The Harry Truman dilemma

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Ani Ibi: My point remains. Any Catholic who, after the definative statements of Vatican II, supports the actions of Truman is flatly an unequivocally going against Catholic teaching. Period. The official, Ecumenical Catholic teaching has been provided.

I even said in my post that this is not a question of Truman’s moral culpability. This is a matter of Catholic teaching from an Ecumenical Council, and how Catholics approach the matter today. I’m not judging the people who did the act, because I know that their circumstances are well beyond my knowledge; I’m simply judging the act itself. Just as we are able to say that raping children is not ok, even though there were times and places where “people didn’t know better”, we are able to say that dropping a nuke on a city is not ok.

And yes, the bombing WAS indiscriminate by definition. The target was not some military complex or production facility in which civilians were working and could not be evacuated. The targets were entire cities. Churches were destroyed as people prayed in them, including the Catholic Urakami Cathedral of Nagasaki which was ground zero for the bomb. Discriminate bombing is morally licit, and it is the targeting of specified military targets with the understanding that civilians may be caught in the destruction no matter how much precaution is taken. That is a standard price for any just war. Dropping a bomb designed to level a city because there are some military targets in the city is the very definition of indiscriminate, because such an attack is not designed to discriminate between civilians and military targets.

If there are civilians in the proximity of a military target when it is struck discriminately, then that falls under the principle of double effect. If you drop a bomb that can not even be specifically directed at a military target, knowing full well that civilians are in the radius, then you’ve breached a grave matter. It is functionally no different than throwing a grenade into a room full of children because there is a dangerous criminal inside. Even if the death of the children is not the aim, even a remote one, the matter is grave. You can’t simply hand-wave such deaths with the excuse that your goal was to “get the bad guy”.

That is the irony of people appealing to St.Thomas Aquinas’ “Principle of Double Effect”. They put emphasis on the “good” intention of the act, when in fact one of the fundamental assumptions of St. Thomas Aquinas’ theology was that people ALWAYS seek the good. Having a good intention doesn’t mean anything, because nobody ever conciously seeks what they perceive to be evil. Even when they know that something is considered evil, their aim will always be a good such as personal satisfaction at the very least. There is no such thing as a “pursuit of evil” in St. Thomas Aquinas’ moral theology, not even for Satan.

That being said, aside from historical considerations of moral culpability (which is purely an academic affair), any modern Catholic who says that Truman was right to drop the bomb is violating the teaching of a solemn Ecumenical Council. That isn’t a question of Truman’s culpability at all, but of whether or not you can be a Catholic in good standing with the Faith and advocate such a move, even in the past.

Morality is not relative to time, only culpability is relative. What is evil on Wednesday was evil on Tuesday, the only difference being that we may have better knowledge of that fact on Wednesday.

Peace and God bless!
 
Lance said:
Just as I thought. You would have happily seen thousands of Americans die just to save some Japanese (enemy) lives. Enjoy the life given to you by the men who died in all the wars America has fought. Remember, if your dear Japan had won we could not be having this discussion. You and I have nothing further to discuss.
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It is a duty for soldiers to die in war when called to. Whether or not they do is based on how lucky they are as individuals. It would be more moral for a million U.S. soldiers to be killed in battle than for a single Japanese child to be murdered in cold blood, just as it is more moral for a million people to work freely than for a small percentage to be kept in slavery against their will.

I say this as someone from a military family who likely would not be alive today if the U.S. had invaded Japan. My grandfather was a soldier, and his job was to die for the country if called to do so, and he would have done so proudly.

Peace and God bless!
 
Ghosty said:
It is a duty for soldiers to die in war when called to. Whether or not they do is based on how lucky they are as individuals. It would be more moral for a million U.S. soldiers to be killed in battle than for a single Japanese child to be murdered in cold blood, just as it is more moral for a million people to work freely than for a small percentage to be kept in slavery against their will.

I say this as someone from a military family who likely would not be alive today if the U.S. had invaded Japan. My grandfather was a soldier, and his job was to die for the country if called to do so, and he would have done so proudly.

Peace and God bless!
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We are talking collateral deaths here. No one was murdered in cold blood. Thank God you are not the final arbitor of whether it is more moral for 1 child to die as collateral damage or for 1 million men to die.
 
Lance said:
We are talking collateral deaths here. No one was murdered in cold blood. Thank God you are not the final arbitor of whether it is more moral for 1 child to die as collateral damage or for 1 million men to die.
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Looks like you are back to rationalization, with no Catholic doctrine to back you up.

I don’t think I will bother responding to this thread again until someone can come up with an original thought to support you’re opinions.
 
estesbob said:
How many would have died if we had invaded Japan?
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Or even worse, how may would have died if we had just stuck to a blockade. Funny, I see no one commenting about the 3 options I posted the US had in August of 1945. Guess the truth is too much for some people. :rolleyes:
 
wabrams said:
Or even worse, how may would have died if we had just stuck to a blockade. Funny, I see no one commenting about the 3 options I posted the US had in August of 1945. Guess the truth is too much for some people. :rolleyes:
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This thread reminds me a line uttered by the Lord High Executioner in Gilbert and Sullivans The Mikado-he decries:

“People who praise
in enthusiastic tones
every century but the one they’re in
every country but their own”
 
wabrams said:
Or even worse, how may would have died if we had just stuck to a blockade. Funny, I see no one commenting about the 3 options I posted the US had in August of 1945. Guess the truth is too much for some people. :rolleyes:
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Your options for victory do not define the moral law.

There is no Catholic just war teaching that says “if you can’t win by following these rules, discard them.”

Your options presume a need to win the war at all costs. That is a decidedly anti-Catholic position, that winning wars is more important than obeying God’s teaching.

It is also not true that the ends justify the means. There is no such thing as an evil method that is justified by good results. But that seems to be your only argument here.

Estesbob,

Then I guess saving soldier’s lives isn’t the only concern, is it? Are you seriously arguing that the atomic bombs actually were sent to save Japanese women and children?
 
pro_universal said:
Your options for victory do not define the moral law.

There is no Catholic just war teaching that says “if you can’t win by following these rules, discard them.”

Your options presume a need to win the war at all costs. That is a decidedly anti-Catholic position, that winning wars is more important than obeying God’s teaching.

It is also not true that the ends justify the means. There is no such thing as an evil method that is justified by good results. But that seems to be your only argument here.

Estesbob,

Then I guess saving soldier’s lives isn’t the only concern, is it? Are you seriously arguing that the atomic bombs actually were sent to save Japanese women and children?
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The bombs were used to end a war that, if it continued, would have resulted in the deaths of millions of men, women and children.
 
pro_universal said:
Your options for victory do not define the moral law.

There is no Catholic just war teaching that says “if you can’t win by following these rules, discard them.”

Your options presume a need to win the war at all costs. That is a decidedly anti-Catholic position, that winning wars is more important than obeying God’s teaching.

It is also not true that the ends justify the means. There is no such thing as an evil method that is justified by good results. But that seems to be your only argument here.
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Where in Catholic doctrine does it say to let the wicked reign when you have the means to stop them?
 
wabrams said:
Where in Catholic doctrine does it say to let the wicked reign when you have the means to stop them?
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That’s an easy one. Where it says, without qualification, that all intentional attacks on civilians are a crime against God.

There’s no “but it’s okay if the government that rules the city is bad” exception in there.
 
estesbob said:
The bombs were used to end a war that, if it continued, would have resulted in the deaths of millions of men, women and children.
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In other words, you’re saying that the results justified the means.

Right? Or am I reading you wrongly there?
 
estesbob said:
Just end to a Just war.
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Well, if estesbob says so it must be true.

Interesting that you didn’t answer the question though, isn’t it?

Do you have an argument besides “ends justify means” to support the bombing?
 
pro_universal said:
Well, if estesbob says so it must be true.

Interesting that you didn’t answer the question though, isn’t it?

Do you have an argument besides “ends justify means” to support the bombing?
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I never said “ends justifies the end” You have swung that phrase around like the Sword of Excalibur for the enitre thread assuming, I guess, that that settles the argument once and for all. . If one accpets your interperation of it we have no choice but to roll over and let our enemies have their way with us.-

Oh and BTW-the bombings bought about a just end to a just war.
 
Lance said:
We are talking collateral deaths here. No one was murdered in cold blood. Thank God you are not the final arbitor of whether it is more moral for 1 child to die as collateral damage or for 1 million men to die.
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Aaaaand proportionalism rears its ugly head.

Just so you know, you can’t logically maintain that position without also maintaining that some times abortion, contraception, and homosexuality are okay. They are the exact same line of reasoning which denies that an act can be intrinsically evil but must always be evaluated in light of its effects and the intentions of the agent.

Let me explain…when you hold that intrinsically evil acts don’t exist, but that every act must be weighed with a sense of proportion to the good and bad effects, then you have strayed from Catholic teaching. Just as one can never have an abortion even if it will bring about marvelous good effects, one can never intentionally bomb civilians even if the good effects are tremendous. If the object of an act is disordered, then even the best of consequences and intentions cannot render that act morally good. It remains evil. Once you admit the possibility that sometimes it is moral to commit an act whose object is evil you have placed yourself on a slippery slope that can lead to all sorts of evil acts being justified under the right circumstances. This method of evaluation is condemned by Pope John Paul II in Veritatis Splendor and the moral theologians who espouse these erroneous views are led by Frs. Curran and McBrien. I challenge you to find one faithful Catholic theologian who proclaims the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan was a moral act. You might be able to get a liberal theologian like Curran to reason that way, but not anyone who understand the Church’s teaching on moral theology.

And just to be clear, because it seems to keep coming up, ALL the atrocities committed by the Japanese were horrible and evil and should be throroughly condemned. And yes, their attitude was not to wage war in a moral fashion. If they had nuclear weapons they surely would have used them on us. But no matter what others do to us, we cannot justify immoral actions.
 
estesbob said:
Oh and BTW-the bombings bought about a just end to a just war.
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So, using your logic. If it were possible to definitively end World War II and secure the surrender of the Japanese and insure that not one more US soldier was killed, but the only way to effect this would be for me to blow up your house with your wife and children in it, would that be a morally permissible act? It would be the lives of a few innocents to save millions, it seems like a good deal.
 
Ham1 said:
So, using your logic. If it were possible to definitively end World War II and secure the surrender of the Japanese and insure that not one more US soldier was killed, but the only way to effect this would be for me to blow up your house with your wife and children in it, would that be a morally permissible act? It would be the lives of a few innocents to save millions, it seems like a good deal.
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No-using my logic the bombings bought about a just end to a just war
 
Ham1 said:
And in my example blowing up your wife and children would as well. Does that make it moral?
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You example had nothing whatsoever to do with the discussion at hand. The bombings were a Just end to a just war-it really is a simple as that.
 
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