Is It Torture Again?

Helmut of Phronesisaical testified before the Helsinki Commission yesterday. Here's a bit of the transcript.

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Torture Hearing

"..Yes, torture works in that torture victims speak, although information from torture is notoriously unreliable. This has been noted since the time of Aristotle. Under severe pain, torture victims often admit to anything to halt the pain, regardless of whether they possess significant information. Accounts of torture from the Inquisitions show the most delirious and fantastic tales from the victims. These tales – this information – served to confirm the beliefs and prior assumptions of the torturers. Bad weather, for instance, was thought to be caused by demons flying to and fro through the air consorting with human “witches.” Torture victims confirmed these beliefs of the inquisitors, giving up the names of other “witches” who would reconfirm indefinitely the preposterous prior beliefs, as well as the inquisitors’ authority.

If information must be of great moral significance to justify torture, how would we know it was such information? On occasion, the torturers might have reasonable expectation in advance that the prisoner does indeed possess such information. But this is highly implausible and likely obviates any perceived need to torture. To use the moral justification of morally significant information requires some knowledge in advance that the torture victim possesses the relevant information. More likely than the time bomb case of torturing one person in order to save many is the case of torturing many innocent people in order to find the one person. It is to torture in search of what might justify the act of torture, an act made even worse through the torture of innocents.."

Link.

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