Knowledge versus Morality

There is a lot in the papers these days about the possibility (probability?) that the Bush administration sponsored the torture of prisoners. My son has been angry that the question of whether torture works has been confounded with the question of whether it is morally acceptable to torture prisoners. I see his point, in that there will be people who cloud the moral clarity of the propositions that:

• Americans don't torture because it is wrong to do so,
• Torturing people is contrary to both American law and America's international treaty obligations.

It seems to me that there are interesting questions as to:

• Government lawyers who wrote opinions as to what interrogation practices were and were not legal.
• Government scientists who summarized the evidence as to the efficacy of different interrogation processes on different kinds of subjects.

I think that such studies may be entirely appropriate. Think for example of the need to have knowledge about the interrogation techniques that may be used by others on American citizens who are held prisoners. Certainly, also one wants to allow such "knowledge workers" to provide their best judgments on the questions that are asked of them without fear of adverse consequences if their conclusions prove not to have been true or if they are misused by others.

Certainly the people who actually inflict torture are guilty, and as I understand our justice system, one who refuses to obey illegal instructions is in theory safe from retaliation.

We know enough about the willingness of people to carry out unethical orders to understand that the people who give those orders have to be held responsible.

It would seem that people who seek to provide cover for torture by producing false findings on the legality and necessity of torture are also guilty, but how do you understand the intentions of the authors of reports written in the past? How do you determine whether erroneous conclusions are deliberate falsifications or honest mistakes?

The Obama administration may be well advised to refrain from proceedings against knowledge workers. On the other hand, I hope they will proceed against those who ordered torture and those who tortured.