Is philosophy dead?

[Tomdstone]

What was the greater evil?

The loss of millions of American lives and millions of Japanese civilians, and the bombing, gassing and destruction of many Japanese cities. had the war continued. Further, those defending the bombing say that both cities were military targets. (As I said, I agree that the bombing was unjustified. I am only saying that I don’t think you will have any luck convincing those who beleive otherwise). They go on to say that the Japanese Leadership was arming the entire population whom they expected to fight to the last man against the anticipated Invasion of the Home Islands. Also, one report says that the USA had planned to use poison gas and kill 5 million Japanese civilians, if they did not use the atomic bomb. This certainly was a greater evil than the atomic bomb.
Obviously, I don’t like the source of the following report, but it does not necesarily mean that the report is not accurate?
American Leaders Planned Poison Gas Attack Against Japan
by Mark Weber

A long-suppressed report written in June 1945 by the US Army’s Chemical Warfare Service shows that American military leaders made plans for a massive preemptive poison gas attack to accompany an invasion of Japan. The 30-page document designated “gas attack zones” on detailed maps of Tokyo and other major Japanese cities. Army planners selected 50 urban and industrial targets in Japan, with 25 cities, including Tokyo, Osaka, Yokohama, Kobe and Kyoto, listed as “especially suitable for gas attacks.”

In planning the invasion of Japan proper, America’s military and political leaders expected the Japanese to fight with fanatic fervor in defense of their home islands. The overall US plan, code-named “Operation Downfall,” called for a two-stage invasion. An assault on the southernmost Japanese home island of Kyushu, code-named “Operation Olympic,” was set for November 1, 1945. This was to be followed by “Operation Coronet,” scheduled for March 1946: an invasion of the main Japanese home island of Honshu, including an assault on Tokyo.

“Gas attacks of the size and intensity recommended on these 250 square miles of urban population,” the US Army report declared, “might easily kill 5,000,000 people and injure that many more.” In the first attack, which would be launched 15 days before the Kyushu landings, American bombers would drench much of Tokyo and other cities in an early morning attack with 54,000 tons of lethal phosgene gas. Tokyo would be the largest poison gas target, because an “attack of this size against an urban city of large population should be used to initiate gas warfare.”

The report’s three authors recommended that the US Joint Chiefs of Staff issue “a policy at once directing the use of toxic gas on both strategic and tactical targets in support of Operation Olympic.” Planners called for the use of four kinds of gas, including phosgene (or carbonyl chloride), mustard gas, and hydrogen cyanide. The gas attack study was approved by the chief of the US Chemical Warfare Service, Major General William N. Porter. Only five copies were made of the top secret document, whose existence was first made public in July 1991.

ihr.org/jhr/v16/v16n3p12_Weber.html

 

[tonyrey]

That is what bothers some people about philosophy that in the end there is no definite answer one way or the other, as we mentioned already the dropping of the bomb on Japan. Some argue it was the lesser of two evils. Others say no - it was wrong because a good end does not justify a bad means. The debate goes on, but neither side is able to convince the other of the correctness of his opinion.

In daily life we are constantly applying the principle of the lesser of two evils. Wouldn’t you lie or steal to save a person’s life if there were no alternative? Wasn’t Jesus justified in choosing to be crucified in order to liberate us from the evil vortex of violence and bloodshed?

 

[inocente]

But philosophy cannot give us a definite answer one way or the other. Is this then a boost for moral relativism?

What’s known as descriptive moral relativism is just the claim that people disagree about what is the right thing to do. Looking at history and different cultures, this seems obviously self-evident to me.

But then some go further. Meta-ethical relativism says that since people disagree, no one can claim to be right. Normative relativism goes further still, and says that as no one can claim to be right, anything goes.

Moral absolutism goes the opposite way and claims that even though people disagree, it is wrong to ever violate some absolute principle. Moral objectivism goes further still by claiming that what is right or wrong is a matter of fact.

I think philosophy is really just a word for reasoning systematically, and in ethics we have to acknowledge that good people reason in many different ways.

 

[GEddie]

You tell me.

No doubt most of the moral philosophers were not aware of the bomb until after it was dropped, so I don’t think they were consulted in the matter. But there had to be somebody next to FDR and Truman, and there had to be somebody next to Einstein and Oppenheimer, who were wondering about the morality of dropping the bombs. Unfortunately, they had little or no say in the matter.

We know that later Einstein and Oppenheimer had their regrets. But then as physicists we should not have expected all that much moral wisdom from them in the first place … until they saw clearly the consequences of their much vaunted genius.

You could, I suppose, make the case that good philosophers are not often invited into the corridors of power. They would be most likely to tell the truth, and the power brokers of the world often do not want to hear the truth and often have to get busy burying it after the truth is out.

Think Benghazi and the IRS.

I don’t know why the morality of the atom bomb is brought up again and again.

It is done and the situation that then prevailed (only one side has the bomb, and is faced with an enormous land campaign ie the Japanese invasion) will never occur again. In WW3, several powers will have the Bomb. That changes the moral equation,

Morally, at the time there was no choice except between using the bomb and the Japanese invasion. The invasion would have taken more life than did the bomb.

ICXC NIKA

 

[inocente]

In this instance I would side with Jeremy Bentham, but not for the reason he gives, that we must act so as to secure the greater good for the greater number. Rather, I would argue that, when confronted with one of two inevitable evils, we must always choose the lesser evil, keeping in mind that it is still an evil and not a good. I certainly don’t see how the people shooting down an airplane full of passengers can feel good about what they have done, though I expect the occupants of the 9/ll towers may thank them for their service.

What was the greater evil? It couldn’t have been anything so catastrophic, since Japan was already beaten and only the mop-up operation was required to obtain surrender.

Faced with the 9/11 scenario, a lot of people side with utilitarianism as you did, sacrificing the few for the many. But exactly the same people reach the opposite moral conclusion in the scenario below:

A brilliant transplant surgeon has five patients, each a pillar of society, and each needing a different organ, without which they will die. But she has no donor organs until a stranger comes in for a routine checkup. He is a criminal lowlife with no family, no one to miss him, and his organs are exactly what she so desperately needs to keep her patients alive.

Very few of those who were ready to kill the passengers to save the many are willing to kill the man to save the five.

I just offer this as an example of how difficult ethics can be, not to say one or the other is correct.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I don’t know why the morality of the atom bomb is brought up again and again.

It is done and the situation that then prevailed (only one side has the bomb, and is faced with an enormous land campaign ie the Japanese invasion) will never occur again. In WW3, several powers will have the Bomb. That changes the moral equation,

Morally, at the time there was no choice except between using the bomb and the Japanese invasion. The invasion would have taken more life than did the bomb.

ICXC NIKA

Though war is uncivilized, there are rules of civilized warfare.

Dropping the bombs on civilian populations indiscriminately violated the rules.

And if America receives one of those bombs, you will think so too.

“Pope Pius XII likewise condemned the bombings, expressing a view in keeping with the traditional Roman Catholic position that “every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man.” The Vatican newspaper Osservatore Romano commented in its August 7, 1945, issue: “This war provides a catastrophic conclusion. Incredibly this destructive weapon remains as a temptation for posterity, which, we know by bitter experience, learns so little from history.”

ihr.org/jhr/v16/v16n3p-4_Weber.html

 

[Charlemagne_III]

A brilliant transplant surgeon has five patients, each a pillar of society, and each needing a different organ, without which they will die. But she has no donor organs until a stranger comes in for a routine checkup. He is a criminal lowlife with no family, no one to miss him, and his organs are exactly what she so desperately needs to keep her patients alive.

This is an instance of utilitarian ethics gone wild.

And this is certainly an instance where the negative form of the golden rule should apply.

 

[GEddie]

Though war is uncivilized, there are rules of civilized warfare.

Dropping the bombs on civilian populations indiscriminately violated the rules.

And if America receives one of those bombs, you will think so too.

Chivalry is the way to lose a war.

Just ask the ghosts in Confederate Purgatory.

If both sides were chivalrous, the war would never start. And if one side tries to be, the other will take advantage of it.

It’s not like aerial bombing had not been lavishly used by both sides throughout the war. The A bombs simply used fewer planes.

ICXC NIKA.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

The gas attack study was approved by the chief of the US Chemical Warfare Service, Major General William N. Porter. Only five copies were made of the top secret document, whose existence was first made public in July 1991.

ihr.org/jhr/v16/v16n3p12_Weber.html

You can see from the date of the release of the report (1991) that the whole idea of gas warfare (shameful in World War I) was an even more shameful one for World War II, and that the report had to be kept secret that long mainly for that reason.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

It’s not like aerial bombing had not been lavishly used by both sides throughout the war. The A bombs simply used fewer planes.

ICXC NIKA.

And fewer civilian targets.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

And fewer civilian targets.

That should be:

And more civilian targets.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I don’t know why the morality of the atom bomb is brought up again and again.

ICXC NIKA

Perhaps for the same reason the Holocaust is brought up again and again?

These were two terrible moments in human history.

Both produced by bad philosophy.

 

[GEddie]

Perhaps for the same reason the Holocaust is brought up again and again?

These were two terrible moments in human history.

Both produced by bad philosophy.

If good philosophy would have led to the Japanese invasion, and millions more dead on both sides, I for one give thanks for bad philosophy!

That is the problem with philosophers; they forget that physical life must come first, that you have to be alive in order to do philosophy.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Charlemagne_III]

If good philosophy would have led to the Japanese invasion, and millions more dead on both sides, I for one give thanks for bad philosophy!

That is the problem with philosophers; they forget that physical life must come first, that you have to be alive in order to do philosophy.

ICXC NIKA

You are one of those rare Catholics who believe the ends justifies the means?

That is bad philosophy. The official position of the catholic Church is that it is bad philosophy. But I guess you know better?

“Pope Pius XII likewise condemned the bombings, expressing a view in keeping with the traditional Roman Catholic position that “every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man.” The Vatican newspaper Osservatore Romano commented in its August 7, 1945, issue: “This war provides a catastrophic conclusion. Incredibly this destructive weapon remains as a temptation for posterity, which, we know by bitter experience, learns so little from history.”

ihr.org/jhr/v16/v16n3p-4_Weber.html

FYI, the notion that millions would have perished in a Japanese invasion is utterly absurd.

Who filled your head with that tripe … somebody else who thinks the ends justifies the means?

 

[Tomdstone]

You are one of those rare Catholics who believe the ends justifies the means?

I think that they argue that it was the lesser of two evils. According to President Harry Truman:“Having found the bomb we have used it. We have used it against those who attacked us without warning at Pearl Harbor, against those who have starved and beaten and executed American prisoners of war, against those who have abandoned all pretense of obeying international laws of warfare. We have used it in order to shorten the agony of war, in order to save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans.”
(“Public Papers of the Presidents: Harry S Truman, 1945”, pg. 212).

 

[Tomdstone]

Dropping the bombs on civilian populations indiscriminately violated the rules.

The argument is that Hiroshima was a military target. Hiroshima produced munitions for the Imperial Army. It also had two Army Group Headquarters. Civilians were warned ahead of time by pamphlets dropped by the US to leave the city ASAP.

 

[Tomdstone]

What’s known as descriptive moral relativism is just the claim that people disagree about what is the right thing to do. Looking at history and different cultures, this seems obviously self-evident to me.

But if philosophy is teaching people to reason correctly, and there is only one right way, and the other way is wrong, then, since philosophers are the experts teaching us how to reason correctly, shouldn’t they be able to come up with the correct moral answer to the question at hand?

 

[inocente]

But if philosophy is teaching people to reason correctly, and there is only one right way, and the other way is wrong, then, since philosophers are the experts teaching us how to reason correctly, shouldn’t they be able to come up with the correct moral answer to the question at hand?

But reasoning has to start somewhere, and people start from different places in subjects like morality. A woman in sub-Saharan Africa would probably reach different moral conclusions from a man in Manhattan, even though both may reason flawlessly. Your great-grandchild will probably reach different moral conclusions to you, even though you both reason flawlessly.

 

[inocente]

Though war is uncivilized, there are rules of civilized warfare.

Dropping the bombs on civilian populations indiscriminately violated the rules.

Carpet bombing using conventional high explosives produced similar death tolls to the Bomb, and no one brought America before a court for that either, so I doubt America ever signed such a Convention.

 

[yppop]

FYI, the notion that millions would have perished in a Japanese invasion is utterly absurd.
Who filled your head with that tripe … somebody else who thinks the ends justifies the means?

Charlie
The only thing absurd about the view that the invasion of Japan would have resulted in a million casualties is that the estimate was too low. One needs only to exam the casualties inflicted in the 3 month Okinawa battle that immediately preceded the planned invasion. In that battle, in addition to 80,000 American casualties, about 80% of the 130,000 Japanese troops and 40% 0f the 300,000 civilians were killed, many by mass suicide. One need only translate those kind of casualty rates to the 70+ million inhabitants of mainland Japan. The Japanese in WWII found great honor in dying for the Emperor and as a result few prisoners were taken; mass suicide including by civilians was not unusual.

If that is what you call “tripe” then I would guess that your knowledge of history is either insufficient or viewed through the eyes of a blame-America-first liberal.

Yppop