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Regardless of popular opinion, can this ever be justified as a moral act? The common justification that I have read is that the bombings shortened what would

Regardless of popular opinion, can this ever be justified as a moral act? The common justification that I have read is that the bombings shortened what would have otherwise been a protracted defeat, potentially saving many more lives than were taken. A Utilitarian argument. However, if we were to take a Kantian point of view, the bombed civilians were used as an “ends” to achieve victory. Or more simply, an immoral act can never be justified, whatever the outcome. So which is right? I enjoyed a recent Star Trek episode that examined the Utilitarian philosophy taken to an extreme (spoilers follow). In it an advanced utopian society is powered by the suffering of one child, chosen before birth. The joy and happiness of millions, at the expense of one innocent. Utilitarian philosophy (and modern economic theory), would call this an obviously acceptable trade-off, but Kant would argue that it is immoral as a person can never be used as an ends. In the real world, we saw this argument play out in regards to whether the torture of terrorists was acceptable if it meant the extraction of information that would save lives. Personally, I am of the Kantian view point, and I think the nuclear bombing of the two Japanese cities can never, and should never, be justified as moral acts.

grahamplace 3y ago
The Star Trek story you describe sounded exactly like The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas — indeed the “References” section of the Wikipedia article mentions the Star Trek episode taking inspiration from it https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ones_Who_Walk_Away_from_Omelas https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ones_Who_Walk_Away_from_...
ethanbond 3y ago
Bombing of civilians was the norm for that era. The atomic bombs are pretty much not unique on that dimension. It happened in the European theatre too, where there was an actual distinction between civilians and military. In Japan this distinction essentially didn’t exist anywhere and would completely dissolve near the front. Kant never had to choose between 225,000 dead (Hiroshima + Nagasaki) or 70,000,000 (the rest of the population who showed every sign of willingness to fight to the last child). Japan was routinely fighting all the way to 80-90% casualties in battles, which is AFAIK completely unheard of in modern warfare. That number was going up as they got closer to the homeland, not down like when most militaries are clearly losing.
- lll-o-lll 3y ago
  As I said, the argument for this being an ethically appropriate approach can be made from a Utilitarian or Consequentialist view point. That view becomes complicated by the difficulty of knowing what would have happened had alternative decisions been made (others have debated that point ad infinitum). It’s a partial knowledge problem. It’s not my point though. Regardless of the actual trade in lives and human suffering between the two alternatives, a deontological viewpoint judges the rightness of an action by the action itself - no matter the outcome. So that’s my point. The bombing of civilians (whatever the prevailing norms, and no matter the consequences), is always wrong, and can never be justified on the grounds of “it shortened the war“ or “it would have saved millions of lives”. However, it’s not a simple and clear cut argument, and perhaps it can be justified in other ways. I reject the utilitarian arguments, but I’m open to considering other justifications.
  - ethanbond 3y ago
    Just goes to show you the silliness of how people use ethical systems. These systems are generalized out of example cases, not created de novo in concept-space and then applied unquestioned to every new example case. The real world has many more real variables and tradeoffs than any ethical system could reasonably account for even abstractly. The systems provide a surface to bounce new cases off of, but IMO if an ethical system says it's preferable to pick near-certain death of say 1 million people (a mere 1.4% hypothetical casualty rate) over the certain death of 250,000 people, it should very obviously be discarded for that case.
    - lll-o-lll 3y ago
      In the real world every person performs acts they believe to be justified. If the ends justify the means, then all manner of evil acts can be accommodated. If we can’t turn and point at the destruction of entire cities with a weapon of unimaginable devastation and say “that is bad”, something is wrong. No ethical system, including Kantian, says it’s better to pick a million dead over 250k. Kant says “you can’t kill 250000 people to save a million, and call yourself righteous”. A man can sell his soul to save his family but the price must be paid.

grahamplace 3y ago

The Star Trek story you describe sounded exactly like The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas — indeed the “References” section of the Wikipedia article mentions the Star Trek episode taking inspiration from it https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ones_Who_Walk_Away_from_Omelas https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ones_Who_Walk_Away_from_...

ethanbond 3y ago

Bombing of civilians was the norm for that era. The atomic bombs are pretty much not unique on that dimension. It happened in the European theatre too, where there was an actual distinction between civilians and military. In Japan this distinction essentially didn’t exist anywhere and would completely dissolve near the front. Kant never had to choose between 225,000 dead (Hiroshima + Nagasaki) or 70,000,000 (the rest of the population who showed every sign of willingness to fight to the last child). Japan was routinely fighting all the way to 80-90% casualties in battles, which is AFAIK completely unheard of in modern warfare. That number was going up as they got closer to the homeland, not down like when most militaries are clearly losing.

lll-o-lll 3y ago
As I said, the argument for this being an ethically appropriate approach can be made from a Utilitarian or Consequentialist view point. That view becomes complicated by the difficulty of knowing what would have happened had alternative decisions been made (others have debated that point ad infinitum). It’s a partial knowledge problem. It’s not my point though. Regardless of the actual trade in lives and human suffering between the two alternatives, a deontological viewpoint judges the rightness of an action by the action itself - no matter the outcome. So that’s my point. The bombing of civilians (whatever the prevailing norms, and no matter the consequences), is always wrong, and can never be justified on the grounds of “it shortened the war“ or “it would have saved millions of lives”. However, it’s not a simple and clear cut argument, and perhaps it can be justified in other ways. I reject the utilitarian arguments, but I’m open to considering other justifications.
- ethanbond 3y ago
  Just goes to show you the silliness of how people use ethical systems. These systems are generalized out of example cases, not created de novo in concept-space and then applied unquestioned to every new example case. The real world has many more real variables and tradeoffs than any ethical system could reasonably account for even abstractly. The systems provide a surface to bounce new cases off of, but IMO if an ethical system says it's preferable to pick near-certain death of say 1 million people (a mere 1.4% hypothetical casualty rate) over the certain death of 250,000 people, it should very obviously be discarded for that case.
  - lll-o-lll 3y ago
    In the real world every person performs acts they believe to be justified. If the ends justify the means, then all manner of evil acts can be accommodated. If we can’t turn and point at the destruction of entire cities with a weapon of unimaginable devastation and say “that is bad”, something is wrong. No ethical system, including Kantian, says it’s better to pick a million dead over 250k. Kant says “you can’t kill 250000 people to save a million, and call yourself righteous”. A man can sell his soul to save his family but the price must be paid.