why torture is wrong

In today's news, more American torture. Or rather, creating conditions that make torture likely, then looking the other way. America is not unusual in using torture, but the level of hypocrisy here is exceptional. So it is worth remembering why torture is always, without exception, wrong. For details, see the answers web site.

Torture allows one person to force another to cooperate. However, it destroys your reputation, so persuades millions of others not to cooperate. So torture, even if it occasionally produces useful information, always does more harm than good.

Torture is an inefficient means of gaining information, because frightened people will say what they think you want to hear, regardless of whether that information is accurate or useful.

As evidence, look at the countries that use more torture, and the countries that use less. The countries that use less torture are stronger and more successful that those who use it more. If torture was an efficient strategy, we would expect the opposite to be the case.

So why do we use torture if it does not work? The reason is easily explained in terms of cognitive dissonance. We have used it in the past, and we do not want to believe that we were just stupid (and evil). So we look for examples where it seemed to work. In the same way, a gambler will look for examples where gambling made them money. Or a believer in UFOs will look for strange shapes in the sky. It is easy to find anecdotal evidence. But torture always takes place in secret, so the beliefs can never be objectively refuted. So the anecdotes are repeated, exaggerated, and the belief in torture continues.