Tick, Tick, Tick...

A bomb is set to explode in a public place in a matter of hours or days. We have captured someone who knows how to stop the bomb. He won’t volunteer what he knows, is it OK to torture him to get the life-saving information? Those who invoke the “ticking bomb” (TB) scenario seem to think that it defines a narrow range of circumstances where torture is acceptable. I don’t think it does. So before Jack shoots anyone in the knee-cap, we should tease out the conditions that the TB scenario is supposed to define where torture is permissible.

The ticking bomb scenario suggests torture is permissible when three conditions are met:

(1) There is a clearly defined imminent threat to (many) innocent lives (like a ticking bomb).
(2) We have in custody someone we know has information that will let us end that imminent threat.
(3) Torture is the only way to get that information.

Or expressed as a single guiding principle:

(4) Torture is justified if it is the only way to get information necessary to prevent the imminent loss of (many) innocent lives.

In the real world, satisfying condition (3) is always a problem. Is torture ever the only way to extract accurate, actionable information in a timely way? Granted, it's probably the fastest way to get someone to say something, but that’s not what we need when the bomb is ticking down. But set this larger problem aside for the moment.

Another problem that arises is how, in practice, we are to know when (2) is satisfied. How do we know the guy we want to torture has the details we need? Perhaps we have a letter from the terrorist’s colleague thanking him for recently recounting all the details of the plot? How do we know that letter to be genuine?

To apply in the real world, condition (2) will have to be something weaker:

(2a) We have in custody someone we have good reason to believe has information that will let us end the imminent threat.

If we are justified in believing that damning letter is real, (2a) is satisfied.

But in light of the changes to (2), condition (3) must be altered too. We may have good reasons for believing x knows what we want, but clearly, despite due diligence on our part, our belief can be wrong. Built into (2a) is the possibility that torture will reveal that x does not, in fact, have the details we thought he might. In which case the situation no longer satisfies (4). The torture of x is not justified if x doesn’t know the necessary live-saving information because it obviously cannot reveal that information. Thus (3) must be adjusted if we are to derive a general guiding principle from the TB scenario:

(3a) Torture is the only way to get the information needed to end an imminent threat to innocent lives, or the only way to determine if someone has such information.

Adjusting (4) in light of the changes to (2) and (3) gives us:

(4a) Torture is justified if it is the only way to get information needed to prevent the imminent loss of innocent lives, or it is the only way to determine if someone has such information.

So from ticking bomb cases two general principles regarding torture emerge:

(A) Torture is justified if it is the only way to get information needed to prevent the imminent loss of innocent lives

(B) Torture is justified if it is the only way to determine if someone has information needed to prevent the imminent loss of innocent lives.

(A) is what people who find justification for torture in TB scenarios want to take away them, but if we think such scenarios justify torture to save innocent lives, we must accept that they also justify torturing those who, as it turns out, cannot help us save any innocent lives at all.

(B) opens the door to a broader application of torture than is usually allowed to be acceptable by those invoking TB scenarios: Are terrorist hatching plots right now that threaten innocent lives? Are some of these plots close to fruition? It’s Bush administration gospel that they are. Isn’t it desirable to find out about these plots, and find out how to stop them, as soon as possible? Well, if we torture, say, a Guantanamo detainee just to see if he happens to have details that can end a threat we don’t yet know about, and we find out he does, isn‘t that better than not finding out and suffering mass casualties? It’s this kind of “speculative” torture that (B) seems to legitimize. X claims not to know about any plots, but he's a godless, freedom-hating terrorist, let’s torture him to see if, in fact, he does know how to stop a plot already underway to take innocent lives. We just might find out he was lying and save a lot of people.

The ticking bomb scenario does not define a narrow range of circumstances where torture is clearly permissible. Rather, a justification of torture based on TB scenarios opens the door to a broad, unacceptably broad I would argue, application of torture in the name of protecting innocent lives.