We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. It may be the fire destruction prophesied in the Euphrates Valley Era, after Noah and his fabulous Ark.
Harry Truman, Diary entry-July 25, 1945
A bit late for the annual Saint Blog’s August Bomb Follies, but here is a new Prager University video by Father Wilson Miscamble defending Harry Truman’s decision to use the atomic bombs to bring World War II to a rapid conclusion. I will repeat here what I wrote back on July 24, 2012 after Father Miscamble made an earlier video on the subject:
Getting the annual Saint Blogs August Bomb Follies off to an early start. Father Wilson Miscamble, Professor of History at Notre Dame, and long a champion of the pro-life cause, defends the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the video above. The video is a summary of the conclusions reached by Father Miscamble in his recent book, The Most Controversial Decision. Go here to read a review of the book by British military historian Andrew Roberts. Go here to read a review of the book by Father Michael P. Orsi. Go here to read a review by Michael Novak.
I echo the conclusions of Father Wilson Miscamble and appreciate his heroic efforts to clear up the bad history and inane American self-flagellation that has distorted a very straight-forward historical event. I also appreciate his willingness to take the heat that his position has caused him. Go here to read his response to a critique by Professor Christopher Tollefsen. This portion of his response is something I have noted in regard to many critics of Truman, an unwillingness to address the consequences of not dropping the bombs:
It is when one turns to alternate courses of action that the abstract nature of Tollefsen’s criticisms becomes apparent. He criticizes Truman’s actions as immoral but offers no serious proposal regarding a viable alternative. Elizabeth Anscombe had naively suggested that Truman alter the terms of surrender, but such an approach only would have strengthened the hand of the Japanese militarists and confirmed their suicidal strategy. Tollefsen concedes that “it might well be true that greater suffering would have resulted from a refusal to use the atomic weapons in Japan,” but he backs away from any genuine discussion of what Truman should have done and of what that “greater suffering” might have involved. He provides no evidence that he has considered this matter at all. But should philosophers be able to avoid outlining what they would have done in the demanding circumstances that Truman confronted? I have always thought that moral reflection wrestles with the awful and painful realities. Tollefsen seems to want to stand above the fray, to pronounce Truman’s actions as deeply immoral and to leave it at that. It would have brought greater clarity to this discussion if he had confronted the alternatives seriously.
If Tollefsen were to engage the military issues involved in the war in the Pacific, I suspect he would be forced to raise further objections to the American military practices pursued well before the Enola Gay flew toward Hiroshima. Take as but one example the early 1945 Battle for Manila, in which approximately one hundred thousand Filipino civilians were killed. Some were killed by the Japanese, but many of this large number were killed by aggressive American air and artillery bombardments used, without particular regard for civilian casualties, as the American forces sought to dislodge an established enemy that refused to surrender. These harsh tactics could not meet Tollefsen’s criteria with regard to means. Given his unbending approach on moral absolutes, I assume he would condemn the action; but just what military means would he support in trying to defeat a foe that considered surrender the ultimate disgrace and who fought accordingly? Similarly, Tollefsen could hardly approve of the military force utilized in the taking of Okinawa and the high number of civilian casualties that resulted.
I suspect that Professor Tollefsen would be willing to say that it would be better to do absolutely nothing and to live with the consequences, if I may use that word, than to use morally questionable tactics. But the decision not to act undoubtedly would have incurred terrible consequences. Surely such inaction would carry some burden of responsibility for the prolongation of the killing of innocents throughout Asia, in the charnel house of the Japanese Empire. Is it really “moral” to stand aside, maintaining one’s supposed moral purity, while a vast slaughter is occurring at the rate of over two hundred thousand deaths a month? Isn’t there a terrible dilemma here, namely, which innocent lives to save? Would Tollefsen really have rested at peace with the long-term Japanese domination of Asia? Would that be a pro-life position?
Let me confess that I would prefer that my position had the clarity of Professor Tollefsen’s. It is a large concession to admit that Truman’s action was the “least evil.” Arguing that it was the least-harmful option open to him will hardly be persuasive to those who see everything in a sharp black-and-white focus. Yet this is how I see it. If someone can present to me a viable and more “moral way” to have defeated the Japanese and ended World War II, I will change my position. I suppose my position here has some resonance with my support for the policy of deterrence during the Cold War. I could recognize the moral flaws in the strategy but still I found it the best of the available options, and the alternatives were markedly worse. Interestingly, I think the author of Veritatis Splendor thought the same thing and he conveyed that view to the American bishops as they wrote their peace pastoral letter.
I trust that my pro-life credentials will not be questioned because I refuse to denounce Truman as a “mass-murderer.” Unlike Tollefsen, I do not think that my position initiates the unraveling of the entire pro-life garment. I believe Truman pursued the least-harmful course of action available to him to end a ghastly war, a course that resulted in the least loss of life.
Harry Truman knew that if he ordered the dropping of the bombs, a very large number of Japanese civilians would be killed. He also knew that if he did not drop the bombs it was virtually certain that a far larger number of civilians, Allied, in territory occupied by Japan, as well as Japanese, would be killed, as a result of the war grinding on until the war ceased due to an invasion of Japan, continued massive conventional bombing of Japan, or a continuation of the blockade which would result in mass famine in Japan. He also knew that an invasion of Japan would have led to massive, almost unthinkable, US military casualties, to add to the 416,000 US deaths and 670,000 US wounded that World War II had already cost. The morality of Truman’s dropping of the bombs has been a subject of debate since 1945. Comparatively little attention has been paid to the practical and moral consequences of Truman failing to act. Father Miscamble is to be congratulated for examining this facet of Truman’s Dilemma.
Go here to read the 269 (!) comments to that post.
If it was their sons, husbands and fathers being murdered, yes, murdered by an unjust aggressor, they would joyfully applaud the end of the WWII by any and every means. Could we have afforded such “morality” in the face of the Bataan Death March, the slave camps of the Japanese, Iwo Jima and the numerous assaults on life, liberty and freedom? The least that they could do is admit that they were not there fighting for freedom, in harm’s way. laying their own life down. Hindsight is 20/20.
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Ask them. Perhaps they would not approve of the invasion of Normandy on D Day.
The Japanese bear the guilt and bloodguilt for the civilian killed. Japan started a war of world domination and killed indiscriminately using the civilians as “shields”. Although the term “shields” was not used then, as it is now, that is exactly what the civilian population was for the Japanese.
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The American soldier regretted and mourned the civilian death. The Japanese indulged in bloodlust.
I have looked at my comments and realized that our language no longer has the words needed to express the reality of WWII. America has become a nation of politically correct idiots.
and imbeciles.
I’m surprised to see a priest advocate for the grossly immoral principle that the ends (avoiding anticipated, guessed-at, and likely very inaccurate casualties figures) could justify the means (indiscriminate mass destruction of not just a military target but necessarilyvast civilian areas utterly unrelated to actual military activities).
One doesn’t have to be a pacifist or a neo-Catholic social leftist to recognize that the utilitarian morality at play in the dropping of the bombs was evil, the capstone to a wicked notion of “total war” first enunciated in the 19th century.
“Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation.” Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2314.
“When, I wonder, did we in America ever get into this idea that freedom means having no boundaries and no limits? I think it began on the 6th of August 1945 at 8:15 am when we dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. … Somehow or other, from that day on in our American life, we say we want no limits and no boundaries.” –Fulton Sheen, that great tree-hugging leftist.
“The cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are a message to all our contemporaries, inviting all the earth’s peoples to learn the lessons of history and to work for peace with ever greater determination. Indeed, they remind our contemporaries of all the crimes committed during the Second World War against civilian populations, crimes and acts of true genocide.” –Pope St. John Paul II (9/11/99 address)
The vast majority (likely over 95%) of casualties of the bombs were civilian. The bombs were not really needed to destroy whatever military targets still existed in blockaded, devastated Japan (and targets that remained could have been, and all over Japan were, destroyed by far more accurate conventional bombing) but to send a message to Japan and compel an unconditional surrender.
That is, these civilians were slaughtered not because there was such a vital military goal, but rather because the US wanted to terrorize Japan into quick unconditional surrender. The military “need” was a thin window dressing for the actual purpose of the bombs. Civilians were killed not because of military need but for political ends.
Catholics who want to defend Truman in the apparent belief that when it comes to military matters the US can do no wrong, have to do incredible contortions of fact, history, and moral reasoning to escape the clear and unequivocal Catholic teaching that direct and indiscriminate mass killing of civilians is always and everywhere immoral.
Japan had erased the distinction between civilian and military in its population.
The Japanese government did. I don’t know that it allows us to. ISIS erases the distinction between civilian and military with respect to the US – does the mean they are justified? The US erases distinction between terrorist and non-combatant in many of its drone attacks – does that mean it is right?
It is not “Truman bashing” to observe he made a mistake. Just because it was a very difficult decision does not mean he can’t get it wrong.
without the use of the bomb millions of more people would have died.
This seems to be the linchpin argument. But how does this not amount to consequentialism or utilitariansm? The historical record also seems clear that the intent in bombing was specifically, among other things, to inflict sufficient casualties and destruction among the general populace (combatant or not) to force a surrender. The real question is whether or not it is licit to cause widespread casualties and destruction among noncombatants to achieve a perceived good. Answer that question, and Hiroshima/Nagasaki answer themselves.
“I’m surprised to see a priest advocate for the grossly immoral principle that the ends (avoiding anticipated, guessed-at, and likely very inaccurate casualties figures) could justify the means (indiscriminate mass destruction of not just a military target but necessarilyvast civilian areas utterly unrelated to actual military activities).”
I am surprised by your surprise Tom since you commented quite vociferously when I posted this originally back in 2012. Of course you mischaracterize completely Miscamble’s argument and the historical record which was crystal clear that without the use of the bomb millions of more people would have died.
“One doesn’t have to be a pacifist or a neo-Catholic social leftist to recognize that the utilitarian morality at play in the dropping of the bombs was evil, the capstone to a wicked notion of “total war” first enunciated in the 19th century.”
Rubbish Tom. Ever heard of Genghis Khan? Total War is as old as the sacking of cities in Sumer. What was unusual about many conflicts in the 19th century was the restraint shown. Our own Civil War was a prime example of this.
““Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation.” Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2314.”
Which would have come as a vast surprise to all the popes over the centuries whose armies besieged cities. Church teaching on war has taken a very utopian tone now that popes, since 1870, no longer wage war.
““When, I wonder, did we in America ever get into this idea that freedom means having no boundaries and no limits? I think it began on the 6th of August 1945 at 8:15 am when we dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. … Somehow or other, from that day on in our American life, we say we want no limits and no boundaries.” –Fulton Sheen, that great tree-hugging leftist.”
Actually on foreign policy he often was. A prime example was his coming out against the Vietnam War in 1967.
“The vast majority (likely over 95%) of casualties of the bombs were civilian.”
False. Over 40,000 Japanese troops were stationed in Hiroshima and 9,000 in Nagasaki and every adult Japanese male between 15-60 was considered to be a member of the Volunteer Fighting Corps along with all unmarried females between 17-40. Japan had erased the distinction between civilian and military in its population.
““The cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are a message to all our contemporaries, inviting all the earth’s peoples to learn the lessons of history and to work for peace with ever greater determination. Indeed, they remind our contemporaries of all the crimes committed during the Second World War against civilian populations, crimes and acts of true genocide.” –Pope St. John Paul II (9/11/99 address)”
John Paul II was close to being a pacifist by the end of his life. But of course if the Allies, often using methods he would condemn, had not won the war, it is quite likely he would never have survived it, as the Nazis planned to murder all Poles except for a handful they would keep as slaves.
“That is, these civilians were slaughtered not because there was such a vital military goal, but rather because the US wanted to terrorize Japan into quick unconditional surrender. The military “need” was a thin window dressing for the actual purpose of the bombs. Civilians were killed not because of military need but for political ends.”
Tom, read a bit of history. After Okinawa, no one in the American government wanted to see those type of casualties replicated on a giant scale in Japan. The idea that the Japanese were willing to surrender without the bomb is a fable.
“Catholics who want to defend Truman in the apparent belief that when it comes to military matters the US can do no wrong, have to do incredible contortions of fact, history, and moral reasoning to escape the clear and unequivocal Catholic teaching that direct and indiscriminate mass killing of civilians is always and everywhere immoral.”
A lot of projection going on there Tom. The Truman bashers usually believe that the US can do no good and show a shocking ignorance of the history surround the dropping of the bomb as you have just demonstrated.
Comparatively little attention has been paid to the practical and moral consequences of Truman failing to act.
The problem is this misdirects the focus of the inquiry. Evaluating whether “[an] act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants” is licit in the first instance does not depend upon consequences, practical or ethical, of failing to act. In other words, if such act is intrinsically evil, no amount of practical or ethical alternative consequences can make it “un-intrinsically evil.” Before getting to these alternative issues, you first have to demonstrate the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not intrinsically evil without resorting to these alternatives to prove it.
I believe Truman pursued the least-harmful course of action available to him to end a ghastly war, a course that resulted in the least loss of life.
But does that necessarily equate to the most ethical course? Turning the ISIS held territories into a glass parking lot might be the least harmful course of action in the sense of least loss of life (especially if ISIS has turned everyone within into an ISIS combatant, and killed or driven out most that are not). Is it the most ethical course?
“The Japanese government did. I don’t know that it allows us to.”
As a practical matter it does. In a War if one side is not observing rules, the other side will not long term. One of the facets of the bomb decision is that Japan had established throughout the War that it observed no rules when it came to the way it conducted War. One side is simply not going to observe Marquis of Queensbury conduct in such an environment.
“ISIS erases the distinction between civilian and military with respect to the US – does the mean they are justified?”
No, but it certainly changes the extreme measures that must be taken to destroy them as opposed to an honorable foe who observes the rules of war.
“The US erases distinction between terrorist and non-combatant in many of its drone attacks – does that mean it is right?”
Once again, the conduct of one side cannot be looked at and judged without considering the conduct of the enemy being fought.
“But how does this not amount to consequentialism or utilitariansm?”
It is not consequentialism in war to take into account the number of civilian deaths that action, or non-action, may result in. Not to take such consequences into consideration reduces morality to a mere following of the rules of the game without consideration of the harm that will almost certainly result. These are not easy questions and the charge of consequentialism makes them no easier to resolve. We are responsible not only for what we do, but what we fail to do. In the situation of the dropping of the bomb Truman was going to be responsible for a large number of deaths no matter what he did.
“It is not “Truman bashing” to observe he made a mistake.”
The usual formulation is that he was guilty of a hellish sin.
“The real question is whether or not it is licit to cause widespread casualties and destruction among noncombatants to achieve a perceived good.”
A better question is what do you do in a situation where a larger number of innocents will die if you fail to take action that will kill a lesser number of innocents.
In the interest of transparency my father was in Okinanawa, having just gone through a brutal campaign under MacArthur, seeing civilians commit suicide out of fear (promoted by the Japanese govt) of the Americans. The next step in the war and for my father under MacArthur was the invasion of Japan. There are very good chances that if that had taken place I might not be typing this right now.
Condemnations of President Truman are off the mark, to be honest. While he might have had some sense of what the Bomb could/would do, he had no previous knowledge of the program etc., no real time to evaluate the Bomb in any other category than how can we end this war as quickly as possible. Secondly, as we have discovered, even after the two Bombs elements within the military-industrial complex in Japan were pressing to carry on the war, and in fact if I am correct, almost caused a crisis in the government. Only the Emperor, who was not an innocent dupe in the whole build up of Japan to the war and in it , as often portrayed, finally said ‘enough is enough’.
That being said, the question now is: is there any moral justification of nuclear arms in any war, battle etc. given the nature of the weapon etc based on Just War principles? On that there seems to be growing consensus that the Church is nuclear pacifist based precisely on her Just War principles.
“The problem is this misdirects the focus of the inquiry.”
False. It illuminates an aspect of the problem not usually addressed: the moral culpability of doing nothing in the situation that confronted Truman. Critics, presumably, of Truman, if they had been in his place, would have been willing to see vast numbers of innocents die in order not to drop the atomic bomb. Does such a stance involve no responsibility, no moral culpability?
“Is it the most ethical course?”
Such decisions can not be weighed in isolation. The ethics of not acting, or acting in another way, must also be placed on the moral scales.
Glad your Dad made it back alive Botolph. I had two uncles who fought in the Pacific who were convinced that without the Bomb they would have been buried in Japan.
“That being said, the question now is: is there any moral justification of nuclear arms in any war, battle etc. given the nature of the weapon etc based on Just War principles? On that there seems to be growing consensus that the Church is nuclear pacifist based precisely on her Just War principles.”
Except of course that the Church gave limited approval to nukes for deterence during the Cold War.
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/u.s._must_quickly_move_beyond_nuclear_deterrence_archbishop_obrien_urges/
Church teaching in this area needs some careful examination to be understood.
What this issue boils down to is that if your moral reasoning results in a lot more dead people, including among the innocents that are allegedly your primary concern, you really have to reevaluate your moral reasoning.
It is very easy to throw around accusations of consequentialism, but when all of your choices involve dead civilians, it is immoral not to choose the method that will result in the lowest death toll.
An invasion of Japan would have made the earlier fighting in the Pacific look like pillow fights. Track down the film of Japanese civilians being trained to fight with bamboo spears, or learning how to roll under tanks wearing proto-suicide vests.
As long as the Japanese military thought they could inflict serious casualties on the Americans, they believed they could defeat the invasion. Remember, the Japanese had defeated two invasions by the Mongols, the superpower of the medieval world, and they thought they could hurl another invader back into the sea. The bombs changed all that.
I think (dangerous) that mutually assured destruction kept “cold” the Cold War.
And, it seems as if President Truman thought ending in a week WWII was a good idea at the time. I thank God I never had to make a decision such as that.
My WWII Pacific navy veteran uncle (RIP) would offer to fight anybody that said they should not have bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He knew it saved lives, likely including his own.
My dad had flown dive bombers over Europe from April of 1944 into May of 1945, and in August was on a ship headed for Japan: so he was not unhappy about the bomb.
Conventional scholarly wisdom now holds that Japan was ready to surrender anyway, especially after the Soviet declaration of war (which was a day or so after Hiroshima, as it happened, but was already scheduled). This meant there was no hope the Russians could negotiate a compromise settlement. The trouble is, the Japanese government gave no hint whatsoever that they had surrender in mind. Rather, they were promising the entire population would resist the invaders with bamboo spears. American casualties aside, the rational expectation was that the slaughter of civilians after D-day would make Okinawa seem like nothing.
I find it a bit harder to,rationalize the Nagasaki bomb. But Truman had a horrible decision to make, and he acted as he thought best.
The negative precepts of the natural law are universally valid. They oblige each and every individual, always and in every circumstance. It is a matter of prohibitions which forbid a given action semper et pro semper, without exception, because the choice of this kind of behaviour is in no case compatible with the goodness of the will of the acting person, with his vocation to life with God and to communion with his neighbour. It is prohibited — to everyone and in every case — to violate these precepts. They oblige everyone, regardless of the cost, never to offend in anyone, beginning with oneself, the personal dignity common to all.
But the negative moral precepts, those prohibiting certain concrete actions or kinds of behaviour as intrinsically evil, do not allow for any legitimate exception. They do not leave room, in any morally acceptable way, for the “creativity” of any contrary determination whatsoever. Once the moral species of an action prohibited by a universal rule is concretely recognized, the only morally good act is that of obeying the moral law and of refraining from the action which it forbids.
Furthermore, what must be done in any given situation depends on the circumstances, not all of which can be foreseen; on the other hand there are kinds of behaviour which can never, in any situation, be a proper response — a response which is in conformity with the dignity of the person. Finally, it is always possible that man, as the result of coercion or other circumstances, can be hindered from doing certain good actions; but he can never be hindered from not doing certain actions, especially if he is prepared to die rather than to do evil.
One must therefore reject the thesis, characteristic of teleological and proportionalist theories, which holds that it is impossible to qualify as morally evil according to its species — its “object” — the deliberate choice of certain kinds of behaviour or specific acts, apart from a consideration of the intention for which the choice is made or the totality of the foreseeable consequences of that act for all persons concerned.
Sadly, I am not an expert in history. Nor am I an expert in war. Nor do I like war. But in my youth I was a US Naval submarine reactor operator. As part of my submarine qualification I had to learn how to launch from the torpedo tubes in an emergency. We had nuclear weapons aboard. I even slept next to them in the torpedo room because berthing space was limited. If I had been ordered to launch (very unlikely given my rating), then with great fear and trepidation I would have done so.
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By the way, for all those who hate nuclear weapons, do you support this?
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http://www.usec.com/russian-contracts/megatons-megawatts
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And just to make things perfectly clear, a nuclear reactor CANNOT undergo a nuclear explosion. Nuclear weapons require > 90% enrichment of Pu-239 or U-235 or U-233 in a specific geometry. Fuel for commercial reactors is < 5% of the fissile isotope and does not have the requisite geometry. Furthermore, while reactors fueled with U-235 do breed some small amount of Pu-239 from neutron capture by U-238, the Pu-239 is too mixed in with Pu-240 (non-fissile) to make a useful bomb. The North Koreans tried that and their bomb fizzled out – not a militarily useful weapon. Additionally, United States commercial used fuel is in zircalloy rods and contaminated with fission products, making it decidedly unusable for bombs. But it makes great fuel for Candu heavy water reactors, or liquid metal or molten salt fast neutron burner reactors. Want to get rid of all those long lived actinides and fissionable materials? Build a whole lot of these:
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http://gehitachiprism.com/
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Swords to plowshares! A little nukie never hurt anyone! 😀
War was not always organized around uniformed participants fighting around the edges of town of non-combatants. When did war become Not total war? Just curious.
Anzlyne is very perceptive. I do not know the answer to Anzlyne’s question. But perhaps war became not total war when with weapons like deuterium-tritium bombs we realized that we could destroy entire megalopolises in single blast. However, that realization dawned on civilized people in the US, the UK, France, the former Soviet Union and China. It restrains Pakistan, India, Israel and today’s Russia. It will not restrain Shiite Iran or the Islamic Jihadist terrorists should they gain nuclear weapons capability. Then war will be total and complete. 🙁
The atom bombings were immoral because they made no distinction between civilian and military targets. If there were a way to limit casualties to military targets, that would make bombing moral. Also, Japan is an island chain that does not produce its own oil. If Japan were blockaded, it would run out of oil and would have no way to stop an Allied invasion.
Mico Razon wrote, “If Japan were blockaded, it would run out of oil and would have no way to stop an Allied invasion.”
Why would an invasion have been necessary at all? If Japanese forces were no longer occupying the territories it had invaded and its power to attack others had been neutralised, surely the only just object of the war would have been accomplished.
So given an argument that the atomic bombing of Japan did not meet just war criteria, I pointed out that a decision not to do one thing is a decision to do another. Would he please justify the decision not to use the bomb by the criteria of the the just war doctrine.
The politest thing that could be said about the response is that he had never thought of the question.
Hank wrote, “I pointed out that a decision not to do one thing is a decision to do another”
But that is to confuse the intended and the merely foreseen consequences of an action, as Miss Anscombe explained in her paper, “War and Murder.”
“The distinction between the intended, and the merely foreseen, effects of a voluntary action is indeed absolutely essential to Christian ethics. For Christianity forbids a number of things as being bad in themselves. But if I am answerable for the foreseen consequences of an action or refusal, as much as for the action itself, then these prohibitions will break down. If someone innocent will die unless I do a wicked thing, then on this view I am his murderer in refusing: so all that is left to me is to weigh up evils. Here the theologian steps in with the principle of double effect and says: “No, you are no murderer, if the man’s death was neither your aim nor your chosen means, and if you had to act in the way that led to it or else do something absolutely forbidden.” Without understanding of this principle, anything can be–and is wont to be– justified, and the Christian teaching that in no circumstances may one commit murder, adultery, apostasy (to give a few examples) goes by the board. These absolute prohibitions of Christianity by no means exhaust its ethic; there is a large area where what is just is determined partly by a prudent weighing up of consequences. But the prohibitions are bedrock, and without them the Christian ethic goes to pieces. Hence the necessity of the notion of double effect.”
“If Japanese forces were no longer occupying the territories it had invaded and its power to attack others had been neutralised, surely the only just object of the war would have been accomplished.”
Japan was occupying vast territories in 1945 and killing each month about 300,000 people on the Asian mainland. The cost in killed to remove them from those vast territories would have been immense. Additionally, even assuming, contra to everything that actually occurred, that Japan would have voluntarily relocated those troops back to Japan, without a fleet those troops would have had to been carried on US transports, the only way that Japan would have been neutralized would have been for the US to have stayed on a war footing and kept troops ready to attack Japan. Of course the ending of World War I demonstrated how well Germany was neutralized without invasion and occupation of all of its territories.
“If Japan were blockaded, it would run out of oil and would have no way to stop an Allied invasion.”
We had a blockade of Japan. They had plenty of stored oil to resist an invasion. The blockade was also causing a famine that was likely to kill millions of Japanese in the fall and winter of 45-46. After the surrender MacArthur just narrowly avoided such a famine by threatening to resign unless huge shipments of food were sent from the US to feed the starving Japanese.
“The distinction between the intended, and the merely foreseen, effects of a voluntary action is indeed absolutely essential to Christian ethics.”
Which tends to be a very academic distinction in waging modern war, something Ms. Anscombe knew little about. It was foreseeable with near certainty what the civilian death tolls would be if certain actions were followed by the Allies. We had seen in the liberation of Manila 100,000 civilians die in those military operations. In Okinawa, with Americans attempting to limit civilian casualties, far more civilians died than perished at Hiroshima. Under such conditions, foreseeability as a moral figleaf to hide behind is merely a way to avoid moral responsibility for not doing an action and allowing greater calamities to occur. Philosophers like Ms. Anscombe, responsible for no lives other than their own, can take moral comfort in such distinctions. Someone like Truman, having millions of lives depending upon his choice, does not have the luxury of doing nothing, having millions more die as a consequence, and then finding the words to explain to the relatives of the dead for the rest of his life how his course of action was really moral and correct.
The blame for civilian deaths belongs to the original aggressor. It belongs to Germany and to Japan. Nazi Germany had a program to develop an atomic bomb. Nazi Germany assisted Japan with Japan’s atomic bomb program.
Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan caused, in all probability, more civilian deaths than in all wars before WWII.
Blame them for starting the war. Blame them for waging war. Blame them for the deaths.
They both started WWII because they were “aggrieved” at the conclusion of WWI.
I am tired of revisionist historians who blame the USA for the atomic bombs. I never hear the screech about the Holodomor or the rape of Nanking or of Stalin’s concentration camps. Selective outrage is BS.
Which tends to be a very academic distinction in waging modern war, something Ms. Anscombe knew little about.
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Cannot say about Miss Anscombe, but I’ve noticed some of the people who remark on this subject have a mentality more appropriate to a board game than to either mundane or extraordinary decision-making. See this fellow here:
http://www.crisismagazine.com/2014/down-the-slippery-slope-a-timeline-of-social-revolution
Penguins Fan: “The blame for civilian deaths belongs to the original aggressor. It belongs to Germany and to Japan.”
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This is true and the foundation for understanding the war.
I find an eery parallel between the Pacific War with Japan during WWII and the present war since the 90’s with Islamicist-terrorists [Germany-Italy was actually a very different war given the Western and Judaeo-Christian cultures that remained in those countries despite National Socialism and Fascism] In both WWII Japan and the Islamicists (all of them-not just ISIS (ISIL)) we had/have:
1) a non-rational mythologically based culture encountering “Western Civilization and the Modern Era” and seeing this as ‘the fight for their ‘spiritual’/cultural existence”
2) therefore ready for ‘total war’ with ‘total cost’, seeing suicide as the ultimate heroic act
With this in mind, I believe we are in for a major war, with major implications for the world. It eventually, no doubt, leave a good portion of the Middle East a spiritual-cultural void (look at Japan underneath its technologically jazzy veneer. Japan is demographically and culturally dying]
How this war ultimately is conducted will have massive implications for the future of our own country and of the West
I find it interesting that Hiroshima and Nagasaki are included under “Eugenics” in the Crisis link. Is the author saying that it was racism against Japanese that led to the decision? Would the Bomb not have been dropped on Nazis?
I think there is one and only one legitimate argument for the bombings. If the civilian population could be considered to be actually military, then the bombings may have been, though not necessarily were, justified. I am not so comfortable as some here with declaring fisherman and clerks with bamboo spears to be truly military, but I do think that the argument can be made that killing them may have been moral. My position is that the bombings were wrong but understandable. Truman was neither a saint nor a monster in my estimation.
Michael Paterson-Seymour wrote “Why would an invasion have been necessary at all? If Japanese forces were no longer occupying the territories it had invaded and its power to attack others had been neutralised, surely the only just object of the war would have been accomplished.”
There are two answers to that question
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1) The original War Plan Orange did not foresee an invasion of Japan. It foresaw a determined blockade and bombardment of Japan to compel the country into a surrender that was not unconditional. Now, everyone who acknowledges the obvious immorality of the nuclear attacks needs to ask: how many civilian deaths from starvation, and in particular children, would have resulted from an actual 1945-47 blockade? The answer is hundreds of thousands if not millions. So, what is the higher morality of a blockade? The answer is: none. Anyone with a realistic view of war would realize that in the absence of real conciliation tactical alternatives often have no moral value over one another – all such choices do is move the innocent civilian deaths from one subpopulation to another. See http://www.amazon.com/War-Plan-Orange-Strategy-1897-1945-ebook/dp/B00BHOXR4E/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1410645939&sr=1-1&keywords=war+plan+orange for more info.
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2) The other issue has to do with the nature of surrender. If a nation has a leadership that causes a war, then the prevention of future wars requires the removal or discrediting of the leadership. For example, this did not happen after WW1 in Germany and so the stage was set for WW2. Whatever the outcome of the Pacific War, future peace required that the Japanese surrender be substantial enough to make real change in Japanese society. Except for the continued whitewashing of history in Japanese secondary schoolbooks this aim was accomplished. It is hard to say that a blockade would have accomplished this goal without some type of post-blockade occupation, and a blockade could not have made an occupation inevitable. One has to conclude that a of all options blockade posed the greatest risk of allowing Japanese militarism to survive and thus to fuel a future conflict.
Botolph, I agree with every single word you wrote. Every one.
Leaflets were dropped on the civilian population of Hiroshima and Nagasaki two weeks before the A-Bomb was dropped warning the inhabitants of the coming bomb.
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Two weeks more than had Pearl Harbor.
TomD notes that “Now, everyone who acknowledges the obvious immorality of the nuclear attacks needs to ask: how many civilian deaths from starvation, and in particular children, would have resulted from an actual 1945-47 blockade?”
The blockade would have been an entirely legitimate act of self-defence. Any deaths that resulted would have been caused by the obstinacy of the besieged and their government – Another application of the principle of Double Effect, for the deaths would have been foreseen, not intended.
“If a nation has a leadership that causes a war, then the prevention of future wars requires the removal or discrediting of the leadership.” That could quite legitimately have been made one of the Allies’ war aims. The Second Treaty of Paris of 20 November 1815 that ended the Napoleonic Wars is an excellent example. There was no refusal by the Allies to negotiate with King Louis XVIII and his ministers, the king having resumed the throne on 8 July, following Napoléon’s second abdication on 22 June. France has never thereafter posed a threat to the peace of Europe.
“Any deaths that resulted would have been caused by the obstinacy of the besieged and their government – Another application of the principle of Double Effect, for the deaths would have been foreseen, not intended”
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It would seem that the principle of Double Effect needs a serious critique. If the obstinacy of the besieged government is what creates the double effect, then certainly the obstinacy of the Japanese government in its refusal to accept the Potsdam declaration in the face of obvious defeat introduced a double effect in the use of nuclear weapons.
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No, it would seem that what introduces double effect is the immediacy of the effect. The use of a nuclear weapon has immediate and obvious effects, the use of a naval blockade has effects that are not so immediate and obvious, but they are just as real. It takes a certain kind of mental ju-jitsu to impose a blockade knowing that the adversary’s obstinacy will lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of his civilians and still maintain that the deaths are “foreseen, not intended”.
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Go back and read Josephus’ account of the Roman siege of Jerusalem. The Romans actually allowed Passover pilgrims into the city because it would quicken the depletion of food stockpiles. Later, when the Jews began to throw the emaciated cadavers over the walls, Titus swore to the gods that it was not his fault and certainly not his intention. Well, yes it was, not to 100% of the responsibility perhaps, but responsibility cannot be avoided. A naval blockade further distances the cadavers physically, and so the double effect appears stronger, but the morality remains the same.
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It would seem that Double Effect is in large part a self-serving delusion. It’s only real basis is in the partial shifting of responsibility to the obstinacy of the opponent, and even then it fails if the opponent’s motive in refusing to surrender is fear of atrocity rather than pride.
Interesting post from the original article by Father Wilson Miscamble:
“Take as but one example the early 1945 Battle for Manila, in which approximately one hundred thousand Filipino civilians were killed. Some were killed by the Japanese, but many of this large number were killed by aggressive American air and artillery bombardments used, without particular regard for civilian casualties, as the American forces sought to dislodge an established enemy that refused to surrender. These harsh tactics could not meet [Professor Christopher] Tollefsen’s criteria with regard to means. Given his unbending approach on moral absolutes, I assume he would condemn the action; but just what military means would he support in trying to defeat a foe that considered surrender the ultimate disgrace and who fought accordingly?”
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Very good question.
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During the siege of Intramuros Japanese Marines held over 100,000 Filipino civilians as human shields. Contra Fr Miscamble, Douglas McArthur was concerned that artillery would result in massive deaths of these people, so he ordered the use of dive bombers instead, hoping that the eyes of the pilots would minimize civilian deaths. The results were about the same as if artillery had been used.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intramuros#mediaviewer/File:Memorare_manila_monument.jpg
Part of the problem in the fight for Manila was that MacArthur was perhaps too concerned with civilian casualties and attempting not to inflict damage on a city he loved, and he placed considerable initial restrictions both on the use of artillery and airpower. The results were to slow the liberation of Manila while the Japanese were massacring civilians for their amusement, and lengthen the duration of the battle, without reducing civilian casualties, or, in the end, doing less damage to Manila which was devastated by the battle. American casualties were 6000 to 16000 Japanese (Virtually the entire Japanese garrison died fighting.). One can imagine the American and civilian casualties if the Americans had had to take Tokyo from a Japanese army of one million.
To outsiders it seems very… off to watch Catholics argue that the options which would result in MORE deaths are the moral ones.
You could almost imagine a starving civilian looking at them and saying, “Well at least YOU feel better. At least YOUR hands are clean. Never mind that I might have lived, it’s all about you…”
It’s like listening to a group argue that it’s so wrong to push little old ladies, they conclude that it’s best to stand by and let one be hit by an oncoming bus rather than push her out of the way. (and if you ever point this out, the group starts accusing you of demanding how soon you can run around and push old ladies)
Do you ever stop and listen to yourselves?
“Do you ever stop and listen to yourselves?”
The principle that innocents should not be killed Nate is a very strong one in Catholic teaching. These are not easy questions and I am glad that I belong to a Faith that takes them very seriously indeed.
Well put, Don and you are probably one of the best living credits to that faith.
But when in a situation where ANY action (even no action) will result in innocents dying, to see many Catholics argue that the action which results in the MOST deaths is the “moral” one… one starts to wonder if they need to be reacquainted with that old teaching. (like Zippy’s ranting about abortion in the older post)
“But when in a situation where ANY action (even no action) will result in innocents dying, to see many Catholics argue that the action which results in the MOST deaths is the “moral” one”
I think insufficient attention has generally been paid in reference to Hiroshima of the moral consequences of not dropping the bomb. That, and the fact that we do live in a fallen world, something that is demonstrated dramatically in war time where the least horrible option is often very gruesome indeed. Catholicism has always been clear that sins of omission can be just as deadly as sins of comission, something that is apparently often overlooked when weighing the morality of Truman’s decision.
Is there anything about war that is moral? But if war is forced, then one should aim to win quickly, and as decisively as possible. If that means basting apart the enemies’ cities with nuclear weapons so as to an immediate and complete surrender, then so be it. Maybe nothing is moral about it; From my past life of sin, I am a poor decision-maker in what is moral and what isn’t. But victory over a determined and intractable enemy is the right and correct thing to do, and in the case of WW II, the use of nuclear weapons averted a long, protracted struggle that would have killed far more lives on both sides of the struggle.
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I wish I knew more about history and strategy. But I am just a nuke. I used to sleep beside those weapons in the torpedo room. I am glad war did not come in those days of the Soviet Union. I now dread that a culture and a government more insane than that of Imperial Japan – Shiite Iran or an Islamic Caliphate – will gain the weapons to which Japan and Nazi Germany aspired. And all this self-flagellation over Hiroshima and Nagasaki may sadly be forgotten in the radioactive ashes of a major American city. You’ll want war then. You’ll want the enemy defeated then.
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By the way, was there anything moral about God telling Joshua to wipe out the pagan inhabitants of the cities in the Promised Land?
Paul W Primavera wrote:
“By the way, was there anything moral about God telling Joshua to wipe out the pagan inhabitants of the cities in the Promised Land?”
Or indeed doing the job Himself as per Sodom and Gomorrah…?
Donald R McClarey wrote, “The principle that innocents should not be killed Nate is a very strong one in Catholic teaching”
In her 1958 paper, Modern Moral Philosophy, Miss Anscombe pointed out that “The prohibition of certain things simply in virtue of their description as such and such identifiable kinds of action, regardless of any further consequences, is certainly not the whole of the Hebrew Christian ethic; but it is a noteworthy feature of it.” It is also a fact that every academic moral philosopher since Sidgwick denies that any such prohibitions exist. For them, “the right action” is the action which produces the best possible consequences (reckoning among consequences the intrinsic values ascribed to certain kinds of act by some “Objectivists.”) It is for that reason that she coined the term “consequentialist” to describe them.
The most a consequentialist can say is: a man must not bring about this or that – he cannot say that idolatry, adultery, making a false profession of faith are wrong without qualification, nor, indeed, that choosing to kill the innocent for any purpose, however good is wrong simply and without qualification.
Of course, a Christian will say, “It is forbidden, and however it looks, it cannot be to anyone’s profit to commit injustice,” but that is an act of faith in the Divine Lawgiver, not a rational insight in a concrete instance.
TomD wrote, “it would seem that what introduces double effect is the immediacy of the effect.”
No, it is the difference between what is intended and what is merely foreseen. If I push a murderous assailant off a high cliff, that is not murder, for I do not intend his death, but to end his attack. Similarly, a man may licitly jump to his death from a tall burning building in order to avoid the flames (S Alphonsus Liguori, Theologia moralis, lib. III, tractatus IV, cap. I, 367.
“No, it is the difference between what is intended and what is merely foreseen.”
“merely foreseen” is mere word games in the example you raise. I would view the killing in the example as completely justified, but the death of the assailant was clearly intended.