The ethics of Hiroshima

[Mugwump]

We thoroughly condemn the London Blitz but shy away from the firebombings of German cities, the nuclear bombings and the absolutely horrendous incendiary attacks on Japanese cities made out of wood and paper. You could add to that the "Rape of Nanking" vs the "Rape of Berlin and Eastern Germany".

Just like the Japanese we prefer to gloss over our role in terrible war crimes, deluding ourselves that they were necessary.

Like any good conservative I accept that things are paradoxical. The defence of civilisation involves doing uncivilised things. It is the reason we maintain an army in the first place.

War is a unique moral context, in which many normal moral rules are relaxed, at the same time as actors are placed under the greatest possible pressure. The level of restraint shown by the Allied Armies in WW2 in the face of an enemy that recognised few boundaries - including initiating area bombing in London - was probably as much as could be expected.

What is essential is that an act taken in war has a legitimate military objective. The (in both senses) rape of Berlin by the Soviet Army had no military purpose - it was a combination of carnal lust and (understandable) revenge. I am not sure it was a war crime in the sense that we usually mean the term (ie an officially sanctioned act). I'd need to read Antony Beevor's excellent book on the subject again.

I am less certain about the bombing of German cities. It was horrible, but at the time it was widely believed to have a military objective and to hasten the end of the war. In Japan, at nuclear scale, it was, of course.

Finally, I think it is important that potential aggressors know that the democracies will respond with overwhelming force and determination to acts of aggression, without being stricken by liberal hand-wringing. It was, after all, the lynch-pin of our nuclear policy. That policy was arguably made more credible by what was done to Germany and Japan. That said, I dread to think how the liberals and bien-pensants who seem so widespread in our society today would ever deal with a real threat to our freedom.

[David]

[Mugwump]

[David]

I think we're talking at cross purposes a bit here, so let's try to get back on the same page:

What do we mean when we're talking about ethics? Is it a purely relativistic thing of "what a given society considers right or wrong"? That is, would you be happy to say that there was nothing much unethical about Aztec child sacrifice? Or are there some acts that are inherently wrong, regardless of cultural norms?

Even as a moral relativist, I struggle to see the bombing of Hiroshima as less of a war crime than an equivalent act today because I expect that the pain and suffering endured by the victims and their friends and family members was not lessened by the knowledge that other towns and cities around the world were being bombed indiscriminately. The consequences were the same.

A second issue in ethics is the importance of motive as opposed to consequences. Once again, a tricky topic that various philosophers take different views on. But even that isn't all that relevant here, because unlike in your traffic light examples, the US army and government knew exactly what the consequences would be and decided to do it anyway. This was the equivalent of deciding to brain a child with a heavy object for a 'good cause'.

This is why I see this whole issue as a twofold utilitarian question: 1) Did the positive consequences of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki outweigh the negative ones (e.g. were more lives saved than lost); and 2) was it a reasonable course of action to take given the likely consequences as they were understood at the time?

Personally, I still find the supposed positive consequences of the bombing to be way too speculative to justify it in hindsight. Whether the US generals could have known that is a different story; but at the end of the day, we need to remember they were making a tactical decision to win a war, not a moral/humanitarian decision.

[Tannin]

A second issue in ethics is the importance of motive as opposed to consequences. Once again, a tricky topic that various philosophers take different views on. But even that isn't all that relevant here, because unlike in your traffic light examples, the US army and government knew exactly what the consequences would be and decided to do it anyway. This was the equivalent of deciding to brain a child with a heavy object for a 'good cause'.

This is madly illogical, David.

1: We know that their overriding motive was to save lives. We are not guessing this, it is a historical fact. We have various statements from the participants attesting to this, and in case you think they all lied about it after the event, we now also have an extensive collection of declassified records of correspondence, records of meetings, even the meeting minutes themselves.

Now you may still be pretending that the bombs did not in fact save lives despite the mountain of evidence showing that they did, but even if we were to accept your ill-informed conclusion that makes no difference whatsoever to your argument about intent. The intent was to save lives, and there is no plausible way to deny that.

2: You may believe that it is wrong to save 20 lives by taking one life. That is a defensible moral position. Most people would regard it as a wrong position, but perhaps that is what you honestly believe and if so I respect that. What I can't respect is someone making up all sorts of historical nonsenses by way of disguising their real belief. (I'm not saying you are doing that. Perhaps you are, perhaps you simply can't get your mind around the facts of history and just deny the evidence because accepting it would require some very awkward rethinking of a strongly held belief which is incompatible with the facts. Say "hi" to the creation "scientists" and the Holocaust deniers while you are in this place.)

3: They didn't in fact "know exactly what the consequences would be". Nobody knew. Radiation sickness and nuclear fall-out were pretty much unknown at that time, except perhaps to a handful of back-room theorists a long, long way away from the decision-making front line. What they did know was that the bombs - if they worked at all, which was still an open question - would probably take out entire cities, with the people in them, and that this would provide a massive wake-up call to the criminal manics in charge of the Japanese war machine, and they devoutly hoped that this would be enough to bring an immediate end to the war (which in fact it was, just barely), and they further knew (not hoped, knew) that ending the war sooner would save hundreds of thousands of lives (which in fact it did).

The records make it crystal clear (a) that their primary concern was the welfare of the Allied servicemen under their command - the brave men who, at the risk of their own lives, were doing everything they could to end this grossly evil military death cult, and (b) that they were also deeply concerned about civilian loss of life in Japan (read the letter and the meeting minutes David, it's all there) and even (c) concerned to minimise loss of life even amongst the soldiers and sailors trying to kill them. This last is to their very great credit. How many of us, in the heat of a bitter and desperately-fought war for survival itself, could rise above our fear and our grief for comrades killed or captured and tortured slowly, slowly until they died, and spare thought and care for the very authors of those atrocities?

They were great men, David. They had their faults, and they had their differences, but they were good men who made a good decision under incredible strain and difficulty.

[David]

[stui magpie]

Are you able to demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that there was a viable alternative that would NOT have cost as many lives? An alternative that would have unequivocally cost less lives overall?

If not then you have nothing but opinion and conjecture, neither of them well informed.

[Tannin]

You score 11 out of 10 for avoiding the point which is that, even if your ignorant claims about the bombs not saving huge numbers of lives were true, the decision to drop them was taken with the intent of saving many lives.

(In fact, of course, they did save hundreds of thousands of lives, and the decisions turned out, with the wisdom of hindsight, to be correct ones. I note that you have not even tried to refute my comprehensive demolition of your five so-called alternatives to the bomb, by the way. That does not stand to your credit.)

[Tannin]

Are you able to demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that there was a viable alternative that would NOT have cost as many lives? An alternative that would have unequivocally cost less lives overall?

He already tried to do that a few pages back, Stui, and failed miserably.

[think positive]

A second issue in ethics is the importance of motive as opposed to consequences. Once again, a tricky topic that various philosophers take different views on. But even that isn't all that relevant here, because unlike in your traffic light examples, the US army and government knew exactly what the consequences would be and decided to do it anyway. This was the equivalent of deciding to brain a child with a heavy object for a 'good cause'.

This is madly illogical, David.

1: We know that their overriding motive was to save lives. We are not guessing this, it is a historical fact. We have various statements from the participants attesting to this, and in case you think they all lied about it after the event, we now also have an extensive collection of declassified records of correspondence, records of meetings, even the meeting minutes themselves.

Now you may still be pretending that the bombs did not in fact save lives despite the mountain of evidence showing that they did, but even if we were to accept your ill-informed conclusion that makes no difference whatsoever to your argument about intent. The intent was to save lives, and there is no plausible way to deny that.

2: You may believe that it is wrong to save 20 lives by taking one life. That is a defensible moral position. Most people would regard it as a wrong position, but perhaps that is what you honestly believe and if so I respect that. What I can't respect is someone making up all sorts of historical nonsenses by way of disguising their real belief. (I'm not saying you are doing that. Perhaps you are, perhaps you simply can't get your mind around the facts of history and just deny the evidence because accepting it would require some very awkward rethinking of a strongly held belief which is incompatible with the facts. Say "hi" to the creation "scientists" and the Holocaust deniers while you are in this place.)

3: They didn't in fact "know exactly what the consequences would be". Nobody knew. Radiation sickness and nuclear fall-out were pretty much unknown at that time, except perhaps to a handful of back-room theorists a long, long way away from the decision-making front line. What they did know was that the bombs - if they worked at all, which was still an open question - would probably take out entire cities, with the people in them, and that this would provide a massive wake-up call to the criminal manics in charge of the Japanese war machine, and they devoutly hoped that this would be enough to bring an immediate end to the war (which in fact it was, just barely), and they further knew (not hoped, knew) that ending the war sooner would save hundreds of thousands of lives (which in fact it did).

The records make it crystal clear (a) that their primary concern was the welfare of the Allied servicemen under their command - the brave men who, at the risk of their own lives, were doing everything they could to end this grossly evil military death cult, and (b) that they were also deeply concerned about civilian loss of life in Japan (read the letter and the meeting minutes David, it's all there) and even (c) concerned to minimise loss of life even amongst the soldiers and sailors trying to kill them. This last is to their very great credit. How many of us, in the heat of a bitter and desperately-fought war for survival itself, could rise above our fear and our grief for comrades killed or captured and tortured slowly, slowly until they died, and spare thought and care for the very authors of those atrocities?

They were great men, David. They had their faults, and they had their differences, but they were good men who made a good decision under incredible strain and difficulty.

It pisses me off that such a great post just gets ignored

[David]

[stui magpie]

Absolutely our positions are not equal here.

Tannin is arguing on facts and logic (I'm just the kite tail here) and you're going all moral high ground, claiming that your position is the default and civilised and that the act was outrageous.

Then you bring in the argument about kill one to save lots when I thought you disparaged that argument earlier in the thread.

FWIW I do believe that the need of the many outweigh the need of the few and that killing one innocent to save 10 is the right thing to do. Unfortunately I'm just enough of a self absorbed cnut that I'd let 10 innocents die rather than sacrifice one of my kids. Would you?

[Mugwump]

I think we're talking at cross purposes a bit here, so let's try to get back on the same page:

Yes, we were. Now that I understand you, then yes - and no. There probably are universal ethics, but they are very limited. Avoidance of pain, protection of the tribe, parental feeling, a desire for autonomy - these are (just) widespread enough across peoples and histories to suggest some ethical common ground on which to build.

Above that ground, however, we erect systems of ethics that, based as they are on some concept of the world and justice, are culturally defined and bound : "of course there is a sun god who needs sacrifice", etc.

Having "chosen" a system of ethics, then most of us consider that system to hold universal truths, when it really only holds social truths. The ethics of the Japanese society of the 1930s were profoundly different to our own. That is why, when it chose to clash with our own, its root had to be violently extirpated. Our defence for doing that was the superiority of our ethical system - our "way of life". Do we have any authority for that ? Not really - only our self-declared ethical superiority, including our right to exist. Fortunately, that is good enough for most of us.

Pure moral relativism is both completely obvious, and to be resisted at all costs.

On the specifics of the question, I agree with you that the present moral standard is of course a framework for evaluating the morality of an act - but it is not the only one, and probably not the best. I certainly don't think it gives you great insight into the morality of the actor at the point of decision. If in 100 years time, freer divorce laws (say) are seen as having been a humanitarian disaster for children and the social system, that will not make it immoral to have supported them, if the intention was humane.

I agree that this is different to Hiroshima, where the act was certain to be catastrophic for the victims... but in that war, mass slaughter was certain, whatever course was pursued. It really was a matter of how to end it as quickly as possible. It worked. It was the right bad thing to do, I think.

[Tannin]

^ Excellent posting, Mugwamp. Sums it up very well.

[Doc63]

I stand with some of the last century's greatest minds, including Albert Einstein and Noam Chomsky......

Getting just a tad ahead of yourself there, aren't you - though in your mind, probably not.