There is no mystery about the rationale of torture. It is to save innocent lives. This is why Jeremy Bentham, the great utilitarian, thought torture justifiable. Critics say that torture is unlikely to produce usable information. That's a factual question. What critics cannot say is that there is no chance that torture will produce usable information. In other words, there is some probability, however small, that an act of torture will produce information that will save innocent lives. Given the magnitude of the evil prevented, torture could be justified even if the probability of its producing usable information is small. Critics are on dangerous ground in arguing that torture is ineffective, for surely they would oppose it even in cases in which it is effective. They oppose it not because it doesn't work but because they think it intrinsically wrong.
Opponents of torture care a great deal about those who are tortured. Do they care about those whose lives might be saved by torture? The only relevant difference is that we know the identity of the person being tortured. We do not know the identity of those whose lives are saved. While it is psychologically easier to identify with a known person than an unknown person, this has no moral significance.
Assigning greater weight to known individuals than to unknown individuals occurs in other contexts as well. A recent study concludes that capital punishment has a significant deterrent effect. Each killing of a convicted murderer prevents at least 18 murders, and thus saves the lives of at least 18 innocent people. Do we know who these people are? No. We do, however, know the identity of the murderer. I don't understand why people hold vigils outside death chambers. Do they not care about the innocent people whose lives are going to be saved by the killing?
This may be a case in which progressives emote rather than cogitate. They see a living, breathing human being about to be put to death (or, in a case of torture, tortured). They do not see either the victim(s) of the murderer (who are no longer around to speak for themselves) or the people whose lives are saved as a result of the execution of the death sentence. My friend Dr John J. Ray can tell us more about the psychology of progressives as opposed to conservatives. My sense, based on long experience, is that progressives let their feelings cloud their judgment. This drives their policy prescriptions. Emotion is a poor basis for social policy.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 