--- title: Torture: Your Brain Justifies It description: You fancy yourself a moral person, and you likely are. But your mind has a very dark side, and when it comes to torture, it's always trying to lure you in canonical: https://time.com/101919/torture-brain-justify/ author: Jeffrey Kluger article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-05-15T21:34:09.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T07:52:32.048Z article:section: Science og:title: Torture? 'You Bet,' Says Your Brain og:description: You fancy yourself a moral person, and you likely are. But your mind has a very dark side, and when it comes to torture, it's always trying to lure you in og:url: https://time.com/101919/torture-brain-justify/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb3821268b1aa7e6b/69868fc11eebf7532e370ed7/colin-firth-railway-man.jpg?branch=production&width=1000&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1000 og:image:height: 563 og:image:alt: Witness to torture: Colin Firth in The Railway Man og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Torture? 'You Bet,' Says Your Brain twitter:description: You fancy yourself a moral person, and you likely are. But your mind has a very dark side, and when it comes to torture, it's always trying to lure you in twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb3821268b1aa7e6b/69868fc11eebf7532e370ed7/colin-firth-railway-man.jpg?branch=production&width=1000&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How Your Brain Justifies Torture > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Newsletters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME publishes seven free email newsletters, written and edited by TIME journalists, reaching more than 1.1 million engaged readers. TIME has reported on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world since 1923, and its newsletters bring that same authority directly to the inbox. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement.  by [Jeffrey Kluger](https://time.com/author/jeffrey-kluger/)  ## Jeffrey Kluger Editor at Large May 15, 2014 9:34 PM UTC  Witness to torture: Colin Firth in The Railway Man Witness to torture: Colin Firth in The Railway Man Jaap Buitendijk—Weinstein Company  by [Jeffrey Kluger](https://time.com/author/jeffrey-kluger/)  ## Jeffrey Kluger Editor at Large May 15, 2014 9:34 PM UTC Fresh out of reasons to despair for the human condition? Here’s one: even after the Stalin-era interrogations, the Bataan death march, the Hanoi tiger cages, the atrocities of Abu Ghraib, and the freshly, horribly, unforgettably depicted waterboarding scene in the new film [_The Railway Man_](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2058107/)—even after all that—our brains still play cute when it comes to justifying torture. That’s the conclusion of a new [study](http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/04/16/0956797614531024.abstract) out of Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Researchers there recruited 72 volunteers and asked subjects to read fictionalized accounts of real incidents during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in which prisoners were abused or tortured for a variety of reasons, including throwing food in a prison cafeteria or refusing to answer questions about an imminent attack. Sometimes it was an American (identified as “Jim Green”) who was the abuser, sometimes it was an enemy soldier (“Jawid Gawri”) abusing an American. After the subjects read the stories they saw videos of actors reading the accounts aloud, but leaving out the reason for the abuse—reporting only that a prisoner had been beaten with a belt, say, or half-drowned in a bucket of water. This reinforced the subjects’ awareness of the act but created some distance from the justification the attacker used. Later, when the volunteers were asked to describe the incidents in as much detail as they could, they were significantly more inclined to forget the justification when “Jawid” was the abuser than when “Jim” was. In effect, the enemy had no excuse, but the American at least had a colorable cause of action. This is consistent with a deep body of work showing that all people—very young children included—have a powerful bias toward remembering good things about in-group members and an equal tendency to remember bad things about out-groupers. That, in turn, is a small but significant step toward the dehumanization that allows torture to take place at all. Certainly, morality is about more than just what we remember at any moment. Most people still condemn torture—at least outwardly—whether Jim or Jawid is the perp. But our brain—the seat of all that is otherwise brilliant and noble about us—nonetheless tries to give us a pass. 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