I believe this scenario is misleading because it does ignore the negative consequences of allowing torture. The way you describe it there seem to be two possibl

I believe this scenario is misleading because it does ignore the negative consequences of allowing torture. The way you describe it there seem to be two possible scenarios - 1. forbid torturing the terrorist and let innocent people die or 2. torture the terrorist and save innocent people. I believe this is not what happens in real life. The real decision is either 1. authorities are never allowed to torture anyone and some innocent people whose deaths could be prevented die and 2. authorities are allowed to torture terrorist suspects and they will abuse this power to achieve what they want by torturing people they know are innocent and claiming they were suspects. As someone who grew up in a totalitarian country I am inclined to believe that real 2 does more harm to society than real 1.