As a Catholic, What do you think about Hiroshima?

[smichhertz]

Here you go:

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.

Warrior1979,

The “end” means the intention, not the end result.

 

[Warrior1979]

Warrior1979,

The “end” means the intention, not the end result.

So the end result is irrelevant?

 

[smichhertz]

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.

Ah, okay, I guess it was a misunderstanding on my part. My apologies. Yes, women and children certainly can be combatants. The Battle of Mogidishu is a good example of where Somalian women and children were shooting at US troops.

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

I think you are misunderstanding what I am saying. Innocent of justification IS dealing with crime as in guilty or innocent. For instance, if someone is being charged with murder, but they didn’t commit it. Then they are innocent of any justification to condemn them in court. HOWEVER, that same person may not be innocent of some other crime they committed.

So when determining “innocent” or “guilty” one must look at what the act being directed at them is to determine their innocence. In the case where two combatants are fighting each other in war, both are not “innocent” of the act of shooting at each other as they are legitimate military targets.

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.

Of course, doing their duty isn’t a crime. I’m in no way implying that soldiers are criminals. Remember, we’re looking at this from a MORAL perspective, not a legal perspective. So a civilian would be innocent of any justification of being directly targeted by a combatant. A combatant would not necessarily share in that same innocence during a war. That’s not in any way calling soldiers criminals.

And soldiers CAN BE innocent. For instance, suppose a soldier legitimately surrendered or a soldier was found wounded and wasn’t offering resistance. In those cases, the combatant could be considered innocent and there would be no justification for deliberately targeting and killing him.

 

[smichhertz]

So the end result is irrelevant?

Not necessarily, if an act is morally permissible, sometimes the Double Effect Principle can rule an act immoral. But the act cannot be immoral. If it is, then no amount of good effects can justify it.

Also, remember that intention includes the intended end result. So for instance, say I choose to murder someone, and then right before I’m about to pull the trigger a cop walks by, so I quickly hide the gun and walk away. In that situation, what I did was still immoral because I had an evil intention. Although, the end result was neutral. No one died. That’s why we don’t judge morality on the end results. They do not reflect what was being chosen, which is the heart of morality.

 

[Evan]

Ah, okay, I guess it was a misunderstanding on my part. My apologies. Yes, women and children certainly can be combatants. The Battle of Mogidishu is a good example of where Somalian women and children were shooting at US troops.

I think you are misunderstanding what I am saying. Innocent of justification IS dealing with crime as in guilty or innocent. For instance, if someone is being charged with murder, but they didn’t commit it. Then they are innocent of any justification to condemn them in court. HOWEVER, that same person may not be innocent of some other crime they committed.

So when determining “innocent” or “guilty” one must look at what the act being directed at them is to determine their innocence. In the case where two combatants are fighting each other in war, both are not “innocent” of the act of shooting at each other as they are legitimate military targets.

Of course, doing their duty isn’t a crime. I’m in no way implying that soldiers are criminals. Remember, we’re looking at this from a MORAL perspective, not a legal perspective. So a civilian would be innocent of any justification of being directly targeted by a combatant. A combatant would not necessarily share in that same innocence during a war. That’s not in any way calling soldiers criminals.

And soldiers CAN BE innocent. For instance, suppose a soldier legitimately surrendered or a soldier was found wounded and wasn’t offering resistance. In those cases, the combatant could be considered innocent and there would be no justification for deliberately targeting and killing him.

I think we have reached a meeting of minds.

 

[Warrior1979]

Not necessarily, if an act is morally permissible, sometimes the Double Effect Principle can rule an act immoral. But the act cannot be immoral. If it is, then no amount of good effects can justify it.

Also, remember that intention includes the intended end result. So for instance, say I choose to murder someone, and then right before I’m about to pull the trigger a cop walks by, so I quickly hide the gun and walk away. In that situation, what I did was still immoral because I had an evil intention. Although, the end result was neutral. No one died. That’s why we don’t judge morality on the end results. They do not reflect what was being chosen, which is the heart of morality.

The “good effect” here to end the war by defeating Japan via invasion, with the expected result of massive civilian casualties. It is what it is.

No amount of arguing, intention, or wishing changes that. What is being argued, implicitly, in these discussion is the moral way to cause massive civilian casualties. I personally believe that neither choice is moral.

 

[Warrior1979]

BTW, I’m interested in knowing why the killing of innocents was permitted in the Old Testament (e.g., Deuteronomy), yet not in the situation under discussion.

 

[smichhertz]

The “good effect” here to end the war by defeating Japan via invasion, with the expected result of massive civilian casualties. It is what it is.

No amount of arguing, intention, or wishing changes that. What is being argued, implicitly, in these discussion is the moral way to cause massive civilian casualties. I personally believe that neither choice is moral.

When you say “neither choice is moral” do you mean you think that both invasion and dropping the bomb are immoral acts? If so, that position is technically within the bounds of Church teaching, but it doesn’t leave the US with a lot of options.

BTW, I’m interested in knowing why the killing of innocents was permitted in the Old Testament (e.g., Deuteronomy), yet not in the situation under discussion.

You should start a thread in the Scripture section. I’m no OT expert, but I bet you many users could help you with that one. You might also want to consider just doing a search, I guarantee you that question has been asked before.

 

[Sincerus]

What would you DO?

What every leader of an army or head of state had been doing for hundreds of years: conditional surrender. That is the moral thing to do, and the Japanese would’ve accepted surrender with conditions given their precarious position.

You make it sound like nuclear weapons were the only option when they had only been in existence for a very short time.

 

[smichhertz]

I think we have reached a meeting of minds.

Awesome! I think we were always in agreement, I just misinterpreted your first post. Sorry about that.

 

[pnewton]

What every leader of an army or head of state had been doing for hundreds of years: conditional surrender.

I do not buy this as historically accurately accurate, yet it keeps being offered as if it were axiomatic. I am not denying it is an option, only that there is Japan was the first case of unconditional surrender.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

What every leader of an army or head of state had been doing for hundreds of years: conditional surrender. That is the moral thing to do, and the Japanese would’ve accepted surrender with conditions given their precarious position.

You make it sound like nuclear weapons were the only option when they had only been in existence for a very short time.

Not until after we dropped TWO nuclear weapons on them.

And even then they argued about it.

 

[Warrior1979]

I do not buy this as historically accurately accurate, yet it keeps being offered as if it were axiomatic.

Exactly. In fact, if anything is axiomatic, it is that they wouldn’t surrender. I base this on the homogeneity of the culture, cultural beliefs, and military history…all of which point to not surrendering.

 

[SwizzleStick]

We recently visited the Truman library in Independence. Below is a link to the webpage for the exhibit about Truman’s decision to drop the bomb. It contains links to other resources of info.

"DECISION TO DROP THE BOMB

In recent years historians and policy analysts have questioned President Truman’s decision to use the atomic bomb against Japan. For President Truman, the decision was a clear-cut one. In 1945, America was weary of war. Japan was a hated enemy. The nation feared the cost of invading the Japanese mainland."…

Excerpt from: trumanlibrary.org/hst/d.htm

Here is a link to a student activity with follow-up questions relevant to this discussion.

Atomic Bomb-Truman Press Release-August 6, 1945
trumanlibrary.org/teacher/abomb.htm

 

[Evan]

Concerning the care the US took concerning civilians, consider

damninteresting.com/ww2-america-warned-hiroshima-and-nagasaki-citizens/

I don’t believe this exonerates the attack, but it does show concern for the people when the weapons of the time could not target a portion of a city.

Once the decision was made to use the weapon [from commander-in-chief], how could you use it in a moral fashion? What is the most you could do to mitigate the collateral damage in a target area without giving away your plans?

 

[Sincerus]

Not until after we dropped TWO nuclear weapons on them.

Wrong. They had been sending out peace feelers as early as December 1944, and by April of 1945 (and especially on into the summer) the Japanese were making many efforts toward peace, all rebuffed by the Americans. It got to the point where the only “condition” was the Emperor not be touched. Such stubbornness!

I can give you quotation after quotation by responsible authorities that Japan was seeking real peace before the bombs were dropped and that America made ZERO effort to take feelers seriously.

“The Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing … I hated to see our country be the first to use such a weapon.” Dwight Eisenhower said that in 1963.

 

[pnewton]

Wrong. They had been sending out peace feelers as early as December 1944, and by April of 1945

Historical context is critical They were also actively involved in trade negotiations up until and including December 7, 1941. Fool me once…

 

[Sincerus]

Historical context is critical They were also actively involved in trade negotiations up until and including December 7, 1941. Fool me once…

In April and May 1945, Japan made three attempts through neutral Sweden and Portugal to bring the war to a peaceful end. On April 7, acting Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu met with Swedish ambassador Widon Bagge in Tokyo, asking him “to ascertain what peace terms the United States and Britain had in mind.” But he emphasized that unconditional surrender was unacceptable, and that “the Emperor must not be touched.” Bagge relayed the message to the United States, but Secretary of State Stettinius told the US Ambassador in Sweden to “show no interest or take any initiative in pursuit of the matter.” Similar Japanese peace signals through Portugal, on May 7, and again through Sweden, on the 10th, proved similarly fruitless.

(from the article “Was Hiroshima Necessary?” published by the Institute for Historical Review)

 

[Warrior1979]

That type of thing happens all the time in war. Saddam Hussein did the same. If one can surrender without giving something up, why not? The devil is in the details.

 

[Ghosty]

That type of thing happens all the time in war. Saddam Hussein did the same. If one can surrender without giving something up, why not? The devil is in the details.

The Japanese were willing to give up what they had taken during the war. Did you read the documents?

The alternative to unconditional surrender is not “we won’t give up anything, just stop fighting us”. Your argument that the Japanese simply wouldn’t surrender falls completely flat in the face of the evidence that the Emperor and Prime Minister Togo were indeed trying to arrange a surrender. What they wanted was some kind of “face-saving”, not “victory or self-destruction”.