First Paragraph of Is Torture Ever Acceptable?

Should torture be legalized in exceptional circumstances and banned unconditionally? First, we must examine whether there might be a righteous excuse or reason to make legal exceptions. In order to do so, we’ll be discussing a famous argument: TBS (The Ticking Bomb Scenario), which is in central to the issue.

The Ticking bomb scenario (TBS) is an experiment that has been used in ethics debate over whether torture can ever be justified. However, the advocates of TBS often lack the courtesy to grant the same rights to the enemies in wars. For example, in a situation of the US armies fighting against the Taliban for the cause of terrorism, the Taliban is entitled to torture captured American soldiers, in order to force useful information out of their mouths; As for the armies of the US, they are bind by their law and ethics, prohibiting them to proceed torture on the Taliban captives. TBS argues for the sakes of the US army on the issue of torture: if the enemies are doing this to our kinsmen, why can’t we return them the “favor”? 

This kind of issue, whether nations and armies should follow the code of TBS or not has been debated heatedly, and to no result. But do we really need to act like the bad guys, and go so low to be level with them? And by doing so, doesn’t it just make us as bad as the terrorists? Many organizations about human rights, professional and academic experts, have neglected the idea to legalize torture in the future and it should never be acceptable, even in a Ticking Bomb situation. They have expressed grave concern about armies following the footstep of the terrorists, by introducing torture in interrogations, will certainly mean a downfall to the ethics of the side of justice.

Torture is also pointed out and criticized as a poor vehicle for discovering the truth. As people experience torture and suffering, there’s a big chance that the tortured will make anything up in order to stop the pain, and may become unable to tell the difference between fact and fiction. In additional to that, suppose that the clock of the bomb is ticking, this will give the terrorist an excellent reason to lie or to give false information in order to stall. While the officers waste their time on checking the false information, it’s more likely of the bomb to go off and thus reached the purpose of the terrorists. In the above situations, there is no further point to torture the captives.