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Moral dilemma.

It’s been a popular conundrum for the pro-torture crowd: there’s a bomb, somewhere. And you’ve got this guy strapped to a chair. Never mind how he got there, chatter suggests he’s the man with the plan, it’s a fucking red alert, there’s a ticking goddamn clock and if you make him talk, make him tell you the what and the where and the how then you, my friend, can stop the countdown. Save thousands, maybe millions of lives. Pop quiz, hotshot: What do you do?

  1. kirsten    Mar 19, 12:17 pm    #
    i don't normally take moral guidance from tv, esp shows on fox, but i like the way kiefer sutherland's character handled torturing a guy who knew where the nuclear bomb that was gonna go off in l.a. dealt with it.

    he got a camera together in the home of the bomber's family and basically had the soldier fake killing his oldest son. the bomber held forth.

    it's a hard one because torture as a method for extracting information can backfire as well.

  2. Avram    Mar 19, 06:00 pm    #
    How do I know that torture will make him give me true and useful information in time to stop the bomb?

  3. Kevin Moore    Mar 19, 08:18 pm    #
    Torture make good TV but bad interrogation.

    And: Is it me or is your prose getting punchier? Stress from the war, "hotshot"?

  4. kirsten    Mar 20, 05:50 pm    #
    funny, the conversation is more about the efficacy of torture rather than the morality of it.

    thanks for the link, kip. i appreciate it.

  5. barbara    Nov 5, 10:03 am    #
    The efficacy of it is important. There's a moral 'cost' to using torture, that might be worth it if it saves lives but is definitely not worth it if it does not.

    By faking the son's death, Bauer reduced the moral cost by not actually taking a life.

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