Does Torture Work? Consequentialism’s Failures

Abstract

In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, many Americans began contemplating torture. People whom we might expect to oppose it suddenly seemed to change their minds. For example (as I mentioned in the introduction), in a now infamous proposal, Alan Dershowitz proposed that judges issue torture warrants specifying precisely when and how people should be tortured. Stating that he morally opposed torture, Dershowitz nevertheless argued that because governments often torture, we should regulate their conduct.² Elshtain confessed that “before the watershed event of September 11, 2001, I had not reflected critically on the theme of torture. I was one of those who listed it in the category of ‘never.’ It did not seem to me possible that the United States would face some of the dilemmas favored by moral theorists in their hypothetical musing on whether torture could ever be morally permitted. Too, reprehensible regimes tortured. End of question. Not so, as it turns out.”³ Finally, journalist Jonathan Alter talked about suspected terrorists writing

[cjouldn’t we as least subject them to psychological torture, like tapes of dying rabbits or high-decibel rap? (The military has done that in Panama and elsewhere.) How about truth serum, administered with a mandatory IV? Or deportation to Saudi Arabia, land of beheadings (as the frustrated FBI has been threatening)? Some people still argue that we needn’t rethink any of our old assumptions about law enforcement, but they’re hopelessly “Sept. 10”— living in a country that no longer exists.⁴

Few beliefs have been more destructive of the respect for the rules of law and of morals than the idea that a rule is binding only if the beneficial effect of observing it in the particular instance can be recognized.

Friedrich Hayek¹