As a Catholic, What do you think about Hiroshima?

[Monte_RCMS]

Invading Japan would therefore also be morally wrong, because it is likely that more people would have died. Given these facts, the only “moral” action would be do simply walk away. There is no other logical conclusion.

You walk away and as you are walking their snipers start shooting you in the back.

What do you do?

The Japanese did not quit fighting.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

What you’re saying is that we weren’t willing to pay the price of finishing the war licitly. That sounds, to me, like a good reason not to finish the war.

All this assumes that the only way to end the war was to crush Japan utterly. I simply don’t hew to that; in fact, no one believed that was the only way to end a war for centuries prior to WW2. Legitimate self-defense only extends to the level necessary to subdue one’s opponents; you cannot licitly use more force than is necessary. And it seems to me quite clear that Japan was, if not repentant, certainly defeated militarily.

The requirement is that you not do evil, ever. If evil happens to result from the good you’ve done, it simply can’t be helped.

God is not a utilitarian.

The Japanese were not defeated.

At no time did they stand down and quit fighting.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

The initial question is addressed in such a way to allow for either answer, the objective or the subjective judgement. I have focused mostly on the subjective, because it avoids the issue of using perfect hindsight and better theoloogical understanding in judging the past. The Catechism teaches that indiscriminate targeting of civilians is immoral. This is the unavoidable Catholic answer to the question of the objective morality. We can argue about whether Nagasaki targeted civilians indiscriminately, but Hiroshima seems rather clearly aimed at killing civilians as a primary goal.

As to what would I do if I were Truman, I too can not say. I would have used the nuclear weapon, I am almost certain. Based on my knowledge today, I would have targeted primary strategic military targets only, even if they were in or near cities. However, without the benefit of the Catholic teaching that was to later develop, I might well have done as he did.

Check me on this: Hiroshima included a military headquarters that would have controlled the battlefield of the invasion beaches that we intended to land on.

In addition, there were no purely civilian targets as factories for war production were fulling integrated into their communities.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

The common trend I’ve noticed is that those who defend the bombing of Hiroshima use the effects of the bombing to justify it.

However, the effects are irrelevant if the bombing in and of itself is evil. Which the CC pretty clearly teaches it is. As it was stated earlier in the thread: you wouldn’t kill a 2 year old to save lives.

Hence, its seems pretty clear that the bombing was immoral from Church teaching.

We wanted to end the war.

The Japanese not only refused to quit, but based on our landings on Iwo Jima and Okinawa and elsewhere, they fought to the last man. And to the last woman. And if they “surrendered” they often came out with concealed weapons and explosives … so we learned the hard way, not to attempt to take prisoners because if you did show any compassion and try to take a prisoner, you would be shot or blown up by the person “surrendering” … and you would die.

 

[Ghosty]

We wanted to end the war.

The Japanese not only refused to quit, but based on our landings on Iwo Jima and Okinawa and elsewhere, they fought to the last man. And to the last woman. And if they “surrendered” they often came out with concealed weapons and explosives … so we learned the hard way, not to attempt to take prisoners because if you did show any compassion and try to take a prisoner, you would be shot or blown up by the person “surrendering” … and you would die.

sigh

Again, Japan was putting out peace-feelers. The Emperor did want to quit before the bombings. The U.S. government knew this and did not act on it because of the demand of unconditional surrender, a demand that was absolutely not required, and ultimately not implemented.

You are also still ignoring the fact that a blockade would be an effective alternative to an invasion. “Invade or bomb” is a false choice on two major counts.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

Conversely, there is nothing that allows for the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians in order to achieve a strategically unnecessary total victory.

And on the basis of your opinion, you’d happily kill 200,000 people? Many of them women and children?

Your use of the word “happily” is an inappropriate and snarky remark in a serious discussion.

The mess that was World War II made no one happy.

Being in a kill or be killed environment makes no one happy.

Your adversary will not quit fighting no matter what. And the second you back off, they come at you will full force, and in the middle of the night … or even on a sleepy, lazy Sunday morning … when you least expect it.

Our enemies study us intently and attack our weaknesses, not our strengths.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

sigh

Again, Japan was putting out peace-feelers. The Emperor did want to quit before the bombings. The U.S. government knew this and did not act on it because of the demand of unconditional surrender, a demand that was absolutely not required, and ultimately not implemented.

You are also still ignoring the fact that a blockade would be an effective alternative to an invasion. “Invade or bomb” is a false choice on two major counts.

None of the Japanese wanted to quit.

We did blockade the Japanese home islands. In fact, some argue that our use of B-29’s and submarines to create huge minefields around Japan was the most effective weapon we deployed.

And some argue that the Japanese people would have starved to death if we had continued those tactics.

The blockade that we DID have, was not an effective alternative to an invasion.

The Japanese had no interest in quitting the fight.

In fact, even very late in the war, the Japanese were deploying very effective sonar and other anti-submarine weapons and their use of radar had improved immeasurably.

They were continuing the fight.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

I guess if the USA was threatened with invasion, many millions of USAmericans, probably the vast majority, would be entirely willing to fight and die to the last man resisting against invasion; in fact probably millions of them would continue doing so even if the US President ordered them to surrender. Would that make it morally OK for the would-be invader to nuke US cities? Or are there special moral rules which apply only to the USA and no other country?

It’s very disappointing to see that almost half the voters on this poll say that nuking Hiroshima was morally OK, despite the Catholic Church’s clear statements that it was not, before, during and after the event. Normally CAF posters have more common sense and orthodoxy. It seems that many of the USAmericans who constitute three quarters of CAF posters have allowed their Catholicism to have become infected by the morally bankrupt secular arttitude of “my country, right or wrong”.

Read the book, “One Second After” by William R. Forstchen

Especially the last few pages …

While your post is “slightly” off topic … your comment in terms of reframing the argument is extremely valid.

So read Forstchen’s book.

 

[Ghosty]

None of the Japanese wanted to quit.

We did blockade the Japanese home islands. In fact, some argue that our use of B-29’s and submarines to create huge minefields around Japan was the most effective weapon we deployed.

And some argue that the Japanese people would have starved to death if we had continued those tactics.

The blockade that we DID have, was not an effective alternative to an invasion.

The Japanese had no interest in quitting the fight.

In fact, even very late in the war, the Japanese were deploying very effective sonar and other anti-submarine weapons and their use of radar had improved immeasurably.

They were continuing the fight.

They had neither the resources nor the weapons to continue fighting a blockade effectively. Almost all of their fuel and metals came from the outside. Starvation of the population would be on the heads of the Japanese military, not the U.S. and therefore doesn’t enter into the moral equation at all.

As for none of the Japanese wanting to quit, that’s just factually incorrect. We know for a fact that the Emperor and Togo were ordering their diplomats in Russia to work out a peace treaty with the Allies. It is well documented in declassified U.S. documents.

Peace and God bless!

 

[Monte_RCMS]

I don’t believe it was just Hitler dying. The events leading up to it were more important, notably overextending their military into the Soviet Union. If Hitler simply died with the military strong and intact, the result may have been very different.

Actually, an outstanding book discusses some of this … “Thirty Days: Hitler’s Thirty Days to Power - January 1933” by Henry Ashby Turner, Jr.

Very relevant.

Also if you read everything about Hitler’s generals and admirals, particularly Doenitz and Canaris, it is obvious that they wanted no war.

In addition, the Soviet Union was a much bigger player in instigating World War II than people give them “credit” for.

 

[pnewton]

And on the basis of your opinion, you’d happily kill 200,000 people? Many of them women and children?

No. That is not what I said, nor did I indicate that. Your question is silly.

 

[smichhertz]

We wanted to end the war.

The Japanese not only refused to quit, but based on our landings on Iwo Jima and Okinawa and elsewhere, they fought to the last man. And to the last woman. And if they “surrendered” they often came out with concealed weapons and explosives … so we learned the hard way, not to attempt to take prisoners because if you did show any compassion and try to take a prisoner, you would be shot or blown up by the person “surrendering” … and you would die.

Again, this is judging based off the effects of the act, not the act itself. Of course we wanted to end the war, we didn’t want the war to start up to begin with. But that doesn’t mean we commit immoral acts to end it. The ends do not justify the means.

 

[pnewton]

A combatant killing a non combatant in war: Immoral.

A little clarification. Targeting noncombatants is immoral. In a war, noncombatants may be killed as a secondary effect of a legitimate, moral choice to prosecute a just war.

I would think the the law (and limitations) of double effect have to be considered. Speaking more generally (and not about Hiroshima), do you see an application here?

My BIL was did targeting in Iraq. He described his job as picking out the smallest bombs they could for each target that would effectively accomplish the objective, thus minimizing collateral damage. There was a hierarchy of rank for approval of each progressively larger ordinance up to nuclear, which obviously required presidential approval. Thus, while innocent people were still killed, it is obvious that** not** killing civilians was the second highest priority beyond the military objective.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

Again, this is judging based off the effects of the act, not the act itself. Of course we wanted to end the war, we didn’t want the war to start up to begin with. But that doesn’t mean we commit immoral acts to end it. The ends do not justify the means.

Your post is non-responsive.

What would you DO?

You are in a horrible war.

What do you do in August 1945?

Lecturing people on what not to do is not helpful at all.

You have to make a decision. You are the president.

What is your decision?

 

[Monte_RCMS]

Again, this is judging based off the effects of the act, not the act itself. Of course we wanted to end the war, we didn’t want the war to start up to begin with. But that doesn’t mean we commit immoral acts to end it. The ends do not justify the means.

Fine.

WHAT DO YOU DO?

You can’t say “don’t do this” or “don’t do that”.

WHAT DO YOU DO?

A blockage, suggested by someone, would starve women and children.

WHAT DO YOU DO?

 

[sw85]

The Japanese were not defeated.

At no time did they stand down and quit fighting.

Then destroy their capacity to make war until their refusal to stand down is meaningless.

And if they attempt to renew the war at a later date, repeat as necessary.

I hear you repeating the same claim over and over: it was necessary to end the war, and ending the war was a good outcome. I don’t deny either of those things. I simply deny the legitimacy of any moral system that attaches the goodness of a thing to the outcome. That good may result does not imbue an illicit action with moral respectability; even good intentions cannot justify evil.

Speaking of intentions, I’m perfectly open even to the argument that bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki were necessary to destroy Japan’s war production capacity, and that nuclear bombs were the only way to do so; I’m not convinced, at least of that latter part, but as I said, I’m open to it. But that’s not the reason we bombed either city: the reason we bombed them was to frighten them into submission by threatening them with the prospect of continued indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, hence Truman’s “rain of ruin” speech. Therefore we can’t even claim that our intentions were good; we illicitly deliberately used excessive, violent force against noncombatants for the purpose of terrorizing them into surrender so that we could avoid the costs of winning the war licitly.

 

[smichhertz]

A little clarification. Targeting noncombatants is immoral. In a war, noncombatants may be killed as a secondary effect of a legitimate, moral choice to prosecute a just war.

Yes, that is true. The inadvertent killing of a noncombatant can be morally permissible if the Double Effect Principle holds.

Thanks for the catching me on that one.

 

[smichhertz]

Your post is non-responsive.

What would you DO?

You are in a horrible war.

What do you do in August 1945?

Lecturing people on what not to do is not helpful at all.

You have to make a decision. You are the president.

What is your decision?

Fine.

WHAT DO YOU DO?

You can’t say “don’t do this” or “don’t do that”.

WHAT DO YOU DO?

A blockage, suggested by someone, would starve women and children.

WHAT DO YOU DO?

Monte RCMS,

You can’t keep cherry picking my posts and ignoring my basic point.

I can’t answer your question as it is irrelevant and impossible to answer. How would I know what I would do? I have clearly lined out over and over again WHY I can’t and WHY Catholic morality does not look at the subjective elements to determine morality. Rather than responding to this, you keep saying “fine” and repeating the question. If you’re “fine” with it, than you understand why I am unable to answer.

Look back at my previous posts, I have been very consistent in my responses on that:

The scenario you described doesn’t sound like an immoral act to me, but I think you are confusing morality with culpability.

Suppose a soldier in the middle of an urban battle has a civilian jump out of nowhere and startles the soldier. Now suppose in the soldiers surprise, he shoots and kills the civilian. Guess what? Objectively, an immoral act, he shot an innocent civilian.

HOWEVER, the soldier has no culpability for that act as he shot out of reflex, not intending to kill the civilian. So that individual soldier committed an immoral act, but did not sin. Or in other words, even though a morally evil act took place, it wasn’t anyone’s fault, it was an accident.

This is why morality is objective in nature and MUST be assessed as such. And that’s not just my opinion, that’s Church teaching. Furthermore, that’s just basic Moral Theology 101. Even atheists can agree to that.

So the morality of any act is objective, whereas culpability is subjective and impossible to assess. I can only speculate the subjective elements of any act, I can never truly know for sure.

What? It absolutely IS hypothetical. Sure, the event is real, but I WASN’T President. Furthermore, I’m no historian, and I’m no military expert. It’s not really my place to answer a question like that.

Most importantly, it’s irrelevant to determining whether or not the situation is immoral. I’ve already explained that in the above post, perhaps you could explain why you think it’s relevant to determining the morality of an act and we can go from there? The fact that you are asking this question shows you have a flawed understanding of morality, or perhaps we have a different understanding of what “immoral” means?

If a man cheats on his wife, it’s immoral. He can make all the excuses he wants, ask all the “what would you do in this situation?” questions he wants, talk about his past childhood, etc. That in no way changes the fact that its immoral. And sure, maybe if I had walked a mile in his shoes, I would have cheated too. But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s immoral.

Tell you what, you explain to me how that’s relevant to determining the morality of Hiroshima, and if you can convince me of that, then I’ll answer your question. Otherwise, I can’t on the grounds that’s irrelevant, a distraction to the question at hand, and quite frankly, impossible to answer with certainty. It’ll just turn things into a back and forth, with no authentic discussion.

How should I know? That’s purely hypothetical.

I can tell you one thing - if I were to do drop the bomb, it would have been immoral.

This gets back to what I was talking about earlier: judging the objective vs subjective elements of morality. Morality is objective in nature, therefore we judge it from an objective standpoint.

The subjective elements certainly play a role in that person’s individual standing with God, but it is irrelevant to determining the morality of an act. Hence “what would you do?” questions are always helpful to prevent us from judging another, but aren’t really relevant to the topic at hand.

I disagree a little here. The second you put in an “I”, “me”, “we”, “you” or something to that effect, it becomes subjective.

Also, judging things from an objective standpoint ELIMINATES hindsight. Those who keep arguing for the dropping of the bomb say it ended the war. Well, that’s using hindsight (something I’ve argued is irrelevant to determining the morality of a given act). I’m saying it’s immoral because you can’t deliberately target and kill innocent civilians. That’s NOT using hindsight.

So once again, I repeat my question back to you (I bolded it above), HOW IS THIS RELEVANT? You seem to think that what I would do somehow affects the morality of the act. How?

 

[Warrior1979]

I don’t see where you quoted the CCC and I don’t particularly care to sift through 30 pages of forum posts to find it, but I doubt you’re interpreting that passage correctly. That would be an invitation to consequentialism, and the Church explicitly (and correctly) rejects consequentialism as a tremendous moral evil.

Here you go:

1755 A morally good act requires the goodness of the object, of the end, and of the circumstances together. An evil end corrupts the action, even if the object is good in itself (such as praying and fasting “in order to be seen by men”).

Some will naturally argue that defeating an evil enemy is the good end. However, massive amounts of innocent deaths would result, either directly by combat or indirectly by starvation, etc. These two are inexorably linked; you can’t have one without the other. What many are arguing here is that defeating the enemy justifies the indirect of death of innocents, even if it results in a greater number of deaths than the action that actually occurred. It also means that its okay to ignore the bad result of the “end” and long as the means, examined in a vacuum, is moral.

 

[Evan]

All men AREN’T combatants that’s my point.

Of course here I was harking back to the comments like “there were innocent women and children.” Being a woman or a child does not automatically guarentee innocence.

The modifier “innocent” is used in the sense that they are innocent of justification to kill them.

innocent of justification??? innocent usually had to do with crime as in guilt or innocence.

No mention is made of innocent soldiers. For doing their duty may be neither a crime nor a sin. So in this case innocent should not be included.