
Why Torture Doesn't Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation - sohkamyung
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v527/n7576/full/527035a.html
======
rjtobin
About 4 years ago I went to a talk given by the author of the book, the
subject was along the same lines as the book: how torture is ineffective
because it damages the subject's ability to recall information. Afterwards
someone asked a question that a lot of us had been thinking: that in a lot of
situations where torture might be used, the information being asked for is
very well known to the subject, so unless serious brain damage occurred, the
subject wasn't going to forget after torture. Like, "who is your cell leader?"
or "where are the guns hidden?". He seemed confused by the question, even
after a few other audience members tried to rephrase it. Got the impression he
was being intentionally obtuse. I guess it deflated the gist of his work,
which more accurately should be something like "torture ineffective when the
concealed information is hard to remember".

I haven't read the book, but I hope in the meantime he has worked a little to
address this question. Seemed like a well meaning guy though, and maybe my
memory of the talk has been eroded by the torturous years of grad school in
between

~~~
XorNot
I would argue your audience is failing to understand what torture is. Most
people are deathly afraid of any pain. But they're also not
agents/operatives/soldiers for their government. They're not at war with an
enemy they think worth fighting and killing.

So they don't have a particular strong desire to conceal information from
anyone who threatens them. This means, in an actual scenario of torture
interrogation, you're pretty likely to initially withhold whatever you can.
But by the time you reach an actual breaking point...well it's called that for
a reason. You are in fact very unlikely to remember much of anything because
of pain, shock etc. You're pretty likely to say whatever the torturer is
asking to hear.

Waterboarding is torture because once water gets into your oesophagus your
rational mind shuts down _completely_ \- this post
([http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=448717](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=448717))
pretty much summarizes it and the experience has been confirmed by everyone
else who has had it done to them.

That's the point about torture being ineffective. By the time it's effective,
you're dealing with someone who is pretty much going to confabulate whatever
you want to hear.

~~~
varjag
> I would argue your audience is failing to understand what torture is. Most
> people are deathly afraid of any pain. But they're also not
> agents/operatives/soldiers for their government. They're not at war with an
> enemy they think worth fighting and killing.

It almost sounds as if you are trying to define away torture for a fringe case
where it's guaranteed to be useless. This is a legalistic approach not anymore
convincing than attempts to define waterboarding as "not torture".

Torture is used in the armed conflicts depressingly regularly: the
corresponding clauses in Geneva Conventions for treatment of POW were added
not for purely theoretic reasons. Torture is used by criminals around the
world on daily basis. The reason they haven't given up after millenia of
practice is that it tends to work in their unsophisticated, easily verifiable
cases: getting the combination to a safe or finding where a merchant keeps
their money stashed.

Anyway, torture should not be used because it's simply an abhorrent thing to
do to a human being. Trying to frame it in terms of performance is damaging to
the moral aspect of it, as you descend to the same inhuman cost/benefit
mindset as torture proponent.

~~~
jules
We make cost-benefit analyses all the time. With any military operation the
collateral damage has to be weighed against the target. The fact that we freak
out over torture yet _kill innocent people_ in collateral damage is completely
irrational. On the scale of harm, torture that leaves no physical harm is
behind cutting off people's limbs, and that is far behind killing people. Now,
torturing innocent people is worse than torturing (most likely) guilty people
who (most likely) know something that can save lives. But for some reason
mentioning torture reflexively shuts people's brain off yet _killing innocent
people_ in collateral damage is fine if subject to a cost-benefit analysis.

~~~
notahacker
Given that one of the most commonly discussed and unpleasant torture methods
involves simulating the experience of drowning, I've often wondered why so few
people consider inflicting that exact same experience on many enemy sailors by
means of missile or torpedo to be even remotely bending the rules of
engagement. Granted, the person that fires the fatal shot probably isn't an
incorrigible sadist and may even be at imminent risk of a similar fate
themselves, but they're still inflicting that suffering with a similar level
of intentionality and certainty to a CIA operative with a bucket...

~~~
sean2
Hurting enemies while they're fighting, presumably to make them stop being
able to hurt you or whomever you're protecting, has always been granted a
special moral free pass.

But if there is no fight occurring, and the enemy is subdued and unable to
cause harm, then the situation has changed a bit, into a greyer area.

I've also met a guy who has used water-boarding in the field, and he didn't
seem like a sadist. He felt pretty bad about using it, though he thought it
effective and necessary.

------
nickff
My question to anyone who believes this article to be correct is whether they
would have found the same sources and type of evidence credible if it had
produced the contrary result. If the answer is no, it shows that you should
not expect this article to convince any of your intellectual opponents.

For the record, I am not sure whether torture works or is morally justified in
the circumstances where it has been applied over the last 20 years, but I find
this article entirely unconvincing.

~~~
SilasX
Exactly. You should also raise your guard whenever someone is trying to
convince you that reality never presents you with hard choices: "So I never
have to weigh my aversion to torture against my aversion to the loss of
thousands of lives? Hooray!"

~~~
XorNot
No you literally never do. Stop thinking of Jack Bauer in 24 while you think
about this subject.

~~~
SilasX
A civilization-ending meteor will probably never head toward the earth, but
your ethical worldmodel should be able to handle this scenario without special
exceptions, rather than just try to assure yourself that it can't happen so
you don't have to think about it.

~~~
XorNot
A civilization ending meteor has relatively few additional questions to ask.
Like are we sure there's a civilization ending meteor? Which as it turns out,
actually makes quite a difference in our response to it!

Whereas whatever the hell people want to talk about with 24-esque do-or-die
scenario begs dozens if not hundreds of follow up questions, all of which have
one thing in common: they've nothing to do with torture as conducted by the US
to date, which has taken place over the course of years in a systemic fashion
in which no assurances that the people we're torturing are even involved with
"the enemy" have been able to be given.

~~~
SilasX
It's reasonable to say "this specific government will use this tool
irresponsibly, in ways that hurt people and damage credibility without
corresponding upside".

But that's a different argument entirely from "this tool can never work."

------
LordKano
The idea that you cede the moral high ground when you use torture seems to
have been forgotten.

I don't care if it works. I grew up believing that we were "The Good Guys" and
under no circumstance is it ever acceptable for the good guys to torture
people.

What made the Viet Cong so bad? They tortured people. What made the Japanese
so bad? They tortured people. What made the Germans so bad? They tortured
people.

We should never torture anyone.

~~~
nickff
You are very clearly begging the question here; not everyone agrees that use
of torture 'cedes moral high ground', or that torture made the Germans,
Japanese, or North Vietnamese 'bad'.[1]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beg_a_question](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beg_a_question)

~~~
weland
> not everyone agrees that use of torture 'cedes moral high ground'

There probably are a few assholes who don't, but to take it seriously outside
the realm of a purely philosophical discussion on formal logic is something
that no sane human being should even consider.

I don't care if Germans, Japanese, North Vietnamese or, for that matter,
Americans were generally good or bad.

~~~
bluecalm
I think most sane human beings would consider torture in situations where the
information obtained could save many lives (for example during the war).

~~~
weland
I hear this argument a lot. That situation is as unlikely as it gets. At least
in my part of the world, torture is _particularly_ discouraged as a means of
gathering information during war.

Not only are prisoners likely to confess anything that will make the pain
stop, but the ones inflicting it are themselves unlikely to be able to tell
when the one being tortured is telling the truth.

Furthermore, even if he tells the truth (as in information that he honestly
believes to be true), it's very difficult to tell if that information is of
real value or just another smoke screen -- i.e. if the man you're holding was
intentionally misinformed by an enemy who became aware of his imminent
capture, or who simply believe the risk of capture to be very high. History is
full of cases where important plans have been withheld even from unit
commanders, having been shared only with the highest political and military
commanders. In such cases, field units aren't left without orders -- they're
given inconsequentially fake ones.

Saying "torture would be OK in situations where the information obtained could
save many lives" is basically like saying "living in the Sahara would be OK
during rainy days". It's theoretically possible and it's obviously hard to
disagree that you can live for 24 hours in a desert where it rains, but
there's a good reason why no one is rushing to live in the Sahara.

~~~
bluecalm
I agree with your arguments but it seems to me you are arguing for different
point: that torture is bad in almost all situations and is especially bad when
applied systematically. I don't think anyone reasonable are going to contest
that though.

My position is that I can imagine situations where I think torture is
justified even though I see those situations as very unlikely to occur and
even less likely to be judged correctly. I do agree that the history doesn't
inspire optimism and that systemic torture use is a problem and it's a good
battle to reduce it.

------
rdtsc
Even if it is working, would that make it ok?

What about rape? Should it be criminalized? Is that worth a scientific study
from nature?

Why is torture in a civilized society not considered like rape. Anyone who
suggests, does it, debates about its merrits, should be considered a crazy
idiot, ostracized and laughed at. But notice how we as a a society are
debating its merits. We have already lost so speak. We lost first when our
government engaged in it in large scale. But we lost again when we start
excusing and explaining, even if we reach the conclusion "ok, it is not quite
working as well".

~~~
raverbashing
Saying that something is not debatable is _exactly_ the opposite of living in
a democracy

Excluding hate speech, surely

But since you were very fast to call anyone a "crazy idiot" I can see how
worried about you are about a "civilised society" instead of your personal
opinions

~~~
vacri
Allowing fringe ideas to dominate discussions so centrally is also _exactly_
the opposite of living in a democracy.

~~~
raverbashing
I agree, but who determines what is a fringe idea?

I don't agree with torture, quite the contrary, but the same discussion could
have been constructed in the opposite way and the fringe idea could have been
that torture doesn't work (which I'm sure happened in a lot of situations)

~~~
rdtsc
> but the same discussion could have been constructed in the opposite way and
> the fringe idea could have been that torture doesn't work (which I'm sure
> happened in a lot of situations)

Could be, but not in this case. This is about torture. I would say living in a
civilized society, a society where torture is a despicable criminal act (that
is why my original comparison with rape) is more important than living in a
democracy.

Doing stuff in the name of an ideology (democracy) is a also a problem. There
were a lot atrocities and murders and other horrible things also committed in
the names ideologies. That is, claiming things like "it's ok to engage in
these things, because we live in a democracy and that is what we do in
democracy". I would rather not live in a democracy but live in a country where
torture is not a debatable topic to discuss for sane people.

------
harryf
That torture doesn't work to extract information has been known anecdotally at
least since the 2nd world war - read up on Hans Scharf -
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanns_Scharff](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanns_Scharff)

But tortute does work when your goal is oppressing large populations;
instilling fear and control. This is the discussion the US ought to be
having... what wa the real policy behind torture?

~~~
vlehto
Yes. If CIA would actually worry about the terrorist, then the terrorists
still free would be 1. concern. They are really hard to catch, no matter how
you try.

Now if you go torture route, you might get some information that is quickly
getting dated. But you also validate the terrorist cause. And terrorists in
hostage situations don't want to surrender, because they know they will be
tortured.

If you would treat captured terrorists incredibly nicely, that would cause
huge moral decay and risk of snitching to the terrorists who are still free.
This is in line with Sun Tzu from few thousand years back "always reward a
traitor, never trust him". Also U.S. domestic terrorism called "mafia" was
best fought with witness protection program.

CIA isn't stupid. They do torture for some reason.

~~~
arca_vorago
I think you unknowingly answered the real question: what is the purpose of
torture? Almost everyone here is assuming it is to extract information and
save lives with that information, but I would venture to say that is not
nearly as often the case as most would like to think.

If we look at the other possible reasons, some things make sense. One thing to
keep in mind is that torture is rare. The majority who end up at places like
Gitmo don't get tortured (treated badly, yes, but rarely tortured). The real
people who get tortured are much more likely to be at a blacksite no one knows
about.

There is an interesting pattern though, I have noticed, which is the turning
of targets into double agents and releasing them back in the wild.

Now, another thing to remember is The Company started MKUltra a long time ago.
They have surely highly improved the mental breakdown/buildup process since
then. If you stop assuming the purpose of torture is to gather information,
things will make much more sense.

Also, like you said: "you validate the terrorist cause". What a useful side
effect for those who seem to be invested in destabilizing certain areas of the
world...

~~~
vlehto
I think that's good speculation. But with bit of Hanlons Razor, that seems bit
too good picture of CIA. They are not stupid, but they are still a fallible
organization.

I think their priorities are: existence of CIA, genuine concern for safety of
U.S., geopolitical power of U.S.

Maybe they we're really clueless. And decided to waterboard people so they
would be "doing something" so they could try to justify existence of CIA. Or
maybe they wanted to show to Mossad that they get to do shit too. As an
intelligence saber rattling. We really don't know.

------
klausvanvinkle
Whether torture is right/wrong good/bad boils down very simply.

First, let's assume that torture works (i.e. it gives us the answers we want).
If we assume it doesn't work then there's no point in torture or this debate.
There will always be people who claim that torture works, so let's just assume
it does indeed work excellently and 100% of the time.

Second, assume that many innocent people are falsely accused and convicted,
because that is true (if you don't believe that, just look at the Innocence
Project).

Third, if we know that innocent people are sometimes falsely accused and
convicted, then it means it could happen to you, your parents, your children.

So now the only question you have to answer is: Are you OK with the scenario
where you, an innocent and falsely accused individual, are tortured, in the
interest of public safety? If you are not OK with that happening to you or
your children, then you cannot support torture for anyone else either. If you
are OK with that, then you have two tasks: 1) when are you volunteering as a
torture subject to prove you aren't just saying that, and 2) you must convince
everyone else that they should be OK with that if it happens to them (or 51%
of the population in a democracy). You might succeed on 1) (doubtful) but you
will fail on 2) if all of those people also have to complete task 1).

The conclusion is that it's impossible to torture without introducing a
double-standard. Sure, we can do that, but that has the same logic as a law
like "I can do anything I want, and you can do nothing, because I'm me and
you're not me"?

~~~
SilasX
I'm not okay with innocent family members being imprisoned.

Therefore, no one should be imprisoned ever.

~~~
Nononce
Based on your statement, the correct conclusion would be that no /innocent/
person should be imprisoned, ever. (To which I agree).

Torture, like drone murders, false convictions, does and will continue to
effect many, many innocent people. It's a matter of moral; is it acceptable to
to torture/kill innocent people to accomplish an object or not.

Personally, I cannot for the life of me justify torture. Torture, unlike
ending someone's life, is something the victim will have to live through, and
possible, with, for the rest of his life.

It's disgusting to do this to any living thing, let alone a human being.

~~~
SilasX
>Based on your statement, the correct conclusion would be that no /innocent/
person should be imprisoned, ever. (To which I agree).

But the OP was trying to extrapolate from there to "so no one should be
tortuted (simply to avoid doing so to an innocent)", and that inference is
what I was criticizing.

------
saiya-jin
My far biggest experience with physical pain was getting big tattoo on the
back, 4x4 hour sessions. (got some bones broken, but that's not the same level
of pain, and body releases some calming stuff to bloodstream, so really not
comparable).

Every of those 4 hours, the experience of lying on my stomach, and having a
pizza-cutter running through my back here & there. The most sensitive parts
are around the spine (understandable) and on the sides of back (not really
sure why). The goal is not to twitch or move much, so some sort of mental
self-control is necessary. First +-2 hours were cca OK, but after that, even
lower amount of pain, presented with high spikes and almost constantly ate
away my willpower.

After each session, I felt like a small baby, able to navigate back home and
perform simple mental tasks, but severely worn off, and mentally weak. I
understand this is just a glimpse from a distance to real torture,
uncontrolled, when you know you can die from it, or end up disabled in most
horrible weays for human being.

But it works, to some degree, on some levels. If you want to break somebody,
it is one of the ways. The question is, how usable will the individual be
after breaking, and your goal (get info, instill fear, or just destroy human
being).

------
bayesianhorse
"People Are willing to forgo money to talk to others about themselves."

A rationale for psychotherapy! (Not that there are no other benefits, of
course)

------
larrysalibra
Torture isn't conducted to improve the ability of the victim to recall
information but as a negotiating tactic. I'll give you what you want: to stop
being tortured, if you tell me what I want to know.

~~~
venomsnake
There is a problem with that - even true facts could be deceiving. The only
way to verify outside of checking is to continue torturing which defeats the
reasons for the person surrendering the information in the first place.

~~~
nickff
Not necessarily; you could torture someone for something like a key to an
encrypted file. This is something difficult to guess, but easy to verify the
correctness of. I am not saying that torture is justified in this scenario,
but only that it is not true that "to verify outside of checking is to
continue torturing which defeats the reasons for the person surrendering the
information in the first place".

~~~
venomsnake
TrueCrypt plausible deniability. Once I have surrendered the key for the
outside container, what do you do?

~~~
AlphaGeekZulu
The introduction of plausible deniability in encryption is actually the
ultimate nightmare from an ethic perspective:

The torturer, of course, knows about plausible deniability. And of course,
technically, plausible deniability is not limited to two levels (outer and
inner volume), but can be performed on an arbitrary number of levels. From the
torturer perspective, he has to continue to torture forever, because any
passphrase revealed might not be the one for the "true" stash of information.
In reality, the torturer does not stop at the first possible instance of
revelation, but on the last (which will never be in this case).

Plausible deniability actually prevents the torturer from rewarding the victim
for the revelation of information by ending his/her pain. Instead, plausible
deniability opens the spiral of endless violence.

------
littletimmy
Why is this a topic of conversation? Even if torture worked it would not be
ethical and the people doing it would be immoral.

~~~
sirrocco
If your daughter and wife were kidnapped by 2 people and you catch one of
them, would you torture him to save them? What if you learned that they are
being raped every day? Would you torture him then ?

What if you knew they do this every two weeks to another family, would you do
it then?

What if you caught someone that has a habit of planting bombs in schools,
would you do it then ?

I don't know if torture works or it doesn't, but it's certainly a topic worth
having a conversation over.

~~~
vacri
Hand them over to the police and let them deal with it - they're _far_ better
at interrogating people for information, and far better resourced for a rescue
operation.

~~~
sirrocco
I was giving a couple of examples in reply to the "Why is this a topic of
conversation?" question. It's not meant to be taken literally as a plan to
save someone.

I'm just saying that it's worth having a conversation over.

PS: what's up with the downvotes in this thread ?

~~~
reddytowns
It's often used as a way for a person to shut someone up when they don't have
an argument. Seriously, karma should really be called groupthink points.

~~~
vacri
Downvotes can just mean 'I disagree'. It's stupid and wrong and confuses
everyone new since it ghosts the comment, but it's the sanctioned action of HN
since time immemorial. The argument has been had many times before, but it's
acceptable HN behaviour. If you look in my profile, you'll see a screed
against the moderation system that was written about four years ago...

Basically just suck it up and don't read too much into the "I disagree"s.

------
pakled_engineer
Admitting anything under torture just invites more torture. The IRA "green
book" and despatches from the French/Algerian war confirm how worthless
torture is for gathering intelligence. Bribery should be tried instead of
barbarism.

------
saganus
I think that sometimes there's another factor that gets overseen when
discussing torture.

The "problem" that I believe is also tried to be addressed with torture is the
view that the society that "supports torture" (via their government, even if
against the opinion of most people) can't let leniency get in the way of
righteous retribution against their enemies.

Imagine if someone invents a pill that is literally the "truth serum", and
that the subject taking it can't lie for say an hour or so.

Would that end torture? If torture's only objective is to get information then
it should.

But what if torture is really filling another role? one that is not
satisfiable by information but by inflicting pain on your enemy?

I'm not defending torture by any means, and I do think it should be something
that we as humanity should strive to end. But it seems like more often than
not you can find people that would not defend torture, "except in cases of
extreme need", i.e. when they need retribution.

It would be interesting to do some research on what victims of crime and
violence, and their families, think about what it would be "fair" to do to
their offenders. Maybe it turns out most won't be willing to inflict pain in
others, or maybe it turns out most people are vengeful and would like to see
their enemies suffer.

If the case is the latter, then I think the main problem with torture would be
not as a tool to obtain information, but as a tool to inflict retribution.

What if a society that is mainly governed by people of the second kind get a
hold of the ability to torture? e.g. CIA interrogators, people that sign
torture orders, etc? then in their minds it would be justifiable, even if the
activity doesn't yield any useful information.

If it does, then they get the information AND retribution. If they don't get
truthful information then they still get retribution.

That's why I think torture is a subject so hard for officials to understand
the damage it can cause. As long as they think retribution in this form is OK,
then it will be very hard to end this practice.

------
kbutler
Man who says it cannot be done should not interrupt man doing it. (As opposed
to man who says it should not be done.)

The "should" question boils down to, "How much harm can we morally inflict on
some individual(s) in order to benefit others?"

Torture is the extreme end of the "harm" spectrum, but when we vote in favor
of government benefits or taxes, we vote to harm some in order to benefit
others.

Individuals and societies differ in how much harm is allowable and in how much
benefit justifies a given amount or type of harm.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Torture is the extreme end of the "harm" spectrum, but when we vote in favor
> of government benefits or taxes

Or exclusive monopolies in the form of "property rights", for that matter. A
big part of the some moral theories of benefits and taxation is that they
should be aligned, so far as possible, to, taken into consideration with
property rights, be a mitigator of the harms due to property rights, while
reducing the benefits of those who benefit the most from those rights (without
making a net harm for any, and leaving the whole system as net gain for
everyone, because its not zero sum.)

------
001sky
"O'Mara takes a moral stand against torture (forced retrieval of information
from the memories of the unwilling)"

The scope of this is so limited to be a self fulfilling prohpesy...

~~~
TeMPOraL
Isn't torture supposed to first make you willing, and then have you reveal
information without need of force? /s.

~~~
jleader
If torture makes you willing, doesn't that mean that when the torture starts,
you're unwilling?

And are you really arguing that torture doesn't involve the use of force?

~~~
TeMPOraL
I was just playing with the quoted definition. I even added a sarcasm tag!

:).

------
NN88
I'm pretty sure torture works to some degree, but its unconscionable to
legitimize without people taking any liberty to go forward.

------
yeukhon
The basis of torture is on fear and pain. This works on those who are weak and
easy to break. But like other commenters said it is hard to tell lying and
truth. Sometimes, the person who finally speaks the truth doesn't even know if
the information he/she has is even true.

------
kaonashi
Depends on what you mean by 'work'. It's great for eliciting false
confessions, less so for actionable intelligence.

------
chroma
I think torture should be illegal and I think the "enhanced interrogation"
techniques used at Guantanamo are abhorrent. But I also think there are real-
world scenarios in which torture is not only moral, but where it would be
_immoral_ _not_ to torture. This sounds absurd, but consider this real-life
case given in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy[1]: A woman's car is
stolen. Unknown to the thief, her child is sleeping in the back seat. The
thief discovers the baby and ditches the car. The police soon catch him at a
train station. CCTV footage shows him stealing the car. It's over 100ºF out. A
police officer describes the incident:

> In the police truck on the way to the police station: “Where did you leave
> the Hyundai?” Denial instead of dissimulation: “It wasn't me.” It
> was—property stolen from the car was found in his pockets. In the
> detectives' office: “It's been twenty minutes since you took the car—little
> tin box like that car—It will heat up like an oven under this sun. Another
> twenty minutes and the child's dead or brain damaged. Where did you dump the
> car?” Again: “It wasn't me.”

> Appeals to decency, to reason, to self-interest: “It's not too late; tell us
> where you left the car and you will only be charged with Take-and-Use.
> That's just a six month extension of your recognizance.” Threats: “If the
> child dies I will charge you with Manslaughter!” Sneering, defiant and
> belligerent; he made no secret of his contempt for the police. Part-way
> through his umpteenth, “It wasn't me”, a questioner clipped him across the
> ear as if he were a child, an insult calculated to bring the Islander to his
> feet to fight, there a body-punch elicited a roar of pain, but he fought
> back until he lapsed into semi-consciousness under a rain of blows. He quite
> enjoyed handing out a bit of biffo, but now, kneeling on hands and knees in
> his own urine, in pain he had never known, he finally realised the beating
> would go on until he told the police where he had abandoned the child and
> the car.

> The police officers' statements in the prosecution brief made no mention of
> the beating; the location of the stolen vehicle and the infant inside it was
> portrayed as having been volunteered by the defendant. The defendant's
> counsel availed himself of this falsehood in his plea in mitigation. When
> found, the stolen child was dehydrated, too weak to cry; there were ice
> packs and dehydration in the casualty ward but no long-time prognosis on
> brain damage.

As much as we may wish otherwise, the answers to moral questions aren't always
simple. Every time I've related this story, it has convinced my interlocutor
that torture can sometimes be moral. Again, that doesn't mean it should be
legal or systematized. To make an analogy with less emotional weight: theft
and trespassing are illegal, but they're sometimes right. One might trespass
to get someone to a hospital more quickly. Or one might steal something so it
can be used for some life-saving measure. People accept these rare, one-off
situations. So too it should be with torture.

1\.
[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/torture/#CasStuBea](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/torture/#CasStuBea)

~~~
chillacy
If you're going for utilitarian points then yes, in the story to torture and
save the child causes less overall damage. The problem is (as always with
utilitarian scenarios like these) that you can only know when to torture or
not if you're omniscient. What happens if the guy is innocent? Or what happens
if the kid is already dead or the car is too remote to reach in time no matter
what you do to the criminal? (In both cases, not torturing is the more
utilitarian solution, since the kid will be dead no matter what).

~~~
chroma
In this case, the police were all but certain they had the right man. There
was video footage of him stealing the car. He had valuables from the car in
his pockets. Likewise, the police were pretty sure the baby was still alive.
It had only been 20 minutes since the car had been stolen. Based on these
likelihoods, they thought beating information out of this man was worthwhile.
I can't fault their judgement.

We deal with the same sort of uncertainty when sending people to prison. We
accept that at some point, the likelihood of guilt is high enough to warrant
imprisonment. Set this threshold too high, many criminals go free. Set this
threshold too low, many innocent people go to prison. Because determining
guilt or innocence is noisy, you're always going to false positives and false
negatives. It's a trade-off; you pick a threshold that does the most good.

~~~
chillacy
That's true. There's also the tricky business of picking what the formula for
good is. In the US, false positives are heavily weighted and false negatives
aren't as much. Something like Blackstone's Principle:

"It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer"

------
JohnIdol
Jack Bauer would beg to differ.

