Aaron Hillman

TA: Julia Borcherding

October 5, 2014
Intro to Ethics

Utilitarianism and Torture

When presented with the decision of whether or not to torture a captive terrorist or
his child in order to extract information necessary to prevent a bombing in Manhattan, the
utilitarian generally approves of torture in both cases. In this paper I shall argue that the
utilitarian arrives at the morally ideal course of action, even considering that, in the
instance of the child, the child does not deserve torture. Moreover, I shall argue that in
the face of objections to a deciders legitimacy of authority over who deserves to live, the
utilitarians decision is still morally correct. This essay will shown that as the utilitarian
solely considers the consequences of his or her actions for the welfare of those affected,
he or she must weight the consequences of a Manhattan bombing for its victims against
the consequences of torture for its victim. As a result, since most would consider death a
greater loss to society than ephemeral pain, the utilitarian must approve of torture in both
cases. Objections to the utilitarian evaluation of the moral course of actions rooted in the
concept of desert or the moral authority of an actor in preventing death exhibit internal
inconsistencies because of qualms with agency. The utilitarian remains steadfast against
these objections and utilitarianisms moral success in this scenario exhibits its ability to
decisively elect the most moral course of action.
Some may critique the decision to torture by invoking subtleties concerning the
probability of a captured terrorist divulging information, the possibility of the attack
failing, or the notion that the terrorists demands are worth complying with. These
considerations are not critiques of the use of the utilitarian doctrine but merely criticisms

of the inadequacy of a utilitarians considerations in this scenario; focusing on such

semantics however, would detract from providing a rich evaluation of utilitarianism in
light of its decided course of action in this scenario. Therefore, let us assume going
forward that an actor is faced with the binary decision of torturing a terrorist and saving
hundreds to thousands of innocent citizens, or refusing to torture the terrorist and
allowing these citizens to die. The core of a utilitarians decision-making process in the
scenario can now be assessed.
In every moral scenario the utilitarian considers, and only considers, the total
consequences of the action in question for the general utility (happiness) in society. This
scenario is no different, and a utilitarian must weigh the expected consequences of the
two potential actions before choosing which course of action. The consequences of
choosing to permit the bombing are clearly catastrophic. We can be sure that a bombing
in downtown Manhattan would take the lives of at least hundreds of citizens. In addition,
friends and family members emotionally affected by the loss of loved ones and even
those affected financially must be kept in the utilitarians tally. The second course of
action has two subcases that should be addressed individually. In the first case, a captive
terrorist is tortured and experiences great pain. In the second case, a child experiences
similar pain instead. In addition, perhaps the captives or childs nearest friends and
family are emotionally disturbed by awareness of these tortures and their utility is also
affected, but their losses does not match those of the family members whose loved ones
died. Replacing the terrorist with his child however, has no implication on the
utilitarians evaluation of the moral course of action.

Basic intuition about relative

magnitudes of happiness leads us to reason that the loss of total utility due to the deaths

of hundreds and the mourning of their loved ones outweighs the loss of a tortured childs
or terrorists utility. In the former case, the potential utility of hundreds of lived lives is
terminated and in the latter, a most likely transient pain is inflicted on a single victim. It
is thus clear that given these circumstances the utilitarian must approve of the torture in
both subcases. The conclusion of the utilitarian in this instance is one consistent with the
moral intuitions of most people and implies a high level of capacity for the utilitarian
doctrine to address difficult moral situations. Objections still remain however. Some
regard the determination of the utilitarian in this scenario as incorrect and attribute its
fallibility to its narrow moral scope. That is, the utilitarian is criticized as failing to
consider other morally relevant ingredients such as desert. Intertwined with this
objection is the criticism of utilitarians presumption that actors have the moral authority
to choose who lives and who dies. These objections both rest on false conceptions about
what constitutes action.
Decoding the complexities of desert is not within this papers scope, but within
our range is an evaluation of the implications of considering the childs deservingness of
torture on the utilitarians decision. Some of those objecting to the utilitarian course of
action cite the torture of an innocent child as a moral failure and glaring blemish on the
utilitarians claim to implemental legitimacy. But further examination reveals that the
utilitarian course of action is in fact more consistent with our intuitions about desert than
the decision not to torture. Where the objector missteps is in his or her placement of a
moral premium on an incorrect notion of agency, what they see as responsibility for
causing a set of evens. The objector has implicitly asserted that in order for the pain
inflicted on an undeserving victim to be immoral, it must be a pain that would not have

been inflicted without the effort of the actor to precipitate it. In the case of the bombing,
the objector accurately perceives the actor as responsible for inflicting pain on the
innocent child when choosing to torture. But the objector does not perceive the actor as
responsible for the hundreds of undeserved deaths when choosing not to torture the
terrorist. The objector has placed a moral premium worth hundreds of innocent lives on
the notion that precipitating an occurrence carries much greater moral weight than
allowing one to occur. This distinction is largely a definitional issue as we have used the
objectors definition of precipitate an action hitherto, but the false conception of that
phrases meaning is the source of the objectors blunder. Contemplation of the meaning
of precipitating an action uncovers the fallaciousness of the objectors assertion,
especially in the context of our scenario, as any decided course of action engages in
precipitating some set of events.
In our bomb scenario, a moral actor is faced with two potential outcomes that will
occur for given sets of decisions concerning the actors movements in space and time.
The actor cannot escape the reality that he or she must choose where to be in space and
time for the proceeding events and contribute to their unraveling. Indeed, even what an
actor perceives as inaction is a form of action; morally an actor is equally culpable for the
consequences of his or her action or inaction. Thus, an actor in this scenario is forced
to choose between one undeserved torture or hundreds of undeserved deaths, and moral
intuition guides one to believe that hundreds of undeserved deaths are much worse than
one undeserved torture. Therefore, the objection to the utilitarian course of action on the
grounds of inadequate consideration of desert is rendered moot, as a proper consideration
of desert and choice results in the same outcome. Moreover, this reconciliation of what

we perceive action to be provides requisite understanding to address the objection that an

actor does not have the moral authority to decide who lives or dies.
The scenario at hand can be phrased in the following manner: you must choose to
either occupy the of locations in space and time which will lead to the torture of an
innocent child or those which will lead to the death of many innocent Manhattan citizens.
Given an event that is affected by an actors choice of the series of locations in space and
time, a decision by an actor that affects the unfolding of events is inevitable. Any
possible decision an actor makes carries implications on the fate of lives in this scenario;
thus, not only does an actor have moral authority over human lives, an actor cannot
escape that moral authority. An actor has a moral question at hand about the potential
death of innocent lives versus the potential pain of torture, and must make a decision
about how he or she will contribute to their unraveling. Given these circumstances, the
utilitarian doctrine rightly guides an actor to torture a terrorist or his child and save the
lives of hundreds of innocent people.
In order to prevent a bombing in Manhattan the utilitarian doctrine would lead a
moral actor to torture a terrorist or his child. When variables are stripped from the
scenario, and one is certain of the binary choice between torture and explosion, most
would agree that the utilitarian decision aligns with human moral intuitions. Against its
strongest objections, namely addressing the deservingness of torture victims and the
authority of a moral actor over the lives in question, the utilitarian stands strong. And
while this successful evaluation of the morally ideal course of action, and the resistance
to objections, in this case is no sort of proof of utilitarianisms validity, it does imply its
validity as a moral theory.