I am especially pleased that Professor Elaine Scarry’s essay is included in this collection,
because it demonstrates how a very smart person, who has read my essay and my other writing
on this issue27, persists on confusing my empirical descriptions and predictions (that torture is
being practiced and will be practiced by democracies in extreme situations) with my normative
preference (that torture should not be employed and that its use should be reduced or eliminated).
Here is how Profesor Scarry erroneously characterizes my view: “He believes that in such a
situation [the ticking bomb scenario] it would be permissible to torture if one first obtained a
judicial or executive warrant.” She contrasts my purported normative views with “our
commitment to an unwavering prohibition on torture.” But my point is precisely that we have no
such commitment. In fact, instead our commitment is to “the way of the hypocrites: they declare