Comments on: The ticking bomb problem http://crookedtimber.org/2004/05/12/the-ticking-bomb-problem/ Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made Fri, 25 May 2012 22:26:27 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: tombo http://crookedtimber.org/2004/05/12/the-ticking-bomb-problem/comment-page-2/#comment-28198 tombo Fri, 14 May 2004 01:12:12 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=1550#comment-28198 Before this thread veers further into academic seminar lounge status, here's a very real situation. At this moment we have in our custody Khalid Muhammed, the Chief Operating Officer, as it were, of Al Qaeda. He was captured in the Philippines last fall and is now being held, I suppose, deep inside an aircraft carrier somewhere off the coast of Diego Garcia or some other remote and secure location. Khalid Muhammed is believed to be the top AQ gruppenfuehrer (# 3, after ObL and Zawahiri) who devised the 9/11 mass murders and the masked terrorist who sawed off Danny Pearl’s head. He has confessed to plotting to repeat the 9/11 mass murders, this time by hijacking and blowing out of the sky numerous airliners over the Pacific Ocean. Here’s the only hypothetical part: say that a) we know that this week, as per Khalid M’s plans, his fascist operatives are planning an atrocity on a scale even larger than 9/11 and that b) my (or let’s say, your) sister has urgent business that will require her to board an airliner crossing the Pacific this week. Khalid M refuses to release any details other than that the atrocity will take place this week. Do you torture Khalid M for this information that can save many thousands of innocent lives? Before this thread veers further into academic seminar lounge status, here’s a very real situation. At this moment we have in our custody Khalid Muhammed, the Chief Operating Officer, as it were, of Al Qaeda. He was captured in the Philippines last fall and is now being held, I suppose, deep inside an aircraft carrier somewhere off the coast of Diego Garcia or some other remote and secure location. Khalid Muhammed is believed to be the top AQ gruppenfuehrer (# 3, after ObL and Zawahiri) who devised the 9/11 mass murders and the masked terrorist who sawed off Danny Pearl’s head. He has confessed to plotting to repeat the 9/11 mass murders, this time by hijacking and blowing out of the sky numerous airliners over the Pacific Ocean. Here’s the only hypothetical part: say that a) we know that this week, as per Khalid M’s plans, his fascist operatives are planning an atrocity on a scale even larger than 9/11 and that b) my (or let’s say, your) sister has urgent business that will require her to board an airliner crossing the Pacific this week. Khalid M refuses to release any details other than that the atrocity will take place this week. Do you torture Khalid M for this information that can save many thousands of innocent lives?

]]> By: joe http://crookedtimber.org/2004/05/12/the-ticking-bomb-problem/comment-page-2/#comment-28197 joe Fri, 14 May 2004 00:01:45 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=1550#comment-28197 Thorley: "No" OK then. My morality says that "torturing" another person is equivalent to "sawing my own legs off", cuz we're all brothers and sisters, man. (Really.) Thorley: “No” OK then. My morality says that “torturing” another person is equivalent to “sawing my own legs off”, cuz we’re all brothers and sisters, man. (Really.)

]]> By: joe http://crookedtimber.org/2004/05/12/the-ticking-bomb-problem/comment-page-2/#comment-28196 joe Thu, 13 May 2004 23:43:22 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=1550#comment-28196 As others have pointed out, the "compelling" situation of protecting the lives of "millions" of innocent people is not so compelling when epistemological uncertainty is introduced. It is factually uncertain whether the suspect really has the necessary information. For the guilt of the suspect to become "certain" at some point one must make a morally consequential decision to accept that the evidence "proves" they do indeed have the information. This final "leap" of conviction is based on emotions. So yes, the decision is based "on my own emotions". It is an "existential" decision. This is *unavoidable*. (And so much for Kierkegaard.) The underlying question then arises: what is the *quality* of my emotions on which these decisions are ultimately based? Can we even speak of such things? How? I contend that only in terms of such a discussion could the issues raised here be properly addressed. Thorley suggests that in my previous remarks I was unable to provide a better definition of "torture" than "the intentional infliction of pain" and therefore it was absurd to suggest that "torture" = "abandonment of humanity". But *that* is my definition: "the intentional infliction of pain to such a degree that it constitutes abandonment of humanity". No doubt many readers think this argument is even more absurd than the first. What then is "humanity"? they ask. I respond: you mean you don't know? But I think you do. Why else are we all agreed that the ticking bomb endangering millions is something that we must stop? But, the participants of this thread have all no doubt read Camus' _The Rebel_ very thoroughly, and as I am simply repeating its fundamental argument, I am boring them, surely. As others have pointed out, the “compelling” situation of protecting the lives of “millions” of innocent people is not so compelling when epistemological uncertainty is introduced. It is factually uncertain whether the suspect really has the necessary information. For the guilt of the suspect to become “certain” at some point one must make a morally consequential decision to accept that the evidence “proves” they do indeed have the information. This final “leap” of conviction is based on emotions. So yes, the decision is based “on my own emotions”. It is an “existential” decision. This is unavoidable. (And so much for Kierkegaard.) The underlying question then arises: what is the quality of my emotions on which these decisions are ultimately based? Can we even speak of such things? How? I contend that only in terms of such a discussion could the issues raised here be properly addressed. Thorley suggests that in my previous remarks I was unable to provide a better definition of “torture” than “the intentional infliction of pain” and therefore it was absurd to suggest that “torture” = “abandonment of humanity”. But that is my definition: “the intentional infliction of pain to such a degree that it constitutes abandonment of humanity”. No doubt many readers think this argument is even more absurd than the first. What then is “humanity”? they ask. I respond: you mean you don’t know? But I think you do. Why else are we all agreed that the ticking bomb endangering millions is something that we must stop? But, the participants of this thread have all no doubt read Camus’ The Rebel very thoroughly, and as I am simply repeating its fundamental argument, I am boring them, surely.

]]> By: Thorley Winston http://crookedtimber.org/2004/05/12/the-ticking-bomb-problem/comment-page-2/#comment-28195 Thorley Winston Thu, 13 May 2004 23:43:21 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=1550#comment-28195 No No

]]> By: joe http://crookedtimber.org/2004/05/12/the-ticking-bomb-problem/comment-page-2/#comment-28194 joe Thu, 13 May 2004 23:25:35 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=1550#comment-28194 Thorley interprets my comments as trying to "skirt" the actual issue. I accept this as an accurate, though pejorative description from his point of view. I am claiming that the implicit presentation of the issue is faulty, and I am challenging it. (Hence the back-and-forth claims of misreading each other.) Let me turn this thought experiment around. What if the terror suspect says to his interrogator: "I can and will resist any form of torture. However, I am thoroughly insane. Therefore, if you saw your own legs off before my eyes with an electric chainsaw, I will cheerfully give you the information that you may then use to save the lives of millions. However, if you will not do this, they will certainly die." He is telling the truth about this. Thorley, would you blame the interrogator for the deaths of millions if he refuses? Thorley interprets my comments as trying to “skirt” the actual issue. I accept this as an accurate, though pejorative description from his point of view. I am claiming that the implicit presentation of the issue is faulty, and I am challenging it. (Hence the back-and-forth claims of misreading each other.) Let me turn this thought experiment around. What if the terror suspect says to his interrogator: “I can and will resist any form of torture. However, I am thoroughly insane. Therefore, if you saw your own legs off before my eyes with an electric chainsaw, I will cheerfully give you the information that you may then use to save the lives of millions. However, if you will not do this, they will certainly die.” He is telling the truth about this. Thorley, would you blame the interrogator for the deaths of millions if he refuses?

]]> By: Thorley Winston http://crookedtimber.org/2004/05/12/the-ticking-bomb-problem/comment-page-2/#comment-28193 Thorley Winston Thu, 13 May 2004 21:25:02 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=1550#comment-28193 Joe wrote: <blockquote> Context, friend. We are talking about representatives of the state torturing terrorists to uncover dangers. That sort of torture is “abandoning humanity” in my view.</blockquote> Based on what standard other than you own emotions? <blockquote> But your claim that I equate torture with “pain in every circumstance” is the product of your imagination.</blockquote> A claim that is the product of Joe’s imagination or misreading of my previous comments. If you have a definition of torture (I’m open to one other than the “intentional infliction of pain”) that you prefer, let’s have it. If you have a situation more compelling than trying to protect the lives of millions of innocent people (the hypothetical case in question), let’s hear it. Otherwise this seems to be Joe trying to skirt the actual issue. Joe wrote:
Context, friend. We are talking about representatives of the state torturing terrorists to uncover dangers. That sort of torture is “abandoning humanity” in my view.
Based on what standard other than you own emotions?
But your claim that I equate torture with “pain in every circumstance” is the product of your imagination.
A claim that is the product of Joe’s imagination or misreading of my previous comments. If you have a definition of torture (I’m open to one other than the “intentional infliction of pain”) that you prefer, let’s have it. If you have a situation more compelling than trying to protect the lives of millions of innocent people (the hypothetical case in question), let’s hear it. Otherwise this seems to be Joe trying to skirt the actual issue.

]]> By: Randy Paul http://crookedtimber.org/2004/05/12/the-ticking-bomb-problem/comment-page-2/#comment-28192 Randy Paul Thu, 13 May 2004 19:50:17 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=1550#comment-28192 I'll defer to the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/09/weekinreview/09glan.html?ex=1399435200&en=758ffbe26e63800a&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND">experience of those who actually conduct interrogations</a> (i.e., professionals): <blockquote>''You've got to be able to count on the quality of the information you're obtaining,'' said Michael Baker, a 16-year veteran of the C.I.A. who is now chief executive of Diligence Middle East, a private security company that is working in Iraq. ''And once the prisoner is being tortured, how do you rely on what he's saying, because people will do anything to make the torture go away,'' Mr. Baker said.</blockquote> I’ll defer to the experience of those who actually conduct interrogations (i.e., professionals):
‘’You’ve got to be able to count on the quality of the information you’re obtaining,’’ said Michael Baker, a 16-year veteran of the C.I.A. who is now chief executive of Diligence Middle East, a private security company that is working in Iraq. ‘’And once the prisoner is being tortured, how do you rely on what he’s saying, because people will do anything to make the torture go away,’’ Mr. Baker said.

]]> By: joe http://crookedtimber.org/2004/05/12/the-ticking-bomb-problem/comment-page-2/#comment-28191 joe Thu, 13 May 2004 19:29:37 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=1550#comment-28191 Thorley: “How many human lives must be saved to justify a moral agent’s abandoning their humanity?” That question presumes that there is something akin got “abandoning their humanity” in inflicting pain in every circumstance. Context, friend. We are talking about representatives of the state *torturing* terrorists to uncover dangers. That sort of torture is "abandoning humanity" in my view. But your claim that I equate torture with "pain in every circumstance" is the product of your imagination. It is fully human, for example, to punch people in the head who triumphally refute tendentious misreadings of others' blog comments. (Joke) Matt: What objection is there to capitalizing the words "Right Thing" in the sentence "doing the Right Thing doesn't mean you will always like the outcome"? Surely we can agree on this without claiming to be able to identify the Right Thing. Also, I agree with you that the phrase "true moral clarity" just sounds awful. You don't know me, and people who use such phrases around tend to be overconfident crackpots, so I can't blame you for reacting as you did. I probably shouldn't have written it that way. However, the sentence as written: "true moral clarity ... has straight answers to hypothetical situations" should be uncontroversial, since it is a tautology. If you are clear on your morals, you can give clear answers to moral questions, i.e. "no torture under any circumstances" -- furthermore, if you are clear on your morals, you are not going to be buffaloed by outrageous hypotheticals into imagining that there are boundary cases. Hypotheticals such as this are more tests of whether the moral agent has fully thought his position through to the end (and will hold it when confronted with disagreeable entailments) than they are tests of the validity of the position. A rhetorical trick, not a dialectical one. Having said that, I agree generally with your comments. :-) But will no one respond to my suggestion that philosophical tidiness is a chimera here? I am a Kierkegaardian scholar and a fan of Camus. Which means in brief: some (obviously bad) moral choices can be rejected outright on the basis of argument, but none can be positively *chosen* on grounds other than subjective. Thorley, you (and others) may now slander these gentlemen or my alleged misunderstanding of them at your leisure. :-) Thorley: “How many human lives must be saved to justify a moral agent’s abandoning their humanity?” That question presumes that there is something akin got “abandoning their humanity” in inflicting pain in every circumstance. Context, friend. We are talking about representatives of the state torturing terrorists to uncover dangers. That sort of torture is “abandoning humanity” in my view. But your claim that I equate torture with “pain in every circumstance” is the product of your imagination. It is fully human, for example, to punch people in the head who triumphally refute tendentious misreadings of others’ blog comments. (Joke) Matt: What objection is there to capitalizing the words “Right Thing” in the sentence “doing the Right Thing doesn’t mean you will always like the outcome”? Surely we can agree on this without claiming to be able to identify the Right Thing. Also, I agree with you that the phrase “true moral clarity” just sounds awful. You don’t know me, and people who use such phrases around tend to be overconfident crackpots, so I can’t blame you for reacting as you did. I probably shouldn’t have written it that way. However, the sentence as written: “true moral clarity … has straight answers to hypothetical situations” should be uncontroversial, since it is a tautology. If you are clear on your morals, you can give clear answers to moral questions, i.e. “no torture under any circumstances”—furthermore, if you are clear on your morals, you are not going to be buffaloed by outrageous hypotheticals into imagining that there are boundary cases. Hypotheticals such as this are more tests of whether the moral agent has fully thought his position through to the end (and will hold it when confronted with disagreeable entailments) than they are tests of the validity of the position. A rhetorical trick, not a dialectical one. Having said that, I agree generally with your comments. :-) But will no one respond to my suggestion that philosophical tidiness is a chimera here? I am a Kierkegaardian scholar and a fan of Camus. Which means in brief: some (obviously bad) moral choices can be rejected outright on the basis of argument, but none can be positively chosen on grounds other than subjective. Thorley, you (and others) may now slander these gentlemen or my alleged misunderstanding of them at your leisure. :-)

]]> By: Thorley Winston http://crookedtimber.org/2004/05/12/the-ticking-bomb-problem/comment-page-2/#comment-28190 Thorley Winston Thu, 13 May 2004 18:15:14 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=1550#comment-28190 JDW wrote: <blockquote>So a guy goes into a police station and announces that he’s just planted a bomb somewhere in the city. Crack FBI Information Gatherers discover that he is a very tough nut to crack. Is it wrong to drag his mother into the room and start chopping off her fingers? </blockquote> If she’s an innocent bystander, absolutely it’s wrong (unless for some reason she consents). If she was complicit in planting the bomb (or some other comparable action), a terrorist herself or tried to protect him from the police, maybe not. JDW wrote:
So a guy goes into a police station and announces that he’s just planted a bomb somewhere in the city. Crack FBI Information Gatherers discover that he is a very tough nut to crack. Is it wrong to drag his mother into the room and start chopping off her fingers?
If she’s an innocent bystander, absolutely it’s wrong (unless for some reason she consents). If she was complicit in planting the bomb (or some other comparable action), a terrorist herself or tried to protect him from the police, maybe not.

]]> By: Thorley Winston http://crookedtimber.org/2004/05/12/the-ticking-bomb-problem/comment-page-2/#comment-28189 Thorley Winston Thu, 13 May 2004 18:02:03 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=1550#comment-28189 <blockquote>Most of the torture advocates on this thread, who so happen to be the same adovcating the war</blockquote> Sort of like how the same people self-righteously decrying the thought that torture of a terrorist to save innocent lives might even be justified or moral were the same ones who opposed overthrowing the dictatorship in Baghdad who thought it was great for laughs?
Most of the torture advocates on this thread, who so happen to be the same adovcating the war
Sort of like how the same people self-righteously decrying the thought that torture of a terrorist to save innocent lives might even be justified or moral were the same ones who opposed overthrowing the dictatorship in Baghdad who thought it was great for laughs?

]]> By: Mother Teresa with an Uzi http://crookedtimber.org/2004/05/12/the-ticking-bomb-problem/comment-page-2/#comment-28188 Mother Teresa with an Uzi Thu, 13 May 2004 15:50:11 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=1550#comment-28188 Most of the torture advocates on this thread, who so happen to be the same adovcating the war, would probably make Robespierre proud. Nothing like the random (yes i know you think you're application is scientific), use of violence to achieve the 'democratic dream'. Most of the torture advocates on this thread, who so happen to be the same adovcating the war, would probably make Robespierre proud. Nothing like the random (yes i know you think you’re application is scientific), use of violence to achieve the ‘democratic dream’.

]]> By: pepi http://crookedtimber.org/2004/05/12/the-ticking-bomb-problem/comment-page-2/#comment-28187 pepi Thu, 13 May 2004 11:47:00 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=1550#comment-28187 <i>So a guy goes into a police station and announces that he’s just planted a bomb somewhere in the city. Crack FBI Information Gatherers discover that he is a very tough nut to crack. Is it wrong to drag his mother into the room and start chopping off her fingers? The only reasons I can see for a yes answer smack of rank sentimentality.</i> So now laws have become a matter of rank sentimentality too? Nice. It doesn't matter anyway, whatever answer one may give to that question, because unlike moral dilemmas like euthanasia, situations where the terrorists turn themselves in, or are caught, and then tortured to extract ticking-bomb information, and that information turns out to be accurate, which one can't know beforehand but only after finding the bomb... only happen in action movies and tv series. In reality, historically, torture has always been used for intimidation purposes, most often by dictatorial regimes, against political dissidents. In that, it has sadly worked very well to its intended effect. I doubt, even if it had been as extensively used in anti-terrorism, it was ever proven to be working for its (supposed) intended effect in that context. When the purpose is not to crush dissidents, or just for the sheer sadistic "fun" of it, but to extract information, you're just as likely to get useful intelligence by consulting a oujia board. Anyone would say anything when under torture. They got nothing to lose. Especially if it's suicidal terrorists. I may be naive or optimistic, but I think the bulk of intelligence work very rarely involves getting info directly from terrorists. It's the kind of boring work that doesn't make for exciting movie plots or hypothetical dilemmas, that seems to have proven more effective. So a guy goes into a police station and announces that he’s just planted a bomb somewhere in the city. Crack FBI Information Gatherers discover that he is a very tough nut to crack. Is it wrong to drag his mother into the room and start chopping off her fingers? The only reasons I can see for a yes answer smack of rank sentimentality. So now laws have become a matter of rank sentimentality too? Nice. It doesn’t matter anyway, whatever answer one may give to that question, because unlike moral dilemmas like euthanasia, situations where the terrorists turn themselves in, or are caught, and then tortured to extract ticking-bomb information, and that information turns out to be accurate, which one can’t know beforehand but only after finding the bomb… only happen in action movies and tv series. In reality, historically, torture has always been used for intimidation purposes, most often by dictatorial regimes, against political dissidents. In that, it has sadly worked very well to its intended effect. I doubt, even if it had been as extensively used in anti-terrorism, it was ever proven to be working for its (supposed) intended effect in that context. When the purpose is not to crush dissidents, or just for the sheer sadistic “fun” of it, but to extract information, you’re just as likely to get useful intelligence by consulting a oujia board. Anyone would say anything when under torture. They got nothing to lose. Especially if it’s suicidal terrorists. I may be naive or optimistic, but I think the bulk of intelligence work very rarely involves getting info directly from terrorists. It’s the kind of boring work that doesn’t make for exciting movie plots or hypothetical dilemmas, that seems to have proven more effective.

]]> By: Simon Kinahan http://crookedtimber.org/2004/05/12/the-ticking-bomb-problem/comment-page-2/#comment-28186 Simon Kinahan Thu, 13 May 2004 10:53:19 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=1550#comment-28186 It seems to me that the "ticking bomb" hypothetical is engineered to produce the answer that torture is sometimes necessary, but that it is built on unrealistic assumptions that never apply in reality, and which make the conclusion invalid for some of the purposes for which it is used: to argue for judicially sanctioned torture, for example. In particular, the hypothetical situation supposes a degree of certainty that the person caught really is guilty and has the information required that never seems to exist in real cases. Far more often, torture is justified retrospectively using information that was extracted through it, even if that then turns out to be unreliable. It seems to me that the “ticking bomb” hypothetical is engineered to produce the answer that torture is sometimes necessary, but that it is built on unrealistic assumptions that never apply in reality, and which make the conclusion invalid for some of the purposes for which it is used: to argue for judicially sanctioned torture, for example. In particular, the hypothetical situation supposes a degree of certainty that the person caught really is guilty and has the information required that never seems to exist in real cases. Far more often, torture is justified retrospectively using information that was extracted through it, even if that then turns out to be unreliable.

]]> By: jdw http://crookedtimber.org/2004/05/12/the-ticking-bomb-problem/comment-page-1/#comment-28185 jdw Thu, 13 May 2004 06:25:33 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=1550#comment-28185 So a guy goes into a police station and announces that he's just planted a bomb somewhere in the city. Crack FBI Information Gatherers discover that he is a very tough nut to crack. Is it wrong to drag his mother into the room and start chopping off her fingers? The only reasons I can see for a yes answer smack of rank sentimentality. So a guy goes into a police station and announces that he’s just planted a bomb somewhere in the city. Crack FBI Information Gatherers discover that he is a very tough nut to crack. Is it wrong to drag his mother into the room and start chopping off her fingers? The only reasons I can see for a yes answer smack of rank sentimentality.

]]> By: Zizka http://crookedtimber.org/2004/05/12/the-ticking-bomb-problem/comment-page-1/#comment-28184 Zizka Thu, 13 May 2004 06:18:55 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=1550#comment-28184 Damn! I missed Thorley. Damn! Damn! Damn! I missed Thorley. Damn! Damn!

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