That's why my question was where do you draw the line? I would draw it lower than one million. If you told me that I could have stopped 9/11 by torturing someone I'd have done it and now I'm down to under 4,000 lives I'm willing to torture for. So now my question is how low will I go ?
Another way to look at it is I'm all for the policeman shooting the bank robber who has a gun to a hostage's head. So in reality I'm willing to take one life or torture one person to save one life. The irony is that we don't consider shooting that guy torture. Why? because he has a weapon and possibly the intent and the means to harm another individual.
So compare that to the guy plotting to blow up 300 people the next day? The difference is you can't know for sure becaue he doesn't have the weapon on him but what If you know he planted the weapon and you're just not sure where? Can you torture one life to save 300? and before you answer no, what if those 300 lives were at an elementary school?
The reality is I know torture has not been proven a viable method of extrating information but if it were, I think I would draw the line very low .
Thanks for the link to Rawls.