It terrifies me that the plotters of 9/11 succeeded in destroying the USA so utterly that I no longer recognise it as the country I looked up to as child. A country where the use of torture is discussed as a matter of obvious necessity, a country that justifies invasion and occupation with lies and then just shrugs when found out? Where did the USA go? Was it really just one day five years ago that wiped out 200 years of a struggle for improvement?

That’s because we don’t need information from them in order to save other lives. If we tortured them, it would be to satisfy someone’s sadism. There would be no purpose to it. So in that case it would definitely be wrong.

Don’t fall into the trap of absolutist morality. It’s tempting to point out something abhorrent and say “that’s always wrong, no matter what,” because in most cases, you’ll be right. But often the choices we have are not between right and wrong but between two evils, and it is our job to discern the lesser of the two.

So which is the lesser of the two? One person experiences a great deal of pain or discomfort or hundreds of people are murdered or maimed?

Notice I didn’t add the terrorists’ evilness into the equation. That’s not relevant.

This, however, is.

Here’s a thought experiment: You are in the hypothetical and admitedly improbable situation wherein allowing yourself to be waterboarded would guarantee the saving of one other life.

Just one. Doesn’t matter who.

Would you do it? Would you undergo some panic to save another’s life?

If the answer is yes, then it’s hard to see why it would be wrong to make these terrorists undergo some panic–and that’s all it is, there’s no physical harm done–to save others from being murdered or maimed.

People say that if we use coersive interrogation techniques we will lose our soul.

But if you have it in your power to save lives and you don’t use it because you don’t want to sully your reputation, I’d say you don’t have much of a soul to lose.