Tom and I just keep stealing from each other's blogs

Weighing in on Tom's points about torture. I don't disagree with his assessment of torture. But I do point out that one aspect of determining a person's moral culpability for an act is the extent to which the person is free to choose to act or not to act. A person under threat of nuclear annihilation has very much less free will than a person not under such threat, in determining how best to extract information about the threat.

Most people don't frame the argument that way. Most say "torture is justified" which it is not. But torture may likewise not turn out to have been mortal sin either.