Is it immoral to use nuclear weapons in war?

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tuffsmurf said:
The direct and willfully killing of civilians is an intrinsically evil act.
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One may never directly kill an innocent. If civilians are not innocent then they are not protected by the principle.

One may never intend the killing of another human being. If, however, one intends the good effect, i.e., to reduce or eliminate an unjust aggressor capacity to do evil, and the proportion of good to evil is prudentially determined to be equal or favors the good (even though innocents are indirectly killed) then the act is morally permissible.

Indiscriminately attacking a city rather than an unjust enemy would on the face of it be an act of terrorism and is intrinsically immoral.
 
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Civilians, i.e. Non-combatants, are innocent of the acts of the war. That is what civilian means. Or what do you mean that the children in Hiroshima was guilty of?
 
I believe ALL war is immoral to a greater or lesser extent, with or without nuclear weapons. WW II is one of the only wars the U.S. engaged in that I think was justified, but it still had its atrocities.
 
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tuffsmurf said:
Civilians, i.e. Non-combatants, are innocent of the acts of the war. That is what civilian means.
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One may not presume that all civilians are non-combatants.

A definition of terms is in order.
  • combatant: one whose actions directly or indirectly supports an unjust aggressor’s capability or capacity to do evil.
  • civilian: one who does not bear arms in an unjust war.
  • civilian-combatant: a citizen whose actions indirectly supports an unjust aggressor capability or capacity to do evil.
A civilian of an unjust aggressor does not necessarily mean that one is not a threat and hence not a legitimate target. Not all civilians are non-combatants.
 
Okay, let’s say so. However, there were many innocent civilians in Hiroshima. Or can you explain how the children were not innocent?
 
tuffsmurf said:
However, there were many innocent civilians in Hiroshima. Or can you explain how the children were not innocent?
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The issue is: May a defender morally target only uniformed combatants of an unjust aggressor. No, he may also target civilian-combatants.

This issue you now raise is: May a defender morally permit the death of innocents in the prosecution a just war.
Yes.
 
I am not Quaker. I do believe on an individual level, lethal defense of an innocent life is permissible but should be a last resort. However, in wartime, many innocent lives are sacrificed, no matter if they are called “collateral damage.” That’s the nature of war: it is, for the most part, an immoral act on a massive scale. And the irony of it all is that the result is often not much different than the situation was before the war began. So many wars engaged in by the U.S. had little purpose or reason, and the common people were made to be the sacrificial lambs.
 
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As expounded in his books, THE MOST CONTROVERSIAL DECISION and FROM ROOSEVELT TO TRUMAN.
 
509. Arms of mass destruction — whether biological, chemical or nuclear — represent a particularly serious threat. Those who possess them have an enormous responsibility before God and all of humanity .[1071] The principle of the non-proliferation of nuclear arms, together with measures of nuclear disarmament and the prohibition of nuclear tests, are intimately interconnected objectives that must be met as soon as possible by means of effective controls at the international level.[1072] The ban on the development, production, stockpiling and use of chemical and biological weapons as well as the provisions that require their destruction, complete the international regulatory norms aimed at banning such baleful weapons,[1073] the use of which is explicitly condemned by the Magisterium: “Any act of war aimed indiscriminately at the destruction of entire cities or extensive areas along with their population is a crime against God and man himself. It merits unequivocal and unhesitating condemnation”.[1074]
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http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/p...060526_compendio-dott-soc_en.html#Disarmament
 
I can accept that we were morally obligated to use a blockade rather than nuke two cities, because the civilian casualties would have been the direct result of the Japanese government’s actions, rather than our own. What I cannot tolerate, however, is the claim that a blockade wouldn’t have killed more civilians than the nukes did. Japan was already starving in the summer; winter would’ve been catastrophic to the population.
 
We are speaking of the deaths of millions to hundreds of millions people and trying to make it moral.

What would Jesus say about it - I think we know and do we not follow Christ. He certainly would not condone the slaughter of millions of innocent people.
And yes millions we are talking about Missiles that carry 10 hydrogen fission warheads that will wipe out a massive area. Both Russia and the USA have each 1600 to 1750 of these devices ready to fly.
 
I have never accepted the hypothesis that the USA used nuclear weapons on Japan because we felt sorry for them. Furthermore, the idea that those bombs motivated Hirohito to order Japan to surrender is not correct. He was motivated by the Russian surprise attack and by communications which led him to believe that the USA would grant him amnesty. He was a war criminal after all but was not prosecuted or even indicted.

As for the topic of this thread, it is not only immoral to use nuclear weapons, it is also immoral to design, build, and possess them. Pope Francis himself has condemned possession of nuclear weapons.
 
GKMotley said:
We had no interest in allowing the Russkies to put another Iron Curtain on their far eastern exposure. What was coming in Europe was bad enough. Here, we could draw a line.The bomb made that possible.

Getting Japan to surrender, as soon as possible, to reduce the ongoing blood bath (Giangreco, again) was the primary point. Keeping the Bear at bay was another.
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10 major battles in the Pacific in 1944. In 1945 by August? 2.

The “bloodbath” was over, GKM. The Japanese were beaten. The only remaining question was the same for Tokyo as for Berlin - did we want the Stars and Stripes or the Hammer and Sickle to sail over Japan?

We dropped the bombs for a lot of reasons. “To save lives” was on the list for “PR” reasons, but it held the least water.

#1, we wanted to see what they would do.
#2, we wanted to make a show of power to the rising power of the east - Russia.

Trying to spin that into a moral explanation is the just the repeat of an American jingoism that’s long been taught and long been swallowed.

Thankfully, that fundamentally bankrupt and erroneous belief is dying from the world.
 
Absent the bombs, the next bloodbath was to commence with operation DOWNFALL/Olympic on Kyushu. A good read on this would be Drea/MACARTHUR’S ULTRA. And hence onward with Cornet. Or, absent the invasions, the continuing B -29 raids, on the 180 cities with a minimum population of 30,000, and a concentration on the transportation systems/food production, using the added 700 B-29s LeMay would own by then. And the bloodbath outside the Islands would continue at 250,000 a month (Giangreco, again).

The Japanese were beaten. They were not prepared to surrender. Next reading on the tortuous process that was going on among the movers and shakers, in the last few months of the war, should be JAPAN’S DECISION TO SURRENDER/Butow. Like Frank, it is a classic in its own way.

This topic, being history, is one of those things that knowing stuff helps with.
 
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meltzerboy2 said:
I do believe on an individual level, lethal defense of an innocent life is permissible but should be a last resort. However, in wartime, many innocent lives are sacrificed, no matter if they are called “collateral damage.”
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Indirect killing of innocent life may be permitted in Catholic moral theology. The pregnant woman may indirectly abort her child to save her own life (intended end) given that that medical procedure is her last resort and is prudentially efficacious to that end. However, she is not morally obligated to do so.
 
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