WiO,

The ticking time bomb terrorist argument is a simple tautology and hence doesn’t tell us much. It is a circular argument with the conclusion embedded in the premise.

Torture is indeed illegal for US military folk to perform and there does seem to be some disagreement as to whether waterboarding constitutes torture. It would be interesting to see what a US court of Law had to say about that particular practice. Many here argue that torture shouldn’t be illegal and that we should institutionalize it as a standard means of interrogation. It is to those who argue that the benefits of torture outweigh the drawbacks, that the presumed guilt of the captured individual warrants the treatment. It is specifically to that argument – that the good of torture outweighs the bad that I ask the question, well, if that is true why not use it for domestic interrogation as well? Surely the same arguments can be made about public good and the need to protect it, no?