In answer to Sam Harris

Sam Harris, in a recent article, makes the moral case for torture:

In defense of torture

I tried to post a comment but the site was full up so I shall leave my answer here. It is an issue that is terribly interesting and important enough that everyone ought to weigh in, don't you think?

Sam,

Since sadism often masquerades as piety it seems wise to be defensive about the notion of pious torturers (like the Inquisitors you mention).

The underlying assumption in the "ticking time bomb" scenario is that torture is the most effective way to extract the information. If that is a false assumption, then it would be doubly immoral to use it, particularly in the TTB scenario. If that is a true assumption, then it seems that torture is morally correct in theory.

Since the bedrock of morality is to treat others as you wish to be treated, the circumstances under which you would choose torture over a bomb for yourself should be investigated.

If approached from this direction, what father, what husband, what mother, what wife could resist the appeal of torture for themselves alone to the pain of losing their whole family to a bomb?

To save loved ones, then, seems again like a scenario under which it is forgivable to torture.


buT, bUT, BUT...

I am uncertain that defending torture in theory defends it in the outside world. Out here you do wind up with Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay which, as you say, are "a travesty" that "has done our country lasting harm". I suspect more harm than good.

In our "eye for an eye" world, the use of torture on others is an invitation to receive it on ourselves, and who can say if we have paid in full for these travesties.

Torture seems to be a technique to cause the sick to suffer, but not without poisoning the well. Perhaps if it were practiced by no one but Philosophers society could escape it's immoral application.