Since Henry Shue’s classic 1978 paper on torture, the “ticking-bomb case” has seemed to demonstrate that torture is morally justified in some moral emergencies (even if not as an institution). After presenting an analysis of torture as such and an explanation of why it, and anything much like it, is morally wrong, I argue that the ticking-bomb case demonstrates nothing at all—for at least three reasons. First, it is an appeal to intuition. The intuition is not as widely shared as necessary to constitute the required demonstration. Second, the intuition is not as reliable as necessary for such a demonstration. We lack the experience that would vouch for it. And, third, Shue’s own discussion suggests that what we are intuiting (if we share Shue’s intuition) is an excuse rather than a justification.

In this paper I argue that torture is morally justified in some extreme emergencies. However, I also argue that notwithstanding the moral permissibility of torture in some extreme emergencies, torture ought not to be legalised or otherwise institutionalised.

Despite the fact that torture of prisoners has been condemned by every major document in international law, it has seemed to some, especially those in the Bush Administration, that terrorism creates a special case for how prisoners are to be treated. The prisoner may belong to a “cell” of those who have committed themselves to the use of tactics that risk horrible consequences for many innocent people. The prisoner may have information about future attacks on civilian populations that could, if learned, be instrumental in the prevention of these attacks. Nonetheless, I will argue that normally even suspected international terrorists should be treated humanely in that they are not subject to torture when captured and imprisoned. Our humanity demands as much.I will ask what it is about humanity that might restrict or prohibit the use of torture and other forms of physical coercion in the treatment of prisoners. I will attempt to explain why torture has been so roundly condemned and yet why torture, especially in ticking time-bomb cases, has been seen as justifiable. In section 1, I argue that humane treatment should be seen as the centerpiece of international humanitarian law. In section 2, I discuss a 1999 case from Israel concerning soldiers who committed torture to obtain information from suspected terrorists in the Occupied Territories. In section 3, I discuss how the principle of proportionality complicates the picture, and end with some conclusions about what restrictions should be recognized in times of war, concerning what are sometimes called “the laws of humanity.”

Events over the last decade have returned the issue of interrogational torture to one of immediate and urgent concern, as governments attempt to circumvent the constraints of the UN Convention against Torture. Philosophers still favor variants of the ‘ticking bomb’ scenario and view with suspicion, if not incomprehension, any absolutist prohibition of torture. In this paper, I reiterate and develop an absolutist position against interrogational torture, arguing that ‘ticking bomb’ scenarios are ill-considered and offer not what they purport to offer. I further make the case that assumptions behind the pro-torture position, particularly based on positive consequences of interrogational torture, are by no means as clear as apparently imagined, and that such practices challenge the very foundations of our moral lives in their attacks on notions of agency and responsibility. In any such extreme choice like the ones that torture presents, we must weigh what we might gain against what we might lose, and we always lose too much.

Interrogational torture is torture that is done in order to gain information. It is wrong if it either wrongs the person being interrogated or is a free-floating wrong. In the relevant cases, interrogational torture need not wrong the person being interrogated. This is because in many cases it doesn’t, and is known not to, infringe on the tortured person’s moral rights. It is not clear whether interrogational torture is a free-floating wrong since we lack confidence in judging whether it violates a consequentialist duty. Even if interrogational torture is morally permissible, it doesn’t follow that it is the best policy for a country to adopt.

In this paper, I argue for the permissibility of torture in idealized cases by application of separation of cases: if torture is permissible given any of the dominant moral theories (and if one of those is correct), then torture is permissible simpliciter and I can discharge the tricky business of trying to adjudicate among conflicting moral views. To be sure, torture is not permissible on all the dominant moral theories as at least Kantianism will prove especially recalcitrant to granting moral license of torture, even in idealized cases. Rather than let the Kantian derail my central argument, I directly argue against Kantianism (and other views with similar commitments) on the grounds that, if they cannot accommodate the intuitions in ticking time-bomb cases, they simply cannot be plausible moral views—these arguments come in both foundationalist and coherentist strains. Finally, I postulate that, even if this paper has dealt with idealized cases, it paves the way for the justification of torture in the real world by removing some candidate theories (e.g., Kantianism) and allowing others that both could and are likely to justify real-world torture.

In this introduction, I summarize the main themes of my book, particularly those that my critics have focused on in their papers that follow. I also argue that I could not have reached the conclusions that I have if I hadn’t employed a peacemaking rather than a warmaking way of doing philosophy. I provide a characterization of a peacemaking way of doing philosophy and show how the conclusions of my book depend on doing philosophy in that way.

This paper starts by considering Sterba’s argument from non-question-beggingness to morality. The paper goes on to discuss his use of the “ought” implies “can” principle and the place, within moral theorizing, of intuitions about reasonableness.

In The Triumph of Practice over Theory in Ethics James Sterba is not concerned merely to show that there is much convergence in the practical application of Utilitarianism, Kantianism, and Aristotelian virtue ethics. His project is the much more ambitious one of arguing that the theories do not really diverge very much at the theoretical level, and thus supplying an explanation for the apparent convergence at the practical level. Although I applaud him for the boldness, some might even say audacity, of the attempt, I do not think he succeeds. I focus my critique on Sterba’s use of two principles that are crucial to his arguments, the principle of non-question-beggingness, and the “ought implies can” principle. I also criticize his arguments for a biocentric position in his disagreement with Singer over the status of nonsentient life.

In their critiques of my book, Julia Driver, Brad Hooker, and Alastair Norcross have focused on my argument from rationality to morality that attempts to complete the Kantian project of justifying morality and my use of the “ought” implies “can” principle to reconcile the differences between Kantian and utilitarian ethical perspectives. While treating respectfully the ingenious arguments and counterexamples that each of my critics employs against my views, I explain, in detail, why their arguments and counterexamples do not work against my views, properly interpreted, although they do suggest ways that I might better present my views in the future in order to attract more adherents to my reconciliationist project.