The Torturer's Dilemma: Analyzing the Logic of Torture for Information

absence of an investigative apparatus, are best off torturing as doing so results in a greater number of
guilty captives being punished, even if this is at the cost of tortured and imprisoned innocents. Arrigo
(2004) argues that torture, however conceived, is not useful due to the unintended inputs and outputs
necessary to make it work: for example, the need for trained medical personnel to prevent the captive
from dying or going unconscious during questioning, or of creating a professional cadre of torturer's
who must be separated from society, with all the dangers for a democratic government that his entails.
My approach differs from Wantchekon and Healy in that torture, as a process for generating
information, is necessarily marked by an information asymmetry between the captive and the state: not
only does the state lack knowledge of whether or not the captive is knowledgeable, it also cannot
necessarily tell whether the captive's information (when he speaks) is true or false. I differ from Chen
et al. in examining torture for information, and not judicial torture: the state seeks not simply a
confession, but information that it intends to use, potentially in further torture proceedings. Finally, I
differ from Arrigo, in holding that torture, no matter the necessary indirect costs associated with its
institutionalization, cannot be considered useless unless there exists something in the torture process
itself that injures the state that uses it – otherwise, apologists for torture would be able to argue that
torture simply needs the correct institutional setup and safeguards in order to work correctly. 29 For
arguments against torture to succeed, it must be shown that torture fails at its appointed task –
systematically gathering useful and true intelligence for the state that utilizes it.
2.4. A Model of Torture
Let us begin by considering torture as a rational process, as an informal game with two players:
the captive and the state. The state holds in its power a captive who may or may not have intelligence
that the state desires, and it is assumed that the value of the information is zero-sum for the captive and
the state: whatever the value of the information the state gains, the captive loses by an equal amount.
The captive is faced with a choice to either reveal information to the state, or keep silent – however, the
knowledgeable captive can choose to reveal information that is either true or false. 30 The state may
then choose to either torture or imprison the captive – it is assumed that the state will never release a
29 This is the approach taken by Dershowitz (2002) when he argues for torture warrants, as well as by Guazzini et al. in the
centuries before him.
30 For simplicity's sake, assume that false information has an equal and opposite value for the state and captive. The zero-
sum aspect remains.
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