This timely and passionate book is the first to address itself to Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz's controversial arguments for the limited use of interrogational torture and its legalisation.

• Argues that the respectability Dershowitz's arguments confer on the view that torture is a legitimate weapon in the war on terror needs urgently to be countered
• Takes on the advocates of torture on their own utilitarian grounds
• Timely and passionately written, in an accessible, jargon-free style

• Forms part of the provocative and timely Blackwell Public Philosophy series

  Autorentext

  Bob Brecher is Reader in Moral Philosophy at the University of Brighton, UK and Director of its Centre for Applied Philosophy, Politics and Ethics. He is the author of two previous books, Anselm's Argument: the Logic of Divine Existence and Getting What You Want?: a Critique of Liberal Morality (1998). He has published widely in ethics and social and political philosophy and was the founding editor of the journal Res Publica.

  Inhalt

  Preface ix

  1 Introduction 1

  What is Torture? 3

  Dershowitz on Interrogational Torture 6

  Why Write about Torture? 8

  The Agenda 11

  2 The Fantasy of the Ticking Bomb Scenario 14

  Dershowitz's Argument and the Ticking Bomb 14

  Who Tortures? 21

  Effectiveness and Time 24

  Knowledge and Necessity 31

  The Ticking Bomb Scenario: Conclusion 38

  3 The Consequences of Normalizing Interrogational Torture 40

  Some Clarifications 41

  Three Positive Claims about the Consequences of Legalizing Interrogational Torture 52

  The Institutionalization of Interrogational Torture 57

  A Torturous Society 72

  4 Torture, Death and Philosophy 75

  Torture 76

  Torture, Death and Interrogation 79

  Why No Decent Society Can Torture 84

  Torture, the "War on Terror" and Intellectual Irresponsibility 85

  But What if Torture Really is the Only Possible Way to Avoid Catastrophe? 86

  Two Final Points 88

  Notes 89

  Bibliography 109

  Index 117