Someone stole the car with the baby inside. Police caught the thief, but there is no car or the baby. There is a heatwave and the baby can last max 2h in the car. The thief panicked and dumped the car somewhere. He is not willing to tell where it is.
Beating him up to get the info is acceptable ethically.
They can threaten the thief with murder charges, promise a reduced sentence if he tells the location of the car, etc. Do you really think beating up the thief would be more effective? Life is not a hollywood action movie.
On TV they give up everything they worked for and believe in if you break a few fingers. In real life, they just lie to you, you run back and forth trying to verify the lies, then 2 hours have passed.
edit: Americans (and others) have been taught to believe in torture like a religion, to continue to associate torture with truth. Torture is an argument; you're arguing with people that it's in their best interest to do what you want them to do. It is rarely an appropriate argument, and rarely an effective argument. It's far easier and more effective to convince them that cooperating with you is the right thing to do, and that's still not easy. But there are tactics, such as complete isolation and control over their environment, rewards for any sort of cooperation, friendliness and human connection, actual rhetoric and discussion, periods of complete disorientation alternated with periods of calm, pandering to their egos. They don't work in two hours.
Someone stole the car with the baby inside. Police caught the thief, but there is no car or the baby. There is a heatwave and the baby can last max 2h in the car. The thief panicked and dumped the car somewhere. He is not willing to tell where it is.
Beating him up to get the info is acceptable ethically.