Krauthammer on Torture

Krauthammer has an interesting piece on torture that I read through yesterday. I was just too lazy to post on it, until now. He pretty much demostrates a view on torture that I'm pretty much in full agreement with. Though I would probably extend a couple of the definitions into battlefield scenarios.

I'm not sure I agree with his stand on McCain having great moral authority on torture because he was himself tortured. In fact I would say that he loses that authority due to his experience.

Krauthammer breaks combatants into three sorts, Legal Combatants defined under the Geneva conventions, Terrorists, and Terrorists with information. If you're interested, there is a long article in Parameters on the legal quandary we are presently facing with regards to these "detainees." [In fact there is quite a lot of interesting articles in the summer issue that have relevance to the present conduct of modern war.]

Third, there is the terrorist with information. Here the issue of torture gets complicated and the easy pieties don't so easily apply. Let's take the textbook case. Ethics 101: A terrorist has planted a nuclear bomb in New York City. It will go off in one hour. A million people will die. You capture the terrorist. He knows where it is. He's not talking.

Question: If you have the slightest belief that hanging this man by his thumbs will get you the information to save a million people, are you permitted to do it?

Now, on most issues regarding torture, I confess tentativeness and uncertainty. But on this issue, there can be no uncertainty: Not only is it permissible to hang this miscreant by his thumbs. It is a moral duty.

......

And even if the example I gave were entirely hypothetical, the conclusion--yes, in this case even torture is permissible--is telling because it establishes the principle: Torture is not always impermissible. However rare the cases, there are circumstances in which, by any rational moral calculus, torture not only would be permissible but would be required (to acquire life-saving information). And once you've established the principle, to paraphrase George Bernard Shaw, all that's left to haggle about is the price. In the case of torture, that means that the argument is not whether torture is ever permissible, but when--i.e., under what obviously stringent circumstances: how big, how imminent, how preventable the ticking time bomb.

That is why the McCain amendment, which by mandating "torture never" refuses even to recognize the legitimacy of any moral calculus, cannot be right. There must be exceptions. The real argument should be over what constitutes a legitimate exception.

I think this takes us to the point of making torture rare, but not totally illegitimate. Unfortunately, I think this will only run into the "relative harm" arguments. That is when you have the dissenters begin questioning at what level would torture not be allowed. Krauthammer quotes a million people in his question, but what if it's only a thousand? Personally, I think that is something that needs to be defined, loosely, by those agencies that may have to perform the action. This should be a cold and calculated equation.

Read the rest, it's quite interesting.