The Ethics of Human Rights (54): Torture, Consequentialism and Tainted Goods

scene from the tv-series "24"

Those who defend torture normally do so on consequentialist grounds. They posit cases such as the “ticking time bomb” in which the harm done by torture is insignificant compared to the good it does. The consequences of torture are clearly beneficial, overall: OK, it does some harm to an individual terrorist who has hidden the bomb but at the same time it saves thousands or millions of lives. When so many lives are at stake, a utilitarian calculus will clearly show that the good that will follow from torture outweighs the good that will follow from the refusal to torture.

Usually, we see a kind of threshold consequentialism rather than a pure consequentialism at work in such arguments: if torture can produce one more unit of “utility” (wellbeing, life, etc.) than the refusal to torture, most consequentialists wouldn’t allow torture. The good consequences of torture must far outweigh rather than marginally outweigh the harm it clearly does. Hence the hypotheticals in examples such as the ticking bomb, in which it’s posited that very many lives are at stake. We are allowed to supersede the deontological rule that one shouldn’t torture only beyond a certain threshold of harmful consequences that would result from sticking to the rule. As someone has said, lost lives hurt a lot more than bent principles. Strict moral absolutism, whatever the possible consequences, can indeed land you in all sorts of problems.

a witch being tortured

However, let’s look a bit closer at this seemingly convincing argument. We can overlook some of the possible difficulties and still conclude that the argument is unsatisfactory. Let’s not dwell on the likelihood that in real cases, the numbers of possible terrorist victims is rather small, while the number of people who have to be tortured is probably higher than one: you may need to torture some people before you find the one who has the necessary information about the location of the bomb; then you may need to torture his friends and family because he’s trained to resist torture and because he knows that if he resists for a short time, the bomb will go off. So let’s forget that the utilitarian calculus will most likely be less unequivocal than assumed in the argument above: we’ll never or only very rarely have cases in which torture produces a very small harm and at the same time a very large benefit. The harm and benefit will be much closer to each other.

Let’s also not dwell on the fact that the greater good thinking of the argument puts the torturer on the same footing as the terrorist. The latter also assumes that he fights for a greater good and that the harm he does is small compared to the benefits this harm will produce. The similarity between torturer and terrorist is all the more striking if the torturer has convinced himself that it’s necessary to torture the innocent (when the terrorist himself doesn’t speak fast enough). Putting ourselves on the same level as terrorists means giving up our identity to save ourselves, which really is pointless. If that is correct then we have to remodel the utilitarian calculus: the harm done by self-destruction is probably greater than the suffering caused by exceptional terrorists attacks. So even the utilitarianism of the greater good doesn’t justify torture.

But let’s assume that none of this speaks against the standard consequentialist justification of torture and that we manage to use torture in a way that saves many many lives, that doesn’t impose a high cost, and that doesn’t put us on the same level as the terrorists. So we can save ourselves, our identity and the lives of many of our fellow citizens. Still, the “good” that we achieve through torture is tainted by the methods necessary to achieve it. The notion, inherent in the consequentialist justification of torture, that certain goods can be attainted by problematic means, is itself problematic. We can save ourselves, but once we are saved we believe that our success has been tainted by the immoral methods used to achieve it. We may not be willing to enjoy this success and the goods we have if they have been secured by way of torture.

Jeremy Waldron has interesting things to say about tainted goods. Read this for example.

Moral Dilemma (16): The Senator and the Bus Ticket

Suppose you’re a US Senator (no, not this one) and you’re on your way to an important Senate session where it should be decided if there will be an extension of unemployment benefits because of the high levels of unemployment resulting from the recession. What’s more, you’re most likely to cast the deciding vote in favor of an extension. However, your chauffeur is sick and you have to take the bus. You’re at the bus station with a few minutes to spare but unfortunately you notice that you forgot your wallet at home.

You try to persuade the officials in the bus station to let you on free of charge, without success (you’re not a pretty famous Senator, yet). Your attempts to convince fellow travelers to lend you the money are also unsuccessful (unfortunately for you, the bus station is packed with Tea Party Protesters on their way home and you made the mistake of explaining what you’re up to).

You sit down and hang your head in despair when you spot a wallet lying on the ground just beside the handbag of a woman sitting next to you. The woman looks reasonably well-to-do. The wallet may be hers, but perhaps it’s not. You notice a ten dollar bill sticking out and you realize that this is your only chance to get to the Senate on time.

If yes, and afterward a journalist finds out what happened,

In general, do you think that small harms are a reasonable price to pay for large benefits and that some moral rules (the rule against stealing for example, or – as it may be – the rule of giving back found property) may be sidelined when larger moral issues are at stake?

If yes, how far are you willing to go? Would you allow the Senator to kick people out of the bus and thereby harming them or perhaps even killing them, in order to secure a place inside?

Do you believe that the Senator picking up the wallet is just the same thing as the government taxing people to pay for other people’s unemployment benefits?

Do you think that the bystanders who refused to lend the Senator money, even if they were politically motivated, were guilty of selfishness?

Or do you perhaps think that they wrongly “gamed” the democratic process and should not have intervened out of respect for proper democratic procedures, even if these procedures would lead to an outcome they don’t like?

And you can still vote on our previous moral dilemmas here.