Сағат тіктеп тұрған бомба: Азаптаудың қажеттілігі туралы этикалық тартыс

Hypothetical scenario debating the justifications of torture

The ticking time bomb scenario is a thought experiment that has been used in the ethics debate over whether interrogational torture can ever be justified. The scenario can be formulated as follows:

Suppose that a person with knowledge of an imminent terrorist attack, that will kill many people, is in the hands of the authorities and that he will disclose the information needed to prevent the attack only if he is tortured. Should he be tortured? Some consequentialists argue that nations, even those that legally disallow torture, can justify its use if they have a terrorist in custody who possesses critical knowledge, such as the location of a time bomb or a weapon of mass destruction that will soon explode and kill many people. Opponents to the argument usually begin by exposing certain assumptions that tend to be hidden by initial presentations of the scenario and tend to obscure the true costs of permitting torture in "real life" scenarios—e. g., the assumption that the person is in fact a terrorist, whereas in real life there usually remains uncertainty about whether the person is in fact a terrorist and if they have useful information—and rely on legal, philosophical/moral, and empirical grounds to reaffirm the need for the absolute prohibition of torture. There is also uncertainty about the efficacy of interrogational torture, and much opposition to torture is based on the fact it is not effective rather than any moral issue, as well as how the decision to apply (or even allow) torture, whether or not an official process exists for doing so, might figure in the game theoretical payoff matrix of the hypothetical terrorist, or the problem framers. The ticking time bomb scenario is extremely rare in real life, but it is often cited as a reason for using torture.

After the September 11 attacks, Alan Dershowitz, a prominent American defense attorney, surprised some observers by giving limited support to the idea that torture could be justified. He argued that human nature can lead to unregulated abuse "off the books". Therefore, it would be better if there were a regulated procedure through which an interrogator could request a "torture warrant" and that requiring a warrant would establish a paper trail of accountability. Torturers, and those who authorize torture, could be held to account for excesses. Dershowitz's suggested torture warrants, similar to search warrants, arrest warrants and phone tap warrants, would spell out the limits on the techniques that interrogators may use, and the extent to which they may abridge a suspect's rights. In September 2002, when reviewing Alan Dershowitz's book, Why Terrorism Works: Understanding the Threat, Responding to the Challenge, Richard Posner, legal scholar and judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, wrote in The New Republic, "If torture is the only means of obtaining the information necessary to prevent the detonation of a nuclear bomb in Times Square, torture should be usedand will be usedto obtain the information No one who doubts that this is the case should be in a position of responsibility."

Some human rights organizations, professional and academic experts, and military and intelligence leaders have absolutely rejected the idea that torture is ever legal or acceptable, even in a so called ticking bomb situation. The United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which was adopted on December 10, 1984, and entered into force on June 26, 1987, explicitly states in Article 2.2 that: