistreatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay ethical?

Lastly, the slippery slope. Why is it only terror suspects who can be tortured? What about a murder suspect or a rapist? What about some one who knows a mass murderer – can they be tortured to give up the mass murderer’s location before he kills again? Why draw the line at murderers?

Can torture ever be ethical? I still dont think so.

Wonderfully, Pharyngula sums things up in a subsequent post:

Here is all that torture is good for: inspiring fear in a population. If you want it widely known that your ruling regime is utterly ruthless and doesn’t care about individuals, all you have to do is scoop up random people suspected of anti-government activities, hold them for a few weeks, and return them as shattered wrecks with mangled limbs, while treating the monsters who would do such a thing as respected members of the ruling clique, who are immune from legal prosecution.

I seem to recall Saddam-era Iraq was a big one for torture and this was roundly criticised in the west. Now “we” rule Iraq, opinions have changed…

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[*] And yes, I am now aware that the Simpsons is not a cartoon / comedy show it is actually a real life documentary. As is 24. And Alias. And …

[**] I actually don’t think that doing a bad thing for good reasons is a good thing – or even an acceptable thing. I can, however, accept it is a valid point of view though so I have no intention of challenging it here.

[***] These are in no way “humane” in any real sense of the word. It is a truism to say every one breaks eventually. The problem with traditional torture interrogation is that it is too slow for today’s 24 addicted world. If the intelligence agencies worked better, they would have more time to get information out of the terrorists…

[****] Well, it is hypothetical here. Sadly there are people undergoing this treatment right now. While most may be in evil, dictatorial, third world regimes, not all are…