Lock Joel Hunter in a closet, because I'm talking about torture again.

Via Bruce Schneier, here's a link to an essay and related resources on the issue of torture.

Stephen Griffin takes on Richard Posner and the "ticking time bomb" (TTB) justification for torture:

Posner begins his discussion of torture (in a chapter on “Rights Against Brutal Interrogation”) by employing a consequentialist calculus: “The value of the information sought depends in part on the menace to social welfare that has motivated the interrogation. If it is dire enough and the value of the information great enough, only a die-hard civil libertarian will deny the propriety of using a high degree of coercion to elicit the information. It might be the whereabouts of a kidnapping victim, the location of a ticking time bomb, the site of a biological weapon about to be deployed, the identity of key terrorist leaders, or the details of terrorist plots.” Posner’s subject is constitutional rights, not morality. But it is not only the “civil libertarian” who is interested in assuring humane treatment but everyone concerned with doing right and upholding basic moral values . . . The TTB counts on eliciting a certain sort of response. Of course, “the president would have to authorize torture” to prevent millions from dying. But surely it puts a slightly different spin on the situation to imagine that you are the one responsible for making sure the interrogation is effective. And you will have to live with the consequences if you turn out to be wrong. What wouldn’t you do to prevent millions from dying? Well, I wouldn’t engage in torture, child abuse, murder, rape and a whole long list of morally corrupt acts. And I’m willing to bet you wouldn’t either. Scenarios like the TTB are well designed to cloud our reason and judgment. For that reason, we should avoid them and concentrate on the ways in which we can realistically prevent terrorist attacks.

That's just a taste. Griffin then goes on to elaborate why the TTB scenario shouldn't be held out as a justification for torture. Good reading, although I think he wanders a bit in making what I took as his central objection: the capacity of torture to corrupt and degrade the torturer.

I'm afraid I don't even make it that far. I find any kind of raw utilitarian analyis, such as Posner employs, to be antithetical to any serious Christian moral reflection. It's the same analysis, flavored differently, that Christians so easily (and rightly) ridiculed when it was packaged as "situation ethics," like in the famous Lifeboat scenario. The underlying question in both the Lifeboat and TTB scenarios is this: how corrupt are you willing to become in order to achieve a desirable result?

Or if you prefer, here's the Apostle Paul's take on utilitarianism:

And why not say (as we are slanderously reported and as some claim that we say), "(A)Let us do evil that good may come"? Their condemnation is just.

Of course, all of this assumes that you can figure out what torture is. And I'm not just talking about a list of do's and don'ts. The President and Amnesty International both have their lists, but where's the scriptural basis for either one?