Ignatieff's piece is indeed very good, although it again proceeds on the underlying assumption that all the persons who would be subjected to torture do possess the required information. This will never be the case 100% of the time as people will be selected for torture on the basis of other information which may in itself be erroneous (just as people are occasionally killed due to mistaken identity, malicious or mistaken misidentification or sheer panic).
I am sure Ignatieff is fully aware of the danger of torturing innocent people. What he is evaluating here is the most difficult possible cases, as good philosophers are generally challenged to do.
I don't think that he is unaware of the danger of torturing innocent people. The point is that his argument does not take that into consideration. His viewpoint appears to closely correspond with the one Shue described himself as holding in the 70's.
Having looked at your entry of a year ago, Specifically, I asked whether the fact that torturers are readily available around the world for those willing to import them or export prisoners to them changes this moral balance. A state like the United States could easily gain the ‘benefits’ of torture, without risking whatever dangers exist from a domestic torture agency.This misses the point, although Shue also adverted to the dangers of a domestically sanctioned school of torture, any non-domestic source of training amounts to a sanctioning of the regieme of torture the training is provided under. The US or any other nation cannot simultaneously condemn and act against human rights abuses by other states or violations by guerilla groups, drugs cartels ets, and recruit their agents, or
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Torture has a serious problem, as you say, that quite often the victim will tell you something he thinks you want to know just to stop you torturing him
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Link: http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=7374
A bit more on Shue's torture position:
http://www.sindark.com/2006/05/03/henry-shue-on-torture/
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Having looked at your entry of a year ago, Specifically, I asked whether the fact that torturers are readily available around the world for those willing to import them or export prisoners to them changes this moral balance. A state like the United States could easily gain the ‘benefits’ of torture, without risking whatever dangers exist from a domestic torture agency.This misses the point, although Shue also adverted to the dangers of a domestically sanctioned school of torture, any non-domestic source of training amounts to a sanctioning of the regieme of torture the training is provided under. The US or any other nation cannot simultaneously condemn and act against human rights abuses by other states or violations by guerilla groups, drugs cartels ets, and recruit their agents, or ( ... )
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