The claim that torture is permissible in exceptional cases is defeated by several reasons, some directly connected to human dignity, others more practical in nature. Some readers may continue to press. What about the most extreme case? What if there were hundreds of thousands of victims, millions? What if we were absolutely certain? Hypotheticals of this kind leave reality far behind. For too long, they have corrupted our moral and political thinking. For too long, the concession that torture would be permitted in some sufficiently extreme and unreal case has been used to justify the indefensible torture of large numbers of people. In this world, we may set the notorious ticking bomb scenario aside. Torture is always wrong.
(Jamie Mayerfeld, “In Defense of the Absolute Prohibition of Torture,” Public Affairs Quarterly 22 [April 2008]: 109-28, at 125 [endnote omitted])
Note from KBJ: If torture is always wrong, then it is wrong even if it is the only way to prevent Jamie Mayerfeld and his extended family from being tortured and killed.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 