Torture for Dummies: Exploding Krauthammer's "ticking bomb" argument

[Thom Little]

By Michael Kinsley
Slate
Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2005


That hypothetical terrorist with a nuke is central to the most (maybe the only) articulate argument against the McCain bill. The argument, made by Charles Krauthammer in the Weekly Standard, is, in a nutshell: 1) No rational moral calculus could possibly justify sacrificing a million innocent lives in order to spare the would-be mass murderer a few minutes of pain. And 2) once you accept that torture would be justified in one situation, avoiding the use of torture on other situations is no longer a moral imperative. The question becomes where you draw the line.

In law school, they call this second point, "salami-slicing." You start with a seemingly solid principle, then start slicing: If you would torture to save a million lives, would you do it for half a million? A thousand? Two dozen? What if there's only a two-out-of-three chance that person you're torturing has the crucial information? A 50-50 chance? One chance in 10? At what point does your moral calculus change, and why? Slice the salami too far, and the formerly solid principle disappears.

Krauthammer stops at two slices. In addition to the terrorist-with-a-nuke, he also would torture a high-level terrorist to get information that is needed on a "slower fuse." When there is less urgency, he says, "the level of inhumanity" of the torture should be "proportionate to the need and value of the information." He has sundry other requirements involving procedures for authorizing torture and keeping the military out of it. This last one is not because (based on recent experience) he doesn't trust soldiers with truncheons and electrodes, but because he believes that the military should not be tainted by the sordid business of torture.

.......

But where do Krauthammer's rules come from? They have no obvious connection to the reasoning he uses to endorse torture in principle. They are just his opinion. This makes their careful limits more alarming than reassuring. There is no reason to suppose that if Krauthammer's reasoning was accepted, the result would be Krauthammer's rules. Once we are rid of the childish notion of an absolute ban on torture, there is no telling where adult minds may take us.



http://www.slate.com/id/2132195/nav/tap1/

[uppityperson]

1. Ignore Krauthammer. He is a narrow-minded -conservative-know-it-all

He is on my list of people to run away from, screaming, if I were to ever meet him.

[chookie]

2. If you thought 1200 Americans still be alive...

...would you have elected to go to war with a nation that did not threaten us?

BS

[PDJane]

3. Listening to or reading

Krauthammer would be my definition of torture; I'd do almost anything to shut him up.

Other than that, of course, I don't accept that torture is acceptable or useful in any situation.

[BlueEyedSon]

4. 1200?

[Kablooie]

5. The others would have died by natural causes anyway.

[depakid]

8. I might do something different

So it's a good thing I've never met the sick excuse for a human being.

[centristo]

6. kind of a moot point in one respect

if the CIA or FBI caught a guy they KNEW had information on a pending nuclear/biological WMD bomb (the ticking time bomb scenario) they would interrogate/torture the hell out of him regardless of any pro or anti-torture legislation on the books. I think most pragmatists would agree that right or wrong, this is how it would go down. So then the issue becomes, how do you punish the law-enforcement people who violate the anti-torture laws?

[classysassy]

7. Hammerhead

yo chuck go p--- up a rope.

[sojourner]

9. when all is said and done. and this administration is brought to justice,

i say we throw all the human scum into one huge vat - then contrive a shortage of food or power or ???. then let them go after each other. i think they'll end up torturing each other..... and i'd have it no other way!