 Luban (2005) and (2014), and Waldron (2005), in particular, have drawn attention to the moral inconsistency and inherent danger in liberal democratic states legalising and institutionalising torture, a practice that strikes at the very heart of the fundamental liberal value of individual autonomy. They have also detailed the tendency for a torture culture to develop in organisations in which torture is legalised or tolerated, a culture in which the excesses of torturing the innocent and the like take place, as in the US army detention centres in Abu Ghraib in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, and in the Israeli secret service (General Security Service). Nevertheless, it is useful to sketch a general argument against the legalisation and institutionalisation of torture. The argument is consistent with, indeed at some points it is more or less the same as, the arguments of Luban and Waldron. However, the argument has some novel elements, not the least of which is the claim that the view that torture is morally justified in some extreme emergencies is compatible with the view that torture ought not to be legalised and institutionalised.