THE MORALITY BEHIND THE DROPPING OF THE ATOMIC BOMB
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Between 90,000 and 120,000 people died in Hiroshima and between 60,000 and 80,000 died in Nagasaki, for a grand total of between 150,000 and 200,000 most cruel deaths [1]. In being the first country to use nuclear weapons against civilian populations, the United States was then in direct violation of internationally accepted principles of war with respect to the wholesale and indiscriminate destruction of populations. Thus, August 1945 is a most dangerous and ominous precedent that marked a new dismal beginning in the history of humanity, a big moral step backward. |
By early 1945, World War II, especially in the Pacific, had become virtually total war. The firebombing of Dresden had helped set a precedent for the U.S. air force, supported by the American people, to intentionally kill mass numbers of Japanese citizens [2]. The earlier moral insistence on noncombatant immunity crumbled during the savage war. In Tokyo, during March 9-10, a U.S. air attack killed about 80,000 Japanese civilians. American B-29s dropped napalm on the city's heavily populated areas to produce uncontrollable firestorms [3]. It may even have been easier to conduct this new warfare outside Europe and against Japan because its people seemed like "yellow subhumans" to many rank-and-file American citizens and many of their leaders [4].
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In this new moral context, with mass killings of an enemy's civilians even seeming desirable, the committee agreed to choose "large urban areas of not less than three miles in diameter existing in the larger populated areas" as A-bomb targets [5]. The choice of targets would depend partly on how the bomb would do its deadly work – the balance of blast, heat, and radiation.
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Of central importance, the group stressed that the bomb should be used as a terror weapon, to produce “the greatest psychological effect against Japan” and to make the world, and the U.S.S.R. in particular, aware that America possessed this new power [6]. The death and destruction would not only intimidate the surviving Japanese into pushing for surrender, but, as a bonus, cow other nations, notably the Soviet Union. In short, America could speed the ending of the war and by the same act help shape the postwar world.
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On May 28, 1945, physicist Arthur H. Compton, a Nobel laureate and member of a special scientific panel advising the high-level Interim Committee newly appointed to recommend policy about the bomb, raised profound moral and political questions about how the atomic bomb would be used. "It introduces the question of mass slaughter, really for the first time in history," he wrote. "It carries with it the question of possible radioactive poison over the area bombed. Essentially, the question of the use . . . of the new weapon carries much more serious implications than the introduction of poison gas."[7] |
Between August 10 and August 14, the war's last day, on which about 1,000 American planes bombed Japanese cities, some delivering their deadly cargo after Japan announced its surrender, the United States probably killed more than 15,000 Japanese [8].
But, given the patriotic calculus of the time, there was no hesitation about using A-bombs to kill many Japanese in order to save the 25,000-46,000 Americans who might otherwise have died in the invasions [9]. Put bluntly, Japanese life, including civilian life, was cheap, and some American leaders, like many rank-and-file citizens, may well have savored the prospect of punishing the Japanese with the A-bomb. At least 35,000 Japanese and possibly almost twice that number, as well as several thousand Koreans, died unnecessarily in Nagasaki. |
"I was greatly disturbed over the unwarranted attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor and their murder of our prisoners of war," president Truman wrote. "The only language they seem to understand is the one we have been using to bombard them. When you have to deal with a beast you have to treat him as a beast." [10]
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Foot Notes:
[1] Trembley, R. The Code for Global Ethics, Ten Humanist Principles. New York: Prometheus Books (April 27, 2010)
[2] Trembley, R. The Code for Global Ethics, Ten Humanist Principles, 57.
[3] Trembley, R. The Code for Global Ethics, Ten Humanist Principles: 276-79.
[4] Sowell, Addams " The Morality of Dropping the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki" Social Studies, last modified 2005, accessed February 22, 2015, no. 3 (1992): 230-41.
[5] Berstain, Barton. The Atomic Bombings Reconsidered. Date Published 1995. Date Accessed 2015.
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/50569/barton-j-bernstein/the-atomic-bombings-reconsidered
[6] Sowell, Addams " The Morality of Dropping the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki"
[7] Sowell, Addams " The Morality of Dropping the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki"
[8] Degawousky, J. War World II. Chicago: The Editorial Co. 2001.
[9] Degawousky, J. War World II, 48.\
[10] Degawousky, J. War World II, 167-180.
[1] Trembley, R. The Code for Global Ethics, Ten Humanist Principles. New York: Prometheus Books (April 27, 2010)
[2] Trembley, R. The Code for Global Ethics, Ten Humanist Principles, 57.
[3] Trembley, R. The Code for Global Ethics, Ten Humanist Principles: 276-79.
[4] Sowell, Addams " The Morality of Dropping the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki" Social Studies, last modified 2005, accessed February 22, 2015, no. 3 (1992): 230-41.
[5] Berstain, Barton. The Atomic Bombings Reconsidered. Date Published 1995. Date Accessed 2015.
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/50569/barton-j-bernstein/the-atomic-bombings-reconsidered
[6] Sowell, Addams " The Morality of Dropping the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki"
[7] Sowell, Addams " The Morality of Dropping the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki"
[8] Degawousky, J. War World II. Chicago: The Editorial Co. 2001.
[9] Degawousky, J. War World II, 48.\
[10] Degawousky, J. War World II, 167-180.
Bibliography:
Berstain, Barton. The Atomic Bombings Reconsidered. Date Published 1995. Date Accessed 2015.
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/50569/barton-j-bernstein/the-atomic-bombings-reconsidered
Degawousky, J. War World II. Chicago: The Editorial Co. 2001.
Sowell, Addams " The Morality of Dropping the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki" Social Studies, last modified 2005, accessed February 22, 2015, no. 3 (1992): 230-41.
Trembley, R. The Code for Global Ethics, Ten Humanist Principles. New York: Prometheus Books (April 27, 2010)
Note: Prof. Amanda Tefrethen from CSULB of the department of Philosophy has been of great help, through various lectures emphasizing on the topic and concept of dehumanization as well as providing pictures for this project. The class is PSY-451.
Berstain, Barton. The Atomic Bombings Reconsidered. Date Published 1995. Date Accessed 2015.
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/50569/barton-j-bernstein/the-atomic-bombings-reconsidered
Degawousky, J. War World II. Chicago: The Editorial Co. 2001.
Sowell, Addams " The Morality of Dropping the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki" Social Studies, last modified 2005, accessed February 22, 2015, no. 3 (1992): 230-41.
Trembley, R. The Code for Global Ethics, Ten Humanist Principles. New York: Prometheus Books (April 27, 2010)
Note: Prof. Amanda Tefrethen from CSULB of the department of Philosophy has been of great help, through various lectures emphasizing on the topic and concept of dehumanization as well as providing pictures for this project. The class is PSY-451.