“The Allied bombings in Europe, then, and the firebombing and atomic bombing in Japan, seem to have been deliberate targeting of civilian populations: in other words, intentional attacks on innocent human life,” writes Christopher Tollefsen in The Abiding Significance of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and therefore,
by the standards of traditional, non-consequentialist morality, utterly wrong and intrinsically unjustifiable. And this great moral evil has itself had consequences, some of which it is salutary to note now, more than half a century later.
He argues this using the arguments of the Catholic philosophers Elizabeth Anscombe and John Ford, S.J., and by rebutting the consequentialist arguments made for the actions.
“Thankfully,” he writes, “the inference which Anscombe and Ford drew from the moral injunction against intentional killing to the moral conclusion against area (or terror) bombing has increasingly become part of our Western military ethic,” although “it cannot truly be said, for all the progress in military ethics, that the West has fully repudiated either the Allies’ actions, or the consequentialism underlying them.”
And consequentialism has its consequences:
So the actions have not been repudiated; nor has the consequentialism, which is nakedly on display in the West’s willingness to countenance the killing of unborn children for the sake of avoiding negative consequences, to countenance the killing of in vitro human beings for the sake of the positive health consequences, and, for many decades, to countenance the conditional elimination of entire populations in the event that their leaders should strike us with atomic weapons.
In each case, a decision has been made that innocent human lives are not to be held sacrosanct, or inviolable, if the consequences of doing so would be too significant. The consequentialist ethic of the Allied bombings is thus still with us, and plays a continuing, and horrific, role in our public and private moral deliberations.
Update: A reader points out that, as well as the essay linked above, published in 1956, Anscombe also wrote an essay on the broader subject of war called The Justice of the Present War Examined, published when she was 19 or 20 and a student at Oxford.
August 5th, 2010 | 11:07 am
The attacks were not directed at “innocent civilians” but the large belligerent portion of the population which actively supported the war. I have no doubt innocent people died, those opposed to the war or the young, but they were not the target.
August 5th, 2010 | 11:28 am
The bombings in Europe are often compared to the A-bombings in Japan. Maybe the A-bombings (and the bombings in Europe and in Tokyo) were a violation of just war theory, but my own personal interest compels me to support them anyway. Last week, I took my family to visit the Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. The very first historic plane we saw was Bockscar, the plane that dropped Fat Man on Nagasaki. As we stood before the plane, I explained to my children that the plane they were looking at might very well be the reason that we were alive to look at it. My father, like hundreds of thousands of other young men, was training for the amphibious invasion of Japan when the two A-bombs were dropped. He told me several times before his death that Truman took a lot of criticism for the decision, but he would never question it, as he might very well have been killed otherwise. He was grateful for Truman’s decision . . . and so am I.
August 5th, 2010 | 11:29 am
“The attacks were not directed at “innocent civilians” but the large belligerent portion of the population which actively supported the war. I have no doubt innocent people died, those opposed to the war or the young, but they were not the target.”
I’m afraid that it is no longer possible to hold this view in good faith. In Europe, there is clear documentary evidence that the RAF deliberately targeted civilian populations for “terror bombing”. The USAAF did the same in Japan. The disturbing book “Among the Dead Cities” by AC Grayling makes it quite clear.
Obviously there is a clear utilitarian argument for area bombing and even nuclear bombing. But for deontologists it is difficult to justify. And even double effect is of limited use.
August 5th, 2010 | 12:29 pm
Two thoughts: It is not possible to defend deliberate killing of defenseless civilians -period. On the other hand, until we ourselves face the certainty of horrific loss of life on both sides at a time when suffering almost too terrible to imagine has already occurred – and when we have certain knowledge that our enemy considers defense to the death a point of honor and nobility – and given all that, we decide to proceed with an invasion by sea of that enemy – until then, we should hesitate to say we know what we would have done in that situation. It is reasonable to hope that one would make the right decision, but assurance that one would have done so is insufferable pride.
August 5th, 2010 | 12:38 pm
I am not sure if I have become too old or too Catholic. I have reached the point in my life where I can actually listen to this argument. I count myself as one of those who owes his existence to the decision to use atomic bombs. My father’s outfit was to have been switched over to infantry I have read the projected mortality reports for both US soldiers and Japanese civilians. I happen to agree with V.D. Hanson that you can only discuss the decision in the context of Okinawa and what that cost in lives, both American and Japanese.
Keep in mind the purple hearts distributed in Korea & Viet Nam were originally minted for Operation Downfall.
All that being said, I appreciate the piece and am left to ponder as we approach the 65th anniversary of Hiroshima. Can’t say I agree, but I will no longer stick my fingers in my ear and go, “lalalalalalala…”
Thanks.
August 5th, 2010 | 1:20 pm
Are we neglecting the fact that the Battle of Britain involved bombing civilians, or that the victims of the Holocaust were largely civilians? It would seem the Axis engaged quite heavily in targetting civilians.
August 5th, 2010 | 1:52 pm
“The justice of the present war examined” should be required reading for all “conservative” Catholics, especially in bellicose times. (One conserves what one is comfortable conserving.) As another (doctrinally orthodox) Catholic philosopher, J. M. Cameron, a late great essayist for the NYRB, mentioned in an essay from the 80s attacking the views of this journal’s favorite son Michael Novak, PRACTICALLY NO WAR IN HUMAN HISTORY WAS EVER TRULY JUST according to the traditional doctrine (whose sharp teeth were fully accepted by the 19 year old Anscombe — and she never changed her views on this, as the preface to her collected papers shows).
August 5th, 2010 | 2:05 pm
As a pacifist, I have to say that I find the distinction between a civilian and a conscript to be an artificial one. It seems to me that if the plan is to kill until the other side gives up, Sherman’s total war is the most internally consistent framework. It was prescient, even, of the central role that industrialization would have in modern wars.
August 5th, 2010 | 3:10 pm
Gregory K. Laughlin,
As understandable as your point is, it is a clear example of consequentialist reasoning – moving from assumed consequences to moral decisions rather than from moral principles to decisions. From a traditional Christian perspective, it is at least difficult to stomach such flexibility.
Jane,
There’s a saying, “two wrongs don’t make a right.” Of course Axis nations engaged in horrific violence against civilians, and they are now saddled with psychological guilt for generations to come as a result. I am quite glad that the US did not stoop to that level, but it is worrying just how low our standards were at times (e.g., destroying the largest Cathedral in East Asia and decimating a major Christian population in Japan at Nagasaki).
August 5th, 2010 | 3:36 pm
What exactly is an “innocent civilian”? Is a worker manufacturing shells in a factory an innocent civilian? What about a someone who buys war bonds to directly fund military purchases? How about a Japanese housewife being trained to use a bamboo pike to fight the Americans when they invade the home islands? What about kids collecting scrap rubber and tin to turn in for recycling into war materiel?
I think World War II is a very bad example to use in evaluating just war arguments, because of the special circumstances of nations militarizing their whole cultures. Japan is a very strong example: the Japanese government taught its own citizens that they were all part of the military effort, and it viewed its whole domestic population as a military asset that could be sacrificed to repel the American invasion. Against a culture thoroughly indoctrinated with militaristic ideology, where exactly should the U.S. have drawn the line in deciding who was fair game for attack and who wasn’t?
I think just war limitations on acceptable targeting make a lot of sense when there is a bright dividing line between civilians and military personnel, such as in the United States today. I don’t think that line was especially clear during World War II, particularly in Japan’s case.
August 5th, 2010 | 3:40 pm
Unlike Matt, I guess I’m neither old enough or Catholic enough to listen to this garbage. My grandfather was also going to be one of the first wave of invaders of the Japanese mainland, and there’s no chance that I’m ever going to say that a decision that enabled me to come into existence in the first place was wrong. Never, ever, ever.
August 5th, 2010 | 3:55 pm
I think Greg Laughlin’s argument raises an important point, too: yes, the main reason the U.S. used the atomic bombs instead of a ground invasion was to save American lives, but an invasion would also have caused a lot more Japanese domestic casualties than the bombs inflicted.
Is it consequentialist to attack civilians directly if it is done in order to spare those very same civilians from greater damage that would be inflicted upon them indirectly by rigorous adherence to traditional just war doctrine?
I think the Cold War nuclear stalemate illustrates this: were the civilian populations of the USSR and the US better off in a world where they were held hostage by the other’s nuclear weapons, or would they have been better off in a world where each side only used its nukes against the other’s military assets — and only incidentally destroyed vast percentages of the other’s civilian population?
If it’s sometimes the case that specifically targeting civilian populations actually saves those populations from annihilation, I find it hard to see how that undermines our respect for their absolute value as persons.
August 5th, 2010 | 5:05 pm
Brian:
My paternal grandparents would almost certainly never have met were it not for WW2. That does not mean, however, that I am rationally obliged to support Hitler’s invasion of Poland.
Ethan C:
Interesting points. I’ve never heard it put that way before.
August 5th, 2010 | 5:20 pm
“… there’s no chance that I’m ever going to say that a decision that enabled me to come into existence in the first place was wrong. Never, ever, ever.”
Brian,
This logic is twisted. It would a child conceived by rape to approve of the rape of that child’s mother.
August 5th, 2010 | 5:22 pm
Sorry, that should read “It would REQUIRE a child conceived by rape…”
August 5th, 2010 | 5:42 pm
To Niall & David S: You seem to think that I am required to believe that nothing that ever preceded August 1945 was wrong, since altering even the tiniest details of history would have almost certainly prevented my existence. I hope that it is obvious that this is not the most compelling argument? I’m either far too smart or far too dumb to find it persuasive.
As for also being forced to support the rape of a potential ancestor, or of an ancestral homeland, I think we can safely agree that in those cases there isn’t the slightest mitigating argument for either the motives involved or their plausibly foreseeable outcomes at the time. Which of course is not true of the actions in question here.
August 5th, 2010 | 6:07 pm
Brian- Please note that I have arrived at a point where I can listen politely, not that I could agree.
Hiroshima, if I recall, knocked out the Japanese 3rd Army Group as a fighting force. There were military targets.
I also recall reading the extract from the diary of a physician serving in the USNMC. In short, he was in Hiroshima soon after the bombing. He had been involved with prior amphibious assaults and their aftermaths. His comment was, “They were the best looking burned corpses I had ever seen.”
He was looking at them from the perspective of the alternative of conventional war.
As I ask all the peace mongers who make uncritical condemnations of America’s end game in the Pacific, what would you have done differently and what price would you pay?
The USSR even more entrenched on the Pacific Rim, tens of thousands of the men who went on to make America what it was in the post WW II era dead, Japan totally gutted and divided like Korea. This is better how?
Richard Rhode’s The Making of the Atomic Bomb should be required reading. The reliance on secrecy and dissembling started us down a path with real consequences.
August 5th, 2010 | 11:04 pm
Ethan C.
I disagree that there is a bright dividing line between military and civilian personnel today. To put it most generally, we’re all part of the same economy. A quarter of what every American pays goes toward defense spending. Think about what Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and (much to his chagrin) George Soros have contributed “over there.”
I’m sure some distinction can be made there, but the fact is that tax money is fungible. The average tax payer is not making bullets, but his income taxes are directly financing their purchase.
August 5th, 2010 | 11:48 pm
Adam Baker,
While it’s true that we still fund the military, I don’t think you could say that we’re economically and culturally militarized in the way that the major powers in World War II were. During the war, the entire purpose of the economy was centered upon military production. Even in a relatively free country like the United States, the economy was centrally planned to maximize war production. This was even more direct in authoritarian states like Japan, Germany, and the USSR.
Nowadays, I’d say that military expenditures are only one incidental part of the economy Although at about 4% of GDP it’s still a big part, it’s nowhere near the more than 30% it was at in WW2. But more important than the numbers, military production is no longer the purpose of our economy, like it was in the war.
Furthermore, I think there’s been a very significant cultural shift in identification, with non-military Americans increasingly seeing the military as an entity very separate from the civilian sphere. Our government does not constantly tell us that our we are participating in the war effort with our every action, or that we’re all working together as a unified nation to defeat our enemies (a lot of this did continue during the Cold War, but I think it’s mostly gone now). It’s very easy to go about one’s life without hearing much about our current wars. Not so for the powers in World War 2.
Much less are we being armed, man woman and child, by our government for an impending foreign invasion, as the Japanese were at the end of the war.
And to refer back to your first post, I agree that conscription blurs the line, but since we don’t have a conscript army anymore, that’s one way in which I think the distinction is clearer now than it was.
August 5th, 2010 | 11:54 pm
Ethan C.
“Is it consequentialist to attack civilians directly if it is done in order to spare those very same civilians from greater damage that would be inflicted upon them indirectly by rigorous adherence to traditional just war doctrine?”
Yes.
You are saying that this course of action is correct or good, because of the consequences it forestalls.
“If it’s sometimes the case that specifically targeting civilian populations actually saves those populations from annihilation, I find it hard to see how that undermines our respect for their absolute value as persons.”
Again, consequentialist/utilitarian. Once you accept that it is sometimes good to intentionally kill innocent people, then it is merely a question of achieving the best outcome, without regard to morality.
The underlying principle is called ‘doing evil that good may come’. Or as Anscombe puts it
‘Every fool may be as much of a knave as suits him’
Adam Baker:
Just War theory is an extension of the principles behind self-defense. That is, it is never our intention to kill, only to defend ourselves. And our defensive actions must be proportionate to the threat.
Hence, it is permissible to bomb an arms factory, even though there is a foreseeable (yet unintended) risk that civilian workers in that factory will be killed. The death (or risk of death) of these non-combatants must be proportional to the benefit of limiting the enemy’s ability to wage war.
Why does Hiroshima and Nagasaki (not to mention the firebombing of Tokyo) not meet this requirement? Because the deaths of civilians is not a ‘foreseeable yet unintended’ consequence…it is the intended aim.
Put it this way. A virtuous man may, in a just war, bomb an arms factory, and sincerely hope that no civilians are killed. Could the same be said for the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Impossible, because killing civilians was the intent.
Just War and Self-defense theory show us how to protect the good without intending evil. It protects us from the grave evil of willing the deaths of other humans.
August 6th, 2010 | 12:45 am
Bryan says, “My grandfather was also going to be one of the first wave of invaders of the Japanese mainland, and there’s no chance that I’m ever going to say that a decision that enabled me to come into existence in the first place was wrong. Never, ever, ever.”
When confronted with some disastrous consequences of this view, he refines thus:
“As for also being forced to support the rape of a potential ancestor, or of an ancestral homeland, I think we can safely agree that in those cases there isn’t the slightest mitigating argument for either the motives involved or their plausibly foreseeable outcomes at the time. Which of course is not true of the actions in question here.”
I’m not sure what a ‘potential ancestor’ is, but it is at least plausibly foreseeable that repeated rape of women of child-bearing age will produce pregnancy. No doubt a child so conceived would very likely feel inner conflict on the circumstances leading to his or her coming to be, but in fact the general state of humanity is the same in kind, if not in degree. None of us would be here without the particular sin-filled history of the world being the way it has been.
So your existence’s being due to Hiroshima seems to have precisely nothing to do with whether you should think it morally permissible or not. Either the motives and consequences of the bombing justify it, or they don’t. Your existence doesn’t come into play at all.
In other words, your first post is nothing more than a psychological report, and your second is a consequentialist argument entirely distinct from the first post.
Matt Hummel: I don’t get your reference to the Richard Rhodes book. I’ve read it, and it sure doesn’t lead me to your interpretation of Hiroshima as less horrific than traditional war (unless by that term you mean the fire-bombing of Tokyo, in which case it doesn’t count as conventional in this conversation).
To the argument that it is presumptuous to think we would have acted differently in the circumstances, that is beside the point. I don’t presume that I wouldn’t succumb to some suitably overwhelming set of temptations (of many kinds), but that’s no reason to think it would be right to give in to them. It can be, to be sure, a reason not to pass judgment on the personal culpability of others, but that’s not the same thing as judging the act itself.
August 6th, 2010 | 11:51 am
Zac,
The trouble with your response is that the just war prohibition itself also meets your definition of a consequentialist argument. Why do we assert that it is unjust to intentionally kill civilians? Because we believe that intentionally killing them violates our duty to uphold the principle that human lives are, in the words of the original article, “to be held sacrosanct, or inviolable…”
That is to say, the goal we seek is to correctly express our valuation of human life, to demonstrate that life is sacred and treat it with due reverence.
But if refusing to drop bombs on civilians actually leads to the deaths of those very same civilians, along with many other civilians, in what way does our refusal express our valuation of their lives?
Also, I notice you’ve made no attempt to respond to my argument that World War II was a special case, in which it’s difficult to say that Japanese citizens were truly civilians.
August 6th, 2010 | 10:38 pm
Ethan C:
Consequentialism means that an action is judged to be good or evil (or right or wrong) according to the consequences it produces.
Just War theory is an extension of Natural Law theory…which determines good and evil in reference to human flourishing and human reason.
Long story short: It is contrary to human flourishing to intentionally kill innocent human beings. This is claim is based on observation of human nature, and on reason. It is an ethical claim, because it tells us that we cannot live a good life/flourish if we intentionally kill innocent humans.
Just War theory shows us the fine line between defending ourselves/others (good for us) and intentionally killing the innocent (evil for us).
I see what you are getting at, but I think you’re putting a consequentialist interpretation on something that is not consequentialist at all. You’re treating ‘expressing reverence for life, etc’ as a good consequence by which to measure one’s actions.
Furthermore, you are trapped (as are many people) in a false dichotomy: If we don’t bomb, we have to invade, and invasion is worse for everyone.
But what many people do not realise is that if the invasion is expected to be such a devastating and costly slaughter, Just War theory does not permit it.
It is important to recognise that it is not our duty to achieve the best possible outcome for everyone, by whatever means possible. It is our duty to act according to the good, as it is understood through human nature and reason (ie. Natural Law).
If we decide to *only* do what is good, then we can find the true limits to self-defense, even if they leave us with less than ideal situations like a blockaded Japan, or the current NKorean regime. Just War would not have allowed the allied leadership to demand the lives of so many troops for the sake of conquering the Japanese islands, if indeed it were so costly an enterprise as we are told.
The alternative is to try to second-guess the course of history, and to utilise unconscionable means to achieve desirable consequences. That’s the final irony of consequentialism…if we redefine good and evil according to consequences, then we are abandoning any objective measure of good and evil. If we can kill nearly 200,000 for the sake of maybe 500,000 – 1million….these aren’t ‘magic’ numbers…they are simply compelling enough to convince us to act. Follow this logic through and we enter ‘Peter Singer’ territory where it becomes ‘good’ to kill one man for the sake of ten…
In response to the issue of how to define civilians… I understand your point of view, but I think it is mistaken. What you need to understand (and it is a difficult shift in perspective) is that Just War is merely an extension of self-defense. If someone breaks into your home, and you fear for your safety, you may defend yourself proportionately. Perhaps the intruder has a knife, and you have a gun. If you fear for your life, you might be justified in shooting him. But if you see him running away scared, to shoot him anyway would be an act of murder.
Just War theory is self-defense on the scale of warfare. To distinguish between combatants and non-combatants, we wear uniforms. To make clear our intentions, we declare war. Yet in actual combat, our intention is not simply to kill the enemy, but to prevent him from harming us. In other words, if we could safely use non-lethal means to subdue the enemy, we would use them. The grave nature of warfare is that we do not have such means at our disposal. The enemy will shoot at me (his intention made clear by donning the uniform of a combatant) and I must shoot him first in order to defend myself. Even so, morally I am protected because I can in good conscience hope for the survival of my enemy, or at least not actively desire his death.
The same applies to bombing, and the same principle prevents us from using biological and chemical weapons that we consider inhumane. But even when we bomb, it is with the presumption that we are acting in self-defense against the enemy combatants.
If you understand this, you will understand why we do not kill wounded or surrendered enemy soldiers….it would be like shooting an intruder as he runs away, or surrenders to you.
I think if you understand this, you must ask yourself about the targeting of civilians. Have they declared their combative intentions to us? Are they even a threat to us? Can you really claim self-defense in the killing of civilians?
Would you be justified according to self-defense, if you shot and killed a rice farmer, or a baker, or a bank worker? And if you were to kill their wives and children?
Understanding all of this, I do not see how you can justify killing non-combatants, even though it may demoralise and weaken actual combatants.
August 7th, 2010 | 1:32 am
“Have they declared their combative intentions to us? Are they even a threat to us? Can you really claim self-defense in the killing of civilians?
Would you be justified according to self-defense, if you shot and killed a rice farmer, or a baker, or a bank worker?”
I would say yes to all of these, to the extent that the non-combatant is overtly and intentionally aiding his side’s combatants in an industrial-scale international war. Just because he has no rifle doesn’t mean he isn’t fighting the war.
I think this is rather obvious logistically, and all of the major governments during World War II constantly told their citizens that this was the case. Most citizens seem to have agreed. Especially in Japan.
August 7th, 2010 | 5:26 am
Well, all I can say is thank goodness that Just War theory does not accept the concept of ‘Total War’ as a justification for redefining entire populations as enemy combatants.
Just War theory recognises that war is terrible, and that killing is undesirable. It justifies killing only as a foreseeable yet unintended consequence of defense of self and others for the sake of just cause, and in proportion to the threat.
I think this attitude of reluctant warfare needs to be understood in order to grasp why the intentional killing of non-combatants is beyond the pale.
August 7th, 2010 | 7:08 pm
The thing is, Zac, is that I accept all that. I agree with the principle of self defense, and that warfare ought always to be pursued as reluctantly and as limitedly as possible.
But I don’t think that leads to the conclusion that every single non-combatant is an “innocent civilian” in every case. And in the specific case of World War II Japan, I think it’s really hard to argue that the Japanese domestic population wasn’t collectively engaged in warfare. Their government believed it, their policies were structured around it, and the people themselves bought into it. As I mentioned on the other thread, at the end of the war they were equipping every able-bodied citizen with weapons to oppose the invaders. If that doesn’t make somebody a “combatant,” I don’t know what does.
August 7th, 2010 | 8:30 pm
Well, at least we’re refining our disagreement!
During the invasion of Berlin, the Nazis had trained Hitler-youth squads of children to continue the fight. So there were children firing anti-tank guns etc at allied forces. I recall seeing an interview with one allied soldier, who was so disgusted at having to defend himself against children…yet it was necessary because they were a real and immediate threat.
So if a civilian picks up a weapon and attacks, they become a combatant.
I can agree with you in this sense; but there is really no way that a non-combatant can be a legitimate target. If they pick up a weapon, then their status changes.
Using terms like ‘engaged in warfare’ is deceptive when you apply it to non-combatant activities. Even non-combatants working in munitions factories are not legitimate targets. Importantly, the target is the factory itself, and any non-combatant deaths must be unintended, and proportional to the military importance of the target.
The moment you intentionally target non-combatants, you can call it ‘self-defense’ but it’s no longer the same definition. If you start targeting people because they *might* become combatants in the future, or because they’re actions give logistical or financial support to actual combatants, then you have stepped beyond the boundaries of true self-defense.
You may not accept that, but the best proof of it lies in the fact that your flexible/expansive definition of self-defense allows the killing of anyone.
August 9th, 2010 | 11:25 am
Stephen, I appreciate that two wrongs don’t make a right. But, we need to remember that the Allies were not the aggressors in this war. Horrific attacks on civilians were initiated by the Axis powers, long before the US even entered the war, including by the Japanese. Yes, you can go back to the flawed WWI Versailles treaty and immoral reparations discussions and find reasons to explain the rise of National Socialism in Germany, but think about where England was in 1941, almost alone in holding out against this vicious anti-democratic, anti-human rights movement. Should the Axis powers feel proud of this interlude in their national histories? No one can justify what happens in war – it is a reflection of the sinfulness of human nature – and the US has certainly borne the guilt of dropping the atom bomb, but since then the US has also been a voice for non-proliferation and deterrence. What seems asymmetric about the end of WWII is that the US homeland was not bombed, and the US emerged as a superpower. But, as a superpower, the US has through NATO and similar alliances in Asia focused on collective security, even with our former Axis enemies. Rather than regenerating guilt from the past, these governments should use remembrance to focus on what we can all do together on the global assurance front to maintain peace.
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