¹ All other rights are subject to the needs of states. See Almond, Brenda, ‘Rights’ in A Companion to Ethics, Singer, Peter, ed. (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1993), 266 Google Scholar.

² U.S. Department of State, Initial report of the United States of America to the U.N. Committee against Torture (1999).

³ H.C. 5100/94 Public Committee against Torture in Israel and Others v. The State of Israel, The General Security Services and Other, 53 (4) PD 817 (1999), paragraph 23.

⁴ Dershowitz, Alan, ‘Tortured Reasoning’, in Torture: A Collection, Levinson, Sanford, ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 257–80Google Scholar.

⁵ See Dershowitz's comments at 1:53 here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE09hIU-Nrk. (last accessed 4/28/14).

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¹¹ Herman, Barbara, ‘Murder and Mayhem’, in her The Practice of Moral Judgment, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993), 116 Google Scholar.

¹² Cf. Potter, Nelson, ‘Kant and Capital Punishment Today’, The Journal of Value Inquiry 36 (2002), 278–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹³ See Norman's, Richard entry ‘Absolutism, Moral’ in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, Honderich, Ted, ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 2–3 Google Scholar.

¹⁴ Nagel, Thomas, ‘War and Massacre’, in his Mortal Questions (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 56 Google Scholar

¹⁵ Mayerfeld, ‘In Defense of the Absolute Prohibition of Torture’, 112.

¹⁶ It remains an open question whether the relevant prohibition is strongly or weakly absolute. For a moral prohibition to be strongly absolute, it must be both biding across possible worlds and always be of greater normative importance than any competing moral requirements. Weakly absolute prohibitions are similarly binding across possible worlds, but they can conflict with other similarly important moral requirements. For discussion, see Kramer, Matthew, Torture and Moral Integrity: A Philosophical Inquiry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 8–9 Google Scholar.

¹⁷ For a primitive example, see Michael Levin's ‘The Case for Torture’, Newsweek, June 7^th, 1982.

¹⁸ Kershnar, Stephen, Desert, Retribution, and Torture (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2001)Google Scholar; Haag, Ernst Van Den, ‘Refuting Reiman and Nathanson’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 14:2 (1985), 171 Google Scholar.

¹⁹ Shue, ‘Torture’, 132.

²⁰ Fritz Allhoff, Allhoff, Terrorism, Ticking Time-Bombs, and Torture, 80; Brecher, Torture and the Ticking Bomb, 12–3; Casebeer, William D., ‘Torture Interrogation of Terrorists: A Theory of Exceptions (With Notes, Cautions, and Warnings)’, in TShanahan, imothy, ed., Philosophy 9/11: Thinking About the War on Terrorism (Chicago: Open Court, 2005), 266–7Google Scholar; Davis, , ‘The Moral Justifiability of Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment’, International Journal of Applied Philosophy 19:2 (2005), 168–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dershowitz, Alan, Why Terrorism Works: Understanding the Threat, Responding to the Challenge (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 149 Google Scholar; Dubensky, Joyce and Lavery, Rachel, ‘Torture: An Interreligious Debate’, in The Torture Debate in America, Greenberg, Karen, ed., (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 170–4Google Scholar; Jonsen, Albert R. and Sagan, Leonard A., ‘Torture and the Ethics of Medicine’, in The Breaking of Bodies and Minds: Torture, Psychiatric Abuse, and the Health Professions, Stover, Eric and Nightingale, Elena O., eds. (New York: W.H. Freeman and Company, 1985), 36–7Google Scholar; Kleinig, John, ‘Ticking Bombs and Torture Warrants’, Deakin Law Review 10:2 (2005), 614–27Google Scholar; Luban, David, ‘Liberalism, Torture, and the Ticking Bomb’, Virginia Law Review 91:6 (2005), 1430–3Google Scholar; Matthews, Richard, The Absolute Violation: Why Torture Must Be Prohibited (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2008), 47 Google Scholar; Wisnewski, Understanding Torture, 72–91.

²¹ Korsgaard, Christine, ‘The Right to Lie: Kant on Dealing with Evil’, in her Creating the Kingdom of Ends (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 133–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar; O'Neill, Onora, ‘Universal Laws and Ends-in-Themselves’, in her Constructions of Reason: Explorations of Kant's Practical Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 126–44Google Scholar; Wood, Allen, Kantian Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 80–2Google Scholar.

²² Scarry, Elaine, The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), especially 27–59 Google Scholar.

²³ Ibid., 34 and 54–5.

²⁴ Ibid., 27, 49, and 56.

²⁵ Ibid., 35.

²⁶ Murphy, Jeffrie, Retribution, Justice, and Therapy (Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing, 1979), 233 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁷ Wisnewski, Understanding Torture, 50–9.

²⁸ Sussman, David, ‘What's Wrong with Torture?’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 33 (2005), 15 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁹ Davis, ‘The Moral Justifiability of Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment’, 168–70.

³⁰ Ibid.

³¹ Ibid., 169.

³² Kershnar, ‘For Interrogational Torture’, 237.

³³ Glucklich, Ariel, Sacred Pain: Hurting the Body for the Sake of the Soul (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 163 Google Scholar.

³⁴ Hampton, Jean, ‘The Moral Education Theory of Punishment’, Philosophy and Pubic Affairs 13 (1984), 212 Google Scholar.

³⁵ Kramer, Torture and Moral Integrity, 111.

³⁶ Kramer, Torture and Moral Integrity, 68–9. Although she does not use this terminology, Frances Kamm's discussion of ‘torture-narrow’ includes some examples of act-impelling torture in its scope; see Kamm, Frances M., Ethics for Enemies: Torture, Terror, and War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 14 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁷ Pallikkathayil, Japa, ‘Deriving Morality from Politics: Rethinking the Formula of Humanity’, Ethics 121 (October 2010), 129 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁸ Kershnar, Desert, Retribution, and Torture, 186–8; Steinhoff, On the Ethics of Torture, 88.

³⁹ Kamm, Frances, Intricate Ethics: Rights, Responsibilities, and Permissible Harm (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 238 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁰ Wisnewski, Understanding Torture, 59.

⁴¹ Korsgaard, Christine, Creating the Kingdom of Ends (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 295 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴² See Pallikkathayil, ‘Rethinking the Formula of Humanity’, 117–29.

⁴³ Brecher, Torture and the Ticking Bomb, 75; Card, Claudia, ‘Ticking Bombs and Interrogations’, Criminal Law and Philosophy 2 (2008), 8 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Juratowitch, Ben, ‘Torture Is Always Wrong’, Public Affairs Quarterly, vol. 22, no. 2 (April 2008), 87 Google Scholar; Jeremy Waldron, Torture, Terror, and Trade-Offs, 206; Wisnewski, Understanding Torture, 73.

⁴⁴ Sussman, ‘What's Wrong With Torture?’, 4.

⁴⁵ Wisnewski, Understanding Torture, 73.

⁴⁶ Ibid., 82.

⁴⁷ Wisnewski, Understanding Torture, 88.

⁴⁸ Sussman suggests without endorsing this argument in ‘What's Wrong with Torture?’, 13–4.

⁴⁹ See, for example, Rawls, John, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996)Google Scholar and Scanlon, Thomas, The Importance of What We Owe To Each Other (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998)Google Scholar.

⁵⁰ Kamm, Ethics for Enemies, 17.

⁵¹ In the remainder of this paragraph, I have been guided by Hill's, Thomas ‘Wrongdoing, Desert, and Punishment’ reprinted in his Human Welfare and Moral Worth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 310–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵² Ibid., 338. Wisnewski and Emerick invoke a potential counter-example here involving an escaped slave who does not accept being beaten and returned to his master when he chooses to escape, even if he chooses knowing that he will be beaten and enslaved again if caught. See Wisnewski and Emerick, The Ethics of Torture, 74–5. But a slave surely does not have a fair share of what justice requires.

⁵³ Christine Korsgaard, ‘The Right to Lie: Kant on Dealing with Evil’, 133–58.

⁵⁴ Ibid., 153.

⁵⁵ Ibid., 151.

⁵⁶ See Casebeer, ‘Torture Interrogation of Terrorists’, 268; Kleinig, ‘Ticking Bombs and Torture Warrants’, 620; Luban, ‘Liberalism, Torture, and the Ticking Bomb’, 1445–52; Wisnewski, Understanding Torture, 195–7; Wolfendale, Jessica, ‘Training Torturers: A Critique of the “Ticking Bomb” Argument’, Social Theory & Practice 32 (2006), 269–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁷ While some commentators hold that our indirect duties to animals are derived from direct imperfect duties owed to others, Kant is clear that the duty to refrain from cruelty ‘is always only a duty of the human being to himself’ (MM, 443).

⁵⁸ Altman, Matthew C., Kant and Applied Ethics: The Uses and Limits of Kant's Practical Philosophy (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), 19 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁹ Arguably, Kant's multiple retributivist remarks should not be understood as fundamental moral principles, but instead function as components of a complicated theory of legal punishment that combines retributive policies with concerns about deterrence. For discussion, see Byrd, Sharon, ‘Kant's Theory of Punishment: Deterrence in its Threat, Retribution in its Execution’, Law and Philosophy 8 (1989), 151–200 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶⁰ Altman, Kant and Applied Ethics, 125.

⁶¹ I do not mean to argue that Kantian skepticism about determining moral worth undermines the need for legal punishment generally. We may well know a posteriori that we need legal punishment in practice – Kant never doubts that – even if we do not know whether we need punitive torture.

⁶² For further discussion, see my ‘Fantasy, Conceivability, and Ticking Bombs’, Public Affairs Quarterly 27:3 (2013), 87–110 Google Scholar. Footnote omitted for consideration.

⁶³ Richard Posner, ‘Torture, Terrorism, and Interrogation’, in Torture: A Collection, 296.

⁶⁴ Oren Gross, ‘The Prohibition on Torture and the Limits of Law’, in Torture: A Collection, 241.

⁶⁵ Steinhoff, On the Ethics of Torture, 109.

⁶⁶ Ibid., 134. Even if this were so, it wouldn't follow that a third party – say, the police officer who threatens the kidnapper of a child – could rightly torture in defense of that child. While the unjustly attacked victim might owe his attacker nothing, third-party agents still might: recall that on a popular if controversial interpretation of Kant, I am not even allowed to lie to the axe murderer in defense of another person.

⁶⁷ Herman, Barbara, ‘Murder and Mayhem’, in her The Practice of Moral Judgment, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993), 130 Google Scholar.

⁶⁸ Waldron, Torture, Terror, and Trade-Offs, 255.

⁶⁹ Pallikkathayil, ‘Rethinking the Formula of Humanity’, 117.