Eric Holder, who has been nominated by President-Elect Barack Obama to be Attorney General, says that waterboarding is torture. Nothing follows from this unless we know whether torture is permissible. There are three possibilities: (1) torture is never permissible, no matter how much harm can be prevented thereby; (2) torture is permissible when it prevents a certain amount of harm (say, the deaths of 1,000 innocent persons), but not otherwise; and (3) torture is permissible whenever it produces more good than any available alternative. I hope that Holder does not hold the first view, for it is exceedingly dangerous. In fact, I would argue that a public official who categorically refuses to order torture is unfit for the job. Suppose we had apprehended someone whom we knew to have information that would allow us to thwart the 9-11 attacks, but who wouldn't divulge it. Not torturing him or her would be inexcusable.
Torture
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