The next step is to see how this significance compares with that of another factor; say, the certainty we have that the person interrogated has the information we seek. Here we could ask about (dis)agreement with the following two statements: The U.S. government would be morally justified in subjecting known terrorists to interrogation techniques designed to make the victim experience extreme suffering (of body or mind) if officials knew, with a high degree of certainty, that these individuals had knowledge of a terrorist attack on American soil that was to occur 48 hours from now. The U.S. government would be morally justified in subjecting known terrorists to interrogation techniques designed to make the victim experience extreme suffering (of body or mind) if officials suspected that these individuals might have knowledge of a terrorist attack on American soil that was to occur 48 hours from now. Note that we have given no information about many crucial variables (How sure are we that the information will lead to stopping the attack? How catastrophic would the attack be?), and that as a result, respondents may very well make assumptions about them. Note also, however, that those assumptions would be constant across both questions, and that, as a result, the different levels of support for these two statements would tell us only about the significance of certainty in people’s moral considerations. In comparing the results of these two sets of questions, we gain an understanding of the relative importance people ascribe to these two factors we see, in other words, their relative – weight in the moral judgment about torture. If to this small piece of the puzzle we were to add others (a task beyond the scope of this paper), the contours of the moral good required to justify torture will slowly emerge. We emphasize the word A full understanding of opinion on torture would “slowly.” require the isolation of numerous factors. What follows, then, should not be taken as anything more than an effort to illuminate our methodological points by, in effect, putting them into
The next step is to see how this significance compares with that of another factor; say, the certainty we have that the person interrogated has the information we seek. Here we could ask about (dis)agreement with the following two statements: The U.S. government would be morally justified in subjecting known terrorists to interrogation techniques designed to make the victim experience extreme suffering (of body or mind) if officials knew, with a high degree of certainty, that these individuals had knowledge of a terrorist attack on American soil that was to occur 48 hours from now. The U.S. government would be morally justified in subjecting known terrorists to interrogation techniques designed to make the victim experience extreme suffering (of body or mind) if officials suspected that these individuals might have knowledge of a terrorist attack on American soil that was to occur 48 hours from now. Note that we have given no information about many crucial variables (How sure are we that the information will lead to stopping the attack? How catastrophic would the attack be?), and that as a result, respondents may very well make assumptions about them. Note also, however, that those assumptions would be constant across both questions, and that, as a result, the different levels of support for these two statements would tell us only about the significance of certainty in people’s moral considerations. In comparing the results of these two sets of questions, we gain an understanding of the relative importance people ascribe to these two factors – we see, in other words, their relative weight in the moral judgment about torture. If to this small piece of the puzzle we were to add others (a task beyond the scope of this paper), the contours of the moral good required to justify torture will slowly emerge. We emphasize the word “slowly.” A full understanding of opinion on torture would require the isolation of numerous factors. What follows, then, should not be taken as anything more than an effort to illuminate our methodological points by, in effect, putting them into