The hypothetical “ticking time-bomb” scenario represents a unique argument in favor of torture. There will be a terrorist attack on Christmas day and a captive may know where and by whom. Torture seems more reasonable in this scenario for a few reasons.
- It’s a clearly defined one-off thing. We can use torture to defuse the ticking time-bomb and still claim to have a general policy against torture except in these special cases.
- The information especially valuable and verifiably so.
- There is limited time.
If we look at torture simply as a mechanism for extracting information, in fact reasons #1 and #2 by themselves deliver at best ambiguous implications for the effectiveness of torture. A one-off case means there is no reputation at stake and this weakens the resolve of the torturer. The fact that the information is valuable means that the victim also has a stronger incentive to resist. The net effect can go either way.
(Keep in mind these are comparative statements. You may think that torture is a good idea or a bad idea in general, that is a separate question. The question here is whether aspects #1 and #2 of the ticking time-bomb scenario make it better.)
We would argue that a version of #3 is the strongest case for torture, and it only applies to the ticking time-bomb. Indeed the ticking time-bomb is unique because it alters the strategic considerations. A big problem with torture in general is that its effectiveness is inherently limited by commitment problems. If torture leads to quick concessions then it will cease quickly in the absence of a concession (but of course continue once a concession has revealed that the victim is informed ). But then there would be no concession. And as we wrote last week, raising the intensity of the torture only worsens this problem.
But the ticking time-bomb changes that. If the bomb is set to detonate at midnight then torture is going end whether he confesses or not. Now the victim faces a simple decision: resist torture until midnight or give up some information. The amount of information you can get from him is limited only by how much pain you are threatening. More pain, more gain.
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January 27, 2010 at 11:27 am
Mort Dubois
Leave the academic world for a minute and think what really happens. Police who are given the power to torture “when they know” there’s a ticking time bomb quickly start torturing “just in case” there’s a ticking time bomb. Torture is hard to put back in the bottle once it’s out and legal. So you may approve of Jack Bauer torturing some swarthy foreigner but find that it actually happens to your brother-in-law when he mouths off on a DUI stop. Torture is such a bad idea that elegant academic constructs determining when to do it and when to stop are irrelevant, and some of us find them offensive. When are you going to look at the optimal size of gas chambers for mass killing? Surely there’s some interesting math involved in load/process/unload times.
January 27, 2010 at 11:43 am
Anonymous
I think you’re correct to observe that the *verifiability* of the information sought is crucial: it’s what ensures your pure dichotomy “resist torture” or “give up information” isn’t muddied by a third alternative, “provide plausible disinformation and hope for a respite.”
So “information it’s reasonable to torture for” should have the double property of being verifiable but not easily discoverable. The location of a bomb has this double property; perhaps other questions — say, “who are your co-conspirators?” — don’t.
It’s oddly analogous to modern cryptography, which relies on the verifiability-but-practical-undiscoverability of information such as the factorizations of large numbers.
January 27, 2010 at 11:47 am
noroshi
While your overall point regarding the essential immorality of engaging in the calculus of torture is well taken, Mort, I’d suggest that in a way you’ve got it backwards. The notion of the ‘ticking time bomb’ is worthy of particular consideration precisely because it is a scenario in which torture might prevent mass killing: in short, do the moral implications of forcibly extracting information from an individual that will prevent the imminent death of hundreds/thousands/millions outweigh the imperative to do all one can to prevent precisely the sort of mass killing you (rightly) disdain?
January 27, 2010 at 12:08 pm
Ben Boyle
The morality is complex, but the practical situation is fairly simple.
If you torture someone who knows where the bomb is and you save the world, no one would prosecute or convict you. You would be a hero. If you torture someone and the bomb goes off anyway, you would still be a hero. On the other hand, if there is no bomb, you should be fired for incompetence, at least.
If you don’t torture, the situation is much more complex, but the outcomes are easier to understand. Whether there is a bomb or not, whether you could have stopped it or not, you probably get to keep your job, and maybe have to sit in front of a committee someday and explain your actions.
January 27, 2010 at 5:23 pm
Jordan
Mort, your argument essentially seems to be “torture is always the worst possible evil in any scenario, every discussion should be predicated on this idea, and it’s offensive to consider any alternatives.”
Which isn’t an argument, in fact, it’s an axiom. That’s fine, moral norms are arbitrary in a sense and you’re free to pick the foundations of yours as you will. I think your framing of the issue is absurd, but it seems clear no amount of reasoning presented would change either of our minds to the other s point of view.
(For the record, although it’s hard to say without access to the relevant intelligence I suspect I’d find all of the torture committed by the U.S. Government in the war on terror morally unjustifiable. But the location of a ticking H-bomb in a major city is an example of a situation I’d be willing to make an exception for; and while I don’t have the stomach to commit torture myself, I’d be prepared to go to prison for authorising or facilitating such methods in that scenario if needs be.)
January 27, 2010 at 7:40 pm
Mort Dubois
The point I was attempting to make was about how torture is practiced in the real world – in societies where it exists at all it tends to be common. The singular scenario dreamed up for the post – there’s a ticking H bomb, the police know exactly who knows where it is, and have custody of that person – is so unusual I bet it has never happened. My fear is that since torture looks reasonable in that situation the authorities will think it reasonable to torture all the time, just in case. In fact the corrosion of civil society where torture is prevalent is a widespread harm that may well add up to greater evil than a single episode of mass destruction. Tell me which of you is willing to move to a torture country? If it has a protective effect you should be safer than here.
January 27, 2010 at 9:19 pm
Noah Yetter
Even though information like the location of the bomb has the property of verifiability, actually verifying it takes time. The torture victim probably only has to mislead you once to cause sufficient delay (see The Joker’s disinformation in The Dark Knight). So there we have a (pretty strong, imo) argument that even if you know there’s a ticking time bomb, and know you have in custody someone with the information to stop it, that trying to get that information via torture will fail.
But that doesn’t matter, because the ticking time bomb scenario is literally impossible. It can only happen in the magical land of hollywood where we know who the bad guys are and what they’re plotting. Out here in the real world we can NEVER have certainty that a ticking time bomb exists, and we can NEVER have certainty that Captive X knows where it is or how to stop it. NEVER. So the whole line of inquiry is pointless.
January 28, 2010 at 5:50 am
Cdn Expat
This whole argument that torture does not work owing to commitment problems is improperly premised. The fact is, torture is used and has been used for thousands of years. A well-founded analysis should explain why, not attempt an explanation of why everyone has gotten it wrong in the past.
It’s also less interesting on a moral basis. If torture really doesn’t work–if KSM didn’t really sing out to his torturers as he reportedly did–then we don’t have to confront ourselves with the moral case for torture, do we?
January 28, 2010 at 12:01 pm
Tracy W
A big problem with torture in general is that its effectiveness is inherently limited by commitment problems. If torture leads to quick concessions then it will cease quickly in the absence of a concession
Why do you believe this?
I asked this on the previous post on this topic. The premise seems doubtful and does not match with any description of real-world torture I have read.
January 28, 2010 at 12:07 pm
jeff
what i believe is that we will not torture a victim who we know to be innocent. it follows that there is a commitment problem.
1. suppose torture is effective enough to cause the truly informed to give up their information quickly
2. then upon seeing that the victim has not given up her information quickly, i know she is uninformed.
3. therefore torture will stop quickly.
4. therefore the truly informed will not give up their information quickly.
February 1, 2010 at 2:27 am
Kenneth Almquist
@ Cdn Expat: It’s easy to explain why torture has been used for thousands of years. Torture is, by definition, an effective way to inflict pain on the victim. Torture is also an effective way to extract confessions. So yes, torture has been used for thousands of years, but in most cases the purpose was not to obtain information.
In the case of the Bush Administration, one thing that hasn’t surfaced is a memo arguing that torture is the most effective means of obtaining information from detainees. We have memo’s arguing that torture is legal; we don’t see memos arguing that it is the most effective method of extracting information. So the Administration had at it’s disposal experienced interrogators with proven track records, but instead decided to go with torture using techniques designed (by the Chinese) to obtain false confessions, and makes this decision without–as far as we know–seriously considering the alternatives. That suggests to me that the decision by the Bush Administration to engage in torture was driven by something other than a desire to obtain information.
February 1, 2010 at 9:06 am
Manuel
I agree with Kenneth Almquist that torture is and was a very effective means to extract confessions, not information (remember the Holy Inquisition?). But if you want to consider it from the viewpoint of a mechanism to extract information, the relevant framework should be one where torture is compared against non-torture methods to extract information, not against a baseline where zero information is obtained in absence of torture. This would allow also to pose the highly relevant questions about the reliability of the “information” extracted (paramount in your chosen case of the tickling time bomb, due to the effects of the time limit on verification procedures).
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