As a Catholic, What do you think about Hiroshima?

[JimG]

For his entire life, Harry Truman remained convinced of the correctness of his decision to drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In 1958, after he repeated this conviction to a television reported, the Hiroshima city council drafted a resolution deploring his comments, and sent it to him at his home in Independence, Mo.

Mr. Truman wrote the council a reply, which can be found here, along with the original resolution.

 

[Ghosty]

You propose some other agency that caused the end of the war? Wishing made it so?

The sinking of the Japanese Imperial Navy and the blockade ended the war. That was the assesment of our military leaders of the time. The atom bombs were show pieces, IMO. Japan woldn’t have been seeking a peace treaty before the bombs if continued warfare was feasible.

Peace and God bless!

 

[smichhertz]

As added food for thought: doesn’t Catholic Theology support the idea that the ends don’t justify the means? If that’s the case, than in order to argue that the bombing of Hiroshima, a Catholic cannot use the ENDS (such as the end of the war, or sparing of lives) as justification but must rather focus on the MEANS (destroying an entire city) and show how it is morally neutral.

That’s where my hang up is. If anyone can successfully do it, I’ll be the first to admit it.

 

[JimG]

As added food for thought: doesn’t Catholic Theology support the idea that the ends don’t justify the means? If that’s the case, than in order to argue that the bombing of Hiroshima, a Catholic cannot use the ENDS (such as the end of the war, or sparing of lives) as justification but must rather focus on the MEANS (destroying an entire city) and show how it is morally neutral.

That’s where my hang up is. If anyone can successfully do it, I’ll be the first to admit it.

You are right. The ends don’t justify the means. And my problem with where this leads us, in retrospect, is that Truman withholds use of the two bombs, there is an invasion, and a much greater loss of life. But that’s consequentialism. I suppose the correct answer is to forgo the bombs and suffer the larger loss of life on both sides.

In reality, this type of discussion simply did not arise in 1945. Not from Catholic theologians, not from the bishops. I doubt that there was much discussion when the crossbow was first invented either, or siege machines.

Edit: As another retrospective hypothesis: Had Harry Truman decided not to deploy the atomic bombs which were available and the war had dragged on for even a few more months with great loss of life, it’s likely that he would have been the most vilified President in the U.S. from 1945 up until today, once that fact had been realized.

 

[Ghosty]

The odds of an all-out invasion happening were pretty slim, with or without the bomb. Of course plans were drawn up and preparations were made in the chance it became necessary, but most senior military officers expected the Japanese to surrender before an invasion became necessary. The fact that we now know that they were trying to pursue an end to the war before the bombs were dropped goes even further towards demonstrating that an invasion was a highly unlikely scenario.

In short, it was not a choice between atomic bombs or invasion; Japan could have easily been isolated and waited out.

Peace and God bless!

 

[exnihilo]

You are right. The ends don’t justify the means. .

I disagree. The ends are what justify the means. The end is the purpose. The means are how you get there.

Take for instance the act of cutting someone in the stomach. That is the means. If the end is to rob someone then it is immoral. If the end is to remove a burst appendix then the act is moral. Of course it is not that simple. There are other things to consider. There is the probability of success, comparison of other options, and more.

In this case the end was unconditional surrender of Japan. If the end was proper then this might have been the best means to that end. Where the problem lies is in the end or purpose. It was unreasonable to demand unconditional surrender. That still leaves open surrender under many strict conditions. The US favors subjugating its enemies. Sadly it started at home with the South and continues to this day.

 

[JimG]

The odds of an all-out invasion happening were pretty slim, with or without the bomb. Of course plans were drawn up and preparations were made in the chance it became necessary, but most senior military officers expected the Japanese to surrender before an invasion became necessary. The fact that we now know that they were trying to pursue an end to the war before the bombs were dropped goes even further towards demonstrating that an invasion was a highly unlikely scenario.

In short, it was not a choice between atomic bombs or invasion; Japan could have easily been isolated and waited out.

Peace and God bless!

Well, that is a judgment that one may make in the year 2011 from a well removed vantage point.

Would Japan have surrendered in the absence of an invasion or the atomic bombs? Maybe. But they certainly seemed to be prepared to fight to the bitter end.

U.S. troops invaded Okinawa on April 1, 1945 and secured the island after 12 weeks of fierce fighting at a cost of 50,000 American casualties, 90,000 Japanese military casualties, and at least 100,000 civilian casualties. The U.S. considered that to be a proximate preparation for what to expect in an invasion of the mainland. You and I may think that Truman could have backed off and waited for surrender; that was not a judgment that he was prepared to make. My guess is he might have been impeached for doing nothing. But that’s just speculation. I wasn’t there. But thousands of U.S. troops were.

britannica.com/presidents/article-215092

 

[JimG]

I disagree. The ends are what justify the means. The end is the purpose. The means are how you get there.

Take for instance the act of cutting someone in the stomach. That is the means. If the end is to rob someone then it is immoral. If the end is to remove a burst appendix then the act is moral. Of course it is not that simple. There are other things to consider. There is the probability of success, comparison of other options, and more.

In this case the end was unconditional surrender of Japan. If the end was proper then this might have been the best means to that end. Where the problem lies is in the end or purpose. It was unreasonable to demand unconditional surrender. That still leaves open surrender under many strict conditions. The US favors subjugating its enemies. Sadly it started at home with the South and continues to this day.

I understand. But the principal is that a good end does not justify using an immoral means. If a means is intrinsically immoral then the outcome expected does not justify it.

In the case at hand, the ending of the war was a good and desirable end. The argument is that the use of massive weapons against civilian populations is not a moral means.

As I’ve mentioned before, the use of the atomic bombs was far from the only instance in which civilians were targeted during the war. So I don’t think that the weapons can be faulted simply for being nuclear, but rather for being targeted against civilians. That argument can be made against other campaigns of the war as well.

Nowadays, nuclear weapons can be made nearly as small, or as large, as you like.

 

[Warrior1979]

I understand. But the principal is that a good end does not justify using an immoral means. If a means is intrinsically immoral then the outcome expected does not justify it.

In the case at hand, the ending of the war was a good and desirable end. The argument is that the use of massive weapons against civilian populations is not a moral means.

If not taking this action results in the death of innocent civilians, how is it moral? Is the death of many civilians by nonaction a moral means?

 

[JimG]

If not taking this action results in the death of innocent civilians, how is it moral? Is the death of many civilians by nonaction a moral means?

Well, that is another conundrum. Had Truman stood aside, it is likely the Japanese would have increased the intensity of their fighting with suicide attacks against the fleet.

But it is a hypothetical. He did take action. And now, in hindsight, we second guess his action.

 

[Ghosty]

Well, that is a judgment that one may make in the year 2011 from a well removed vantage point.

Would Japan have surrendered in the absence of an invasion or the atomic bombs? Maybe. But they certainly seemed to be prepared to fight to the bitter end.

U.S. troops invaded Okinawa on April 1, 1945 and secured the island after 12 weeks of fierce fighting at a cost of 50,000 American casualties, 90,000 Japanese military casualties, and at least 100,000 civilian casualties. The U.S. considered that to be a proximate preparation for what to expect in an invasion of the mainland. You and I may think that Truman could have backed off and waited for surrender; that was not a judgment that he was prepared to make. My guess is he might have been impeached for doing nothing. But that’s just speculation. I wasn’t there. But thousands of U.S. troops were.

britannica.com/presidents/article-215092

Except, again, Japan was making moves for peace prior to the atomic bombings. Those avenues were not pursued by the Allies. Had the bombings not occurred, the Japanese could have been brought to the table since they were already offering that for at least a month prior.

Had an invasion happened without first attempting the Japanese peace offers it would have also been immoral, perhaps moreso than the atomic bombs.

Peace and God bless!

 

[exnihilo]

I understand. But the principal is that a good end does not justify using an immoral means. If a means is intrinsically immoral then the outcome expected does not justify it.

That statement is certainly a principle we can discuss. But I think it is important for people to realize that it is always ends that justify the means. The simple statement does a disservice to good thinking.

What is called intrinsically immoral is often a statement of the ends. For instance killing is not intrinsically wrong. Killing in self defense, whether personal or national, is acceptable. Killing in aggression is wrong. We call the later murder and we can say that murder is always wrong. But that is because murder contains in it the end or purpose.

When people talk about immoral means they are discussing the subelements of a larger plan.

In the case at hand, the ending of the war was a good and desirable end. The argument is that the use of massive weapons against civilian populations is not a moral means.

As I’ve mentioned before, the use of the atomic bombs was far from the only instance in which civilians were targeted during the war. So I don’t think that the weapons can be faulted simply for being nuclear, but rather for being targeted against civilians. That argument can be made against other campaigns of the war as well.

I think that you are right that the real question is whether targeting civilians is right. The US did so extensively in the war including Dresden and the fire bombing of Tokyo. As I understand a nuclear weapon would have been useless on Tokyo since it was already largely destroyed. The choice of cities was based on finding cities not already largely destroyed through bombing campaigns.

The end of the war was indeed good. Ending war is almost always good. But again the terms of the surrender are important to the analysis. If the demands of surrender were unreasonable then we have some difficultly in determining that using nuclear weapons to bring about that surrender was right.

 

[smichhertz]

That statement is certainly a principle we can discuss. But I think it is important for people to realize that it is always ends that justify the means. The simple statement does a disservice to good thinking.

What is called intrinsically immoral is often a statement of the ends. For instance killing is not intrinsically wrong. Killing in self defense, whether personal or national, is acceptable. Killing in aggression is wrong. We call the later murder and we can say that murder is always wrong. But that is because murder contains in it the end or purpose.

When people talk about immoral means they are discussing the subelements of a larger plan.

Now you are getting into the difference between proximate and remote intention. The “means” can include the proximate intention. For instance, killing an innocent life is immoral, whereas killing in self-defense is moral. But the proximate intention is different from the end. The end is the intended result of the immediate action. In the case of Hiroshima, the intended result was the destruction of an entire city.

I think that you are right that the real question is whether targeting civilians is right. The US did so extensively in the war including Dresden and the fire bombing of Tokyo. As I understand a nuclear weapon would have been useless on Tokyo since it was already largely destroyed. The choice of cities was based on finding cities not already largely destroyed through bombing campaigns.

Exactly. If one can show how targeting civilians is a morally neutral act, then we might be able to work back to justifying the bombing of Hiroshima. However, I struggle to see how.

The end of the war was indeed good. Ending war is almost always good. But again the terms of the surrender are important to the analysis. If the demands of surrender were unreasonable then we have some difficultly in determining that using nuclear weapons to bring about that surrender was right.

That’s an interesting thought. The Allies did require of the Axis powers unconditional surrender and would not accept anything less. However, on the flip side of things, if there was ever a time when world powers were so far gone, that unconditional surrender was necessary to reestablish world order, WWII was that time.

 

[JimG]

The question of whether or not Truman made the wrong decision in dropping the atomic bombs has been covered rather exhaustively in several past threads. (For example, this one.) I’m not sure if I can survive yet another one. The arguments have all been made.

In addition, there are several books which treat the matter comprehensively, such as Truman and the Cult of Hiroshima, Rober P. Newman, and Downfall—The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire, by Richard Frank.

It is always rather difficult, if not presumptuous, to try to step into a prior era and second guess the decisions made. We do it all the time, of course, but in doing so it helps to put oneself as much as possible into the midst of the events of the time, and that is nearly impossible.

One might imagine that one is an advisor to Harry Truman in 1945, reading reports of war casualties from Okinawa, the memory of Pearl Harbor still fresh in one’s mind, and ponder whether to advise the president that we need do nothing, Japan is on the verge of collapse. (Well, Okinawa didn’t give the impression they were ready for surrender.) There were no Catholic bishops stepping into the fray, saying of course atomic weapons should not be used. Now, nearly seven decades later, we have the luxury of argumentation.

Did dropping the bombs end the war early thereby saving several million lives on both sides?

Could the war have been ended quickly with no atomic bombs and no invasion?

You pay your money and you take your choice. But somebody had to make a decision.

 

[Godfollower]

Suppose you knew for a fact that killing a particular two-year-old child by firing squad would force the Japanese government to surrender unconditionally, ending the war immediately. Would you do it?

Catholic theology teaches us that you can never commit an evil act in order that good might result from it; you can never kill an innocent person on purpose; and two-year-olds are by definition innocent. So you couldn’t do it.

Now, multiply that action by the thousand of non-military, innocent people killed by the bombs. That doesn’t support dropping the bombs; it makes the analysis worse (because the evil act in question is made more grave by the scale of the offense).

The only way out under Catholic teaching is under the principle of double effect: one may perform a good action even if it is foreseen that a bad effect will arise only if four conditions are met:

1. 
   *]The act itself must be morally good – it cannot be evil in itself;
   *]The only thing that one can intend is the good act – one cannot intend the foreseen bad effect;
   *]The good effect cannot arise from the bad effect – otherwise, one would do evil to achieve good; and
   *]The unintended but foreseen bad effect cannot be disproportionate to the good being performed.
   
   Invading Japan by conventional means would satisfy these tests, barring specific assumptions made for the purpose of prohibiting the invasion. How does dropping the bomb satisfy them?

 

[JimG]

Suppose you knew for a fact that killing a particular two-year-old child by firing squad would force the Japanese government to surrender unconditionally, ending the war immediately. Would you do it?

Catholic theology teaches us that you can never commit an evil act in order that good might result from it; you can never kill an innocent person on purpose; and two-year-olds are by definition innocent. So you couldn’t do it.

Now, multiply that action by the thousand of non-military, innocent people killed by the bombs. That doesn’t support dropping the bombs; it makes the analysis worse (because the evil act in question is made more grave by the scale of the offense).

The only way out under Catholic teaching is under the principle of double effect: one may perform a good action even if it is foreseen that a bad effect will arise only if four conditions are met:

1. 
   *]The act itself must be morally good – it cannot be evil in itself;
   *]The only thing that one can intend is the good act – one cannot intend the foreseen bad effect;
   *]The good effect cannot arise from the bad effect – otherwise, one would do evil to achieve good; and
   *]The unintended but foreseen bad effect cannot be disproportionate to the good being performed.
   
   Invading Japan by conventional means would satisfy these tests, barring specific assumptions made for the purpose of prohibiting the invasion. How does dropping the bomb satisfy them?

1. 
   I’m skeptical that an invasion would have satisfied the conditions any more than dropping the bombs.
   
   Consider that there were 100,000 Japanese civilian casualties resulting from the invasion of Okinawa. The civilian casualties may not have been intended, but can one call them proportional to the result? There would have certainly been civilian casualties from an invasion, probably a great deal more than resulted from the atomic bombs.
   
   Of course, no one was paying attention to the requirements of morality during the course of the war. The fire bombing of Tokyo caused far more deaths than the atomic bombs, and it seems to me that had to be the intended effect. Demoralization of the population was the intended effect of the fire bombing of Dresden as well.
   
   That’s one reason I don’t classify nuclear weapons as evil in themselves. They can be directed to military targets or to civilian targets. During WW-II a great deal of conventional bombing was directed at civilians either directly or as a side effect.

 

[Hastrman]

I think Hiroshima’s a hick city where they still didn’t have a TV Tokyo affiliate in 2004.

Oh, you mean the nuke! It’s really complicated to judge, and considering we don’t have access to all the military intelligence that went into the decision we may never have valid judgments. That said, targeting civilian populations is wrong…but Japanese war-production was conducted by people in their homes, like lots of Japanese manufacturing, even to this day, which somewhat muddies the question of whether it was “targeting civilians” or “excessive collateral damage”, which are two very different things.

 

[estesbob]

As a 21st century Catholic I know the teachings of the Church and being 60 plus years from the event I can unequivocally condemn the bombing of Hiroshima. However had I been president then I would have ordered the bombs dropped and if I were Live then I would have supported it

 

[exnihilo]

Now you are getting into the difference between proximate and remote intention. The “means” can include the proximate intention. For instance, killing an innocent life is immoral, whereas killing in self-defense is moral. But the proximate intention is different from the end. The end is the intended result of the immediate action. In the case of Hiroshima, the intended result was the destruction of an entire city.

The idea of proximate is very interesting and often difficult. Consider in the law proximate cause. This means what was the immediate cause of something. Let’s say a driver is drunk, speeding, and talking on the cell phone. Let’s say that driver has a wreck. What is the proximate cause of the wreck? We claim all three of these facts are bad. We would tend to say the drunkenness was the cause of the wreck because that is considered the most egregious wrong. Most people would react with moral outrage that the driver was drunk. But it could be that the driver also had a massive heart attack and that is what caused the wreck. The other three conditions could be irrelevant. Humans like to explain things but some things only God can know.

Exactly. If one can show how targeting civilians is a morally neutral act, then we might be able to work back to justifying the bombing of Hiroshima. However, I struggle to see how.

Targeting civilians would seem to me to be generally wrong. The justness of war has changed over time. At one time in the West we had a notion that you dont target civilians. That has been abandoned. Ironically it is in a democracy where civilians would be most justly targets since they elect and affirm the government. Monarchies and dictatorships should be exempt since the people have no say in the government.

That’s an interesting thought. The Allies did require of the Axis powers unconditional surrender and would not accept anything less. However, on the flip side of things, if there was ever a time when world powers were so far gone, that unconditional surrender was necessary to reestablish world order, WWII was that time.

The Japanese committed some awful atrocities and obviously so did the Germans. But the worst offender was the Soviet Union which was an Ally state. The war ended up giving half of Christendom to the Soviet Empire with terrible results for the people and the Church. It might have been enough to confine the Japanese to their island. It certainly would have been worth it to redirect the US’s efforts to confining our allies the Soviets to their territory.

 

[Ghosty]

One might imagine that one is an advisor to Harry Truman in 1945, reading reports of war casualties from Okinawa, the memory of Pearl Harbor still fresh in one’s mind, and ponder whether to advise the president that we need do nothing, Japan is on the verge of collapse. (Well, Okinawa didn’t give the impression they were ready for surrender.) There were no Catholic bishops stepping into the fray, saying of course atomic weapons should not be used. Now, nearly seven decades later, we have the luxury of argumentation.

These things might affect culpability, but they don’t affect the morality of the actions taken.

For what it’s worth I agree that nukes aren’t immoral in and of themselves. I’m not even convinced that they couldn’t be used in a civilian area in certain circumstances (and, of course, not with the intention of targeting civilians). It’s just that the particular circumstances surrounding these bombings don’t stand up to the “just war” standards of Catholic morality.

Peace and God bless!