A Defense of Torture: Separation of Cases, Ticking Time-bombs, and Moral Justification

In this paper, I argue for the permissibility of torture in idealized cases by application of separation of cases: if torture is permissible given any of the dominant moral theories (and if one of those is correct), then torture is permissible simpliciter and I can discharge the tricky business of trying to adjudicate among conflicting moral views. To be sure, torture is not permissible on all the dominant moral theories as at least Kantianism will prove especially recalcitrant to granting moral license of torture, even in idealized cases. Rather than let the Kantian derail my central argument, I directly argue against Kantianism (and other views with similar commitments) on the grounds that, if they cannot accommodate the intuitions in ticking time-bomb cases, they simply cannot be plausible moral views—these arguments come in both foundationalist and coherentist strains. Finally, I postulate that, even if this paper has dealt with idealized cases, it paves the way for the justification of torture in the real world by removing some candidate theories (e.g., Kantianism) and allowing others that both could and are likely to justify real-world torture. §1 SEPARATION OF CASES AND MORAL METHODOLOGY S of cases (or, alternatively, constructive dilemma) is one of the most powerful methodological tools in philosophy. Put formally, it is the deductively valid argument form P∨Q, P→R, Q→R, ∴R. Put informally, the idea is that, if one of two propositions has to be true, and if each of those propositions entail some third proposition, then that third proposition has to be true. What makes it even more powerful is that the original propositions need not even be atomic, but could rather disjunctively relate even more propositions. By taking this latter approach, we can expand the scope of the argument to accommodate three, four, or many propositions to show that, so long as any of them is true (and insofar as