AbsurdBeats

Even he—‘I put for a general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death’—thought torture useless:

Also accusations upon torture are not to be reputed as testimonies. For torture is to be used but as means of conjecture and light in the futher examination and search of truth; and what is in that case confessed tendeth to the ease of him that is tortured, not to the informing of the torturers, and therefore ought not to have the credit of sufficient testimony; for whether he deliver himself by true or false accusation, he does it by the right of preserving his own life.

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

Although he shrugged off much conventional 17th-century morality, Hobbes was convinced of the necessity of the person to preserve himself. Thus even the overwhelming and legitimate authority of the sovereign was not enough to render torture of use to that sovereign.

Is this a ringing defense of the dignity of the person or a denunciation of the horrors of state-sponsored terror?

No. And yes.