POLS 4212 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, Scale-Invariant Feature Transform, Political Ethics

• School: York University
• Department: Political Science
• Course: POLS 4212
• Professor: David Carvounas

Document Summary

Most would believe that it would be permissible, justified for the officials to torture the conspirator. This being true then, this changes the way that we think about torture because the ticking time bomb example shows the principle is not absolute. Now its not an absolute prohibition on torture. That"s important to see that there is a circumstance where it would be justified, it opens that door to it. Of course there are a lot of conditions that should be met and the ticking time bomb is the perfect example because all the conditions have lined up. Circumstances indeed create, dictate exceptions to the prohibitions on torture. That is the statement, circumstances will dictate, that"s not deontological. This example real and imagined, sets the stage for the lesser evil argument to a moral dilemma. Two bad things and you have to choose. If enhanced interrogation measures can save lives, then torture is less evil than letting many die.