A ticking time bomb scenario (TBS) is a thought experiment that debates whether torture can be justified. An example is where you know a person has planted a bomb, that it will go off, and that it will kill a large number of people. That person is detained and will tell you the information you need to prevent the attack, providing you torture him. Should he be tortured? Generally, people seem to agree to torture the terrorist, and will set aside their moral values for the “greater good”.
This sounds acceptable. The TBS suggests that only the naive would chose to not torture a person who is know to be the one who planted the bomb. He is not just a suspect, he is the actual terrorist. Also, why would you not torture someone who is going to
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She said that torture could never be American policy, ‘period.’
Barack Obama said that there were all sorts of hypothetic emergency situations that could arise, but that he would rather make a decision at the time than making an advanced judgement.
In America, the TBS debate in politics brings attention to the need of better intelligence and detention policies. The nation should rely more on an intelligence system rather than the hope that a tortured individual would give accurate information.
Therefore, torture and the TBS in political public debate brings us to the outcome that whilst some politicians still believe that torture can be justified in hypothetical situations, a majority take the stance that using the TBS as justification shouldn’t be the basis of decisions on such a serious matter. In the real world of the “war on terrorism”, torture can never be justified. Thoughts like the TBS should be avoided, and instead politicians should be concentrating on ways in which terrorist attacks can be realistically