Abstract

This chapter collects the equilibria, observations, propositions, and implications over the past six chapters and compares them to the four benchmarks. A failure to meet these normative standards would mean that the proponent model fails to satisfy even its own criteria for justifying interrogational torture. The outcomes derived from following the proponent’s own logic of interrogational torture fail to match their predictions. As a result, interrogational torture fails to meet the four benchmarks identified by torture proponents as justifying the practice. The information generated by torture is unreliable, but torture will be more frequent and brutal than even proponents envision and would accept. The only possible justification for interrogational torture is that it is effective in reliably generating reliable information. This is a necessary condition for the practice ever to be justified. The failure to meet this condition refutes the pragmatic justification of torture for information.