Psychologists and the Ethical Use of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques to Save Lives

Arrigo, DeBatto, Rockwood, and Mawe (2015) take issue with a number of arguments in our previous article (O’Donohue et al., 2014). We respond in four major ways: (a) pointing out that they never really take on, let alone refute, the key argument in our article—that utilitarian, deontic, and virtue ethical theories are not only consistent with the use of enhanced interrogation and torture in the ticking time bomb scenario but these prescribe it; (b) there are numerous other exegetical problems in their article; (c) they make unsubstantiated claims about the ineffectiveness of EITSLs techniques that we argue are much too strong; and (d) they conflate the ethical with the legal and but even in doing so miss many important issues regarding the legality of EITSLs in the war on terrorism.