While some countries will pay ransoms to free hostages, the United States has a public policy of not doing this. One reason to not pay a ransom for hostages is based on sticking to a principle. This principle could be that bad behavior should not be rewarded or that hostage taking should be punished. Or some other principle.
One of the best arguments against paying ransoms for hostages is a practical and utilitarian moral argument. Paying ransoms gives hostage takers an incentive to take hostages. This incentive means more people will be taken hostage. The cost of not paying is, of course, the possibility that hostages will be killed. However, the argument goes, if hostage takers realize that they will not be paid a ransom, they will have less incentive to take more hostages. This will reduce the chances that hostages will be taken. The calculation is, of course, that the harm done to the current hostages will be outweighed by the benefits of not having people taken hostage in the future.
This argument assumes that hostage takers are primarily motivated by the ransom. If they are taking hostages primarily for other reasons, such as for status, to make a statement or to get media attention, then not paying them a ransom will not significantly reduce their incentive to take hostages. This leads to a second reason why ransoms should not be paid.
In addition to the incentive argument, there is also the funding argument. While a terrorist group might have reasons other than money to take hostages, they benefit from getting ransoms. The money they receive can be used to fund additional operations, such as taking more hostages. Obviously, if ransoms are not paid, then such groups lose this funding, and this could impact their operations. Since paying a ransom would be funding terrorism, this provides both a moral and a practical reason not to pay.
While these arguments have a rational appeal, they are typically countered by emotional appeals. One approach to arguing that ransoms should be paid is the “in their shoes” appeal. The method involves asking a person whether they would want a ransom to be paid for their release or for the release of a loved one. Most people would want the ransom paid, assuming doing so would be effective. Sometimes the appeal is made explicitly in terms of emotions: “how would you feel if your loved one died because the government refused to pay the ransom?” Obviously, a person would feel awful.
This method does have considerable appeal. The “in their shoes” appeal can is like the golden rule approach (do unto others as you would have them do unto you) and is that policy should be based on how you would want to be treated in that situation. If I would not want the policy applied to me (that is, I would want to be ransomed or have my loved one ransomed), then I should be morally opposed to a no-pay policy as a matter of consistency. This certainly makes sense: if I would not want a policy applied in my case, then I should (in general) not support that policy.
One obvious counter is that there seems to be a distinction between what a policy should be and whether a person would want that policy applied to herself. For example, some universities have a policy that if a student misses more than three classes, the student fails the course. Naturally, no student wants that policy to be applied to her (and most professors would not have wanted it to apply to them when they were students), but this does not show that the policy is wrong. As another example, a company might have a policy of not providing health insurance to part time employees. While the CEO would certainly not like the policy if she were part-time, it does not follow that the policy must be a bad one. As such, policies need to be assessed not just in terms of how a person feels about them, but in terms of their merit or lack thereof.
Another obvious counter is to use the same approach, only with a modification. In response to the question “how would you feel if you were the hostage or she were a loved one?” one could ask “how would you feel if you or a loved one were taken hostage in an operation funded by ransom money? Or “how would you feel if you or a loved one were taken hostage because the hostage takers learned that people would pay ransoms for hostages?” The answer would be, of course, that one would feel bad about that. However, while how one would feel about this can be useful in discussing the matter, it is not decisive. Settling the matter rationally does require considering more than just how people would feel. It requires looking at the matter with a degree of objectivity. That is, not just asking how people would feel, but what would be right and what would yield the best results in the practical sense. Obviously, talking about objectivity is easy when one is not a hostage.