2.1.3: The “ticking time bomb” thought experiment

Thought experiments are frequently used in philosophy as a method to justify our intuitive thinking. A common feature of these thought experiments is that they are imaginary and involve some degree of generalization (Williamson, 2018).

One of the most used thought experiment in the torture debate is the “ticking time bomb” scenario. This experiment asks us to put ourselves in the position of an experienced law officer facing a situation in which a terrorist group states that it has hidden a nuclear bomb in the city center of New York. The authorities have arrested the leader of the group who says that he knows where the bomb is located. The terrorist however refuses to reveal the bomb’s location. As he is detained in the interrogation room, the clock is ticking. The question that this thought experiment addresses is whether we should use torture to obtain the information from the terrorist that can prevent the catastrophe.

The ticking time bomb argues that torture is inherently wrong, but that it might be justified in extreme circumstances. Furthermore, the “ticking time bomb” seems to suggest that torture might be justified for interrogational purposes to prevent a future catastrophe. Furthermore, the ticking time bomb suggests that torture is the only way of preventing the catastrophe. The terrorist in this experiment is already guilty – already a criminal – so why should we take his human rights into account if he is willing to kill so many innocent people?

The “ticking time bomb” is so mesmerizing because it plays with our moral intuition that we should at all time prevent innocent people from being killed. The scenario is framed to see the terrorist as a bad guy and, as such, we are more prone to dismiss his human rights and to justify the use of torture to save innocent lives. The problem with the “ticking time bomb” scenario is that torture in real-life cases are justified based on some version of this experiment. Our reality is, however, more complex and ambiguous than a philosophical thought experiment.

First of all, it is a false dichotomy to claim that we either torture the terrorist and save lives or not torture the terrorist and lose lives. In a real “ticking time bomb” situation there are certainly more options like evacuating the city or trying to locate and dismantle the bomb. Furthermore, in most real-life scenarios we most of the time only have a strong suspicion that the suspected is involved in the terrorist attack. We might have the suspicion that he or she is the mastermind behind the attack, but in real-life cases we are not one-hundred percent sure. Even in attacks that already happened, such as the 1995 Oklahoma bombing, we are still faced with unexplained details and are left with the question whether we have arrested all the accomplices involved in organizing and executing a crime. And even if we know that the suspect is the mastermind behind the crime, it might not lead to the information that we need. The point here is that in real-life cases we run the risk that we are torturing a suspect who does not have the information that we need, or does not give the information we need or does not give us it early enough to prevent the crime. One of the cases similar to the “ticking time bomb” scenario was the 2002 kidnapping in Germany of Jakob von Metzler in which the suspect revealed the location of the kidnapped boy because the police threatened to torture him; unfortunately, however, the boy had already been killed.

Even when we are sure that the suspect has the information, we are still faced with ethical challenges. When we argue that torture is allowed in extreme circumstances, we also need to think about what kind of torture techniques are permissible to extract the information from the suspect. Should we only engage in “torture lite” such as standing against the wall for a prolonged period, sleep deprivation and continuous sensory stimulation or should we use physical torture such as waterboarding, slapping or branding? And who should administer torture? Should we train somebody who can inflict just the right amount of physical or mental pain that will break the suspect?

Consequentialism argues that we should assess the good that results from the moral act against the bad. However, the problem in the “ticking time bomb” scenario is that the attack did not yet happen. It is only a threat; we don’t know how many people will die nor do we know for sure that the bomb will go off (it might be fake, or not working properly). How should we justify the use of torture against the consequences that are so difficult to determine?

David Luban aptly points to the fact that the “ticking time bomb” scenario is often used to justify torture in extreme cases, without having to engage in a thorough debate on torture, “Talking about them [ticking time bomb scenarios] is a distraction from discussing the actual practice of torture with no ticking bombs in the background” (Luban, 2014:75).

The “ticking time bomb” scenario in its generalized and idealized form is not helping us to address the issues we should address when we want to justify torture in extreme cases. Ticking time bomb versions in real-life are far more complicated and are not as clear-cut as the idealized version of it. Even the German case, in which the mere threat of torture did lead to the victim, no lives were saved. The mere fact is that torture always violates the human rights and dignity of the suspect. Yet, violating the suspect’s rights does not always save lives nor does it always lead to the prevention of a catastrophe.

Using the “ticking time bomb” scenario to justify torture in extreme circumstances is an ethically questionable argument in which we are faced with a lot of uncertainties and challenges. Questions and challenges that, when taken seriously, are not in favor of justifying torture, but highlight why we should refrain from torture at all times.