Why Torture?: To Obtain Intelligence

Who is familiar with the TV show 24? I've never found the time to watch it, but I understand that in season after season, the heroic Jack Bauer bravely tortures terrorists and forces them to reveal information that allows law enforcement officers to neutralize significant threats to innocent American civilians. The TV show popularizes the "ticking bomb" scenario--a situation where there will be significant loss of innocent life unless a suspect reveals information, and the suspect will only reveal the required information if tortured. Unfortunately, the television shows and movies that have popularized this scenario have little relation to real-life intelligence operations, and have only served to inure the general public to the concept of torture and popularize its use. This is surely a dis-service to any nation whose legal foundation rests on the concept that all human beings are equal and deserve equally human treatment.

The academic frame of the "ticking bomb" scenario constructs a specific set of circumstances that Kenneth Himma describes in his paper Assessing the Prohibition Against Torture. These circumstances are:

1. "There are ten hydrogen bombs hidden in the ten most populous US cities;
2. The bombs are powerful enough to decimate each city leaving no survivors and extensive radioactive fallout;
3. The bombs are set to go off in 24 hours;
4. It is not possible to evacuate any of the cities within 24 hours;
5. A conspirator in custody knows where each of the bombs is and will reveal this information quickly enough, if tortured, for officials to find and disarm each of the bombs; and
6. There is no other way to avoid having the bombs detonate" (237-238).

The situation relies on the assumption that law enforcement officials know each of these statements to be true beyond the shadow of a doubt--as well as any human could know possibly know them under any circumstances. Given this scenario, most people in America today would agree that torture is a morally acceptable course of action, and many people including politicians, lawyers, and scholars would sanction torture in this situation.

Himma's argument is two-fold. First, that the fact that most people would approve of the use of torture in this situation means that our objection to torture is not one on principal, but rather situationally-dependent. Second, he claims that "the permissibility of torture in any given situation in [sic] determined by a weighing process" (241).

Popular approval of torture rest on knowing several elements of this scenario beyond any reasonable doubt, the most important of which are that the suspect has the required information and that the suspect will reveal this information when tortured. Himma analyzes the situation based on the concept that since most people don't object to torture on principal, the task is left to find where the line is drawn, where torture is and is not acceptable. He acknowledges that torture is a grave evil, and must only be used as a last resort when the evil done by failing to use torture (harm done against innocents) is greater.

Himma considers the possibility that law enforcement officials will not know each of the circumstances above beyond a reasonable doubt. For example, if law enforcement officials believe that the suspect has the required information, but do not know the same is true, is torture still acceptable? Himma argues that it is, by weighing the probability that millions of people will endure significant pain and suffering against the evil committed by the torture of a single person. In his conclusion, Himma draws no firm lines but suggests vague criteria for the use of torture:

"It is justified so long as (1) it does not involve treatment that is worse than appears reasonably necessary to produce the information; (2) officials are making sure that the victim is otherwise receiving proper nutrition and medical care; and (3) officials are not taking enjoyment in the ill-treatment of the victim" (247).

With this approach to the acceptability of torture, and with our previous discussion of how the soldiers in the field are tempted to torture to gain information, we can see how this philosophical justification of torture easily and quickly leads to routine torture on the battlefield and environments such as that of Abu Ghraib prison.

Himma's argument demonstrates a significant lack of understanding of torture as it is and has been used throughout history. In reality, officials can never know those six circumstances beyond the shadow of a doubt--there will always be doubt about whether the suspect has the required information, whether he will reveal information under torture, and whether that information will be accurate. Torture in real-life is rarely in pursuit of specific information, but typically in pursuit of general information: let's see what the suspect knows.

Thus, the torture continues until the torturer is satisfied; it does not end quickly and painlessly (except for the suspect) when the required information is revealed. Furthermore, the purpose of torture is not to extract information, but to "break" the suspect; to cause him to feel helpless and powerless, that no one will help him, and that his only option is to reveal the desired information--if he has it. Dierdre Golash puts it best:

"Torture to gain information, or other forms of compliance, is thus a deeper denial of personhood and autonomy than is torture as punishment. To say that the bomber deserves this kind of treatment is to say that she has, through her own actions, forfeited all of the respect due to persons--that she has forfeited her claim to personhood itself" (Golash 268).

Furthermore, as David Luban observes:

"[This scenario] assumes a single, ad hoc decision about whether to torture, by officials who ordinarily would do no such thing except in a desperate emergency. But in the real world of interrogations, decisions are not made one-off. The real world is a world of policies, guidelines, and directives. It is a world of practices, not of ad hoc emergency measures" (255).

Thus, when we approve of torture, we are approving a policy that denies the personhood of our opponents. The ticking bomb scenario is a red herring--an extreme and unrealistic scenario that bears no resemblance to the circumstances under which torture actually occurs and which is designed to marginalize critical moral and ethical considerations.

References:

Golash, Deirdre. "Torture and Self-Defense." Intervention, Terrorism, and Torture: Contemporary Challenges to a Just War Theory. Ed. S. P. Lee. Dordrecht: Springer, 2007. 263-271.

Himma, Kenneth Einar. "Assessing the Prohibition Against Torture." Intervention, Terrorism, and Torture: Contemporary Challenges to Just War Theory. Ed. S. P. Lee. Dordrecht: Springer, 2007. 235-248.

Luban, David. "Liberalism, Torture, and the Ticking Bomb." Intervention, Terrorism, and Torture: Contemporary Challenges to Just War Theory. Ed. S. P. Lee. Dordrecht: Springer, 2007. 249-262.