Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and The Atomic Bomb
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Was it Moral to drop the Atomic Bomb.
Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and The Atomic Bomb
Was it Moral to drop the Atomic Bomb.
- Yes
- 23 votes
- No
- 34 votes
- Not Sure
- 10 votes
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" The Enemy has begun to deploy a new and most cruel bomb", those were the words of Emperor Hirohito when Japan surrendered in August 1945. After words the world was changed forever, Nuclear technology had been used and was " succesful".
The Atomic bomb kllled about 140,000 the second it dropped, thousands later were killed and even today some families have Radiation effects. The co pilot ( Robert Lewis) of the Enola Gay asked " My God what have we done"?
I beilive it was immoral in every way to drop that bomb, was it ethical is another question?
My question is do you think it was moral and ethical to drop the Atomic bomb on unarmed civilans?
Shinsengumi89
Ps all information came from Time magazines August 1st 2005 issue and Speeches that changed the world. Also as another note Albert Einstein regretted that he helped the Atomic Bomb Project.
merged: 03-30-2006 ~ 06:10am
Oh i forgot to add that the 140,000 was only in Hiroshima i do not have the numbers for Nagasaki.
I do beleive it was not moral. but it had to be done to stop world war 2. It was a hard enough choice for truman to make that choice.
Ethics is the concern about morality. You cannot question whether it is ethical if you already believe it is immoral.
Einstein never participated in any way in the Manhattan Project. He did not contribute any work to the development of the atomic bomb, save perhaps his E = mc^2.
All Einstein did was write a letter to FDR informing him of the possibility of achieving a sustained uranium chain reaction and the possibility of using this reaction is powerful bombs and advising the President that perhaps he ought to consider exploring these possibilities. Given the fact that he was not even a US citizen, it was not possible for him to join in this top secret project in the first place.
If US troops would have made a landing to invade Tokyo, the casualty rate would have been astronomical! To be honest there isn't any morals in war; its either kill or be killed. Truman did what it took to prevent further US casualties, as simple as that. I don't think that the Japanese civilians, during the era would allow an invasion to go unchallenged on their home soil. That would have been dishonorable. Don't believe me, ask China........ I would not allow anyone to invade my homeland without a fight, and Japan was prepared for just that; a street brawl.
Now if you were to ask whether or not it moral to use nuclear weapons today then my answer would be no.
Eternalparadox ethics and morals can be two seperate things, a lawyer has a code of ethics but he may also belive in religous morals here is a website that will delve into the issue feel free, http://philosophy.lander.edu/ethics/types.html
Another thing to think about. The atomic bomb merely did in one sitting what sustained carpet bombing would have done in a couple more months, i.e. level entire cities and kill numerous civilians. The United States was already engaging in fire bombing using incendiary bombs dropped onto civilian portions of cities. The night of February 22-23, 1945 alone saw 1 square mile of Tokyo destroyed. The raid in March lit the entire old Tokyo sector ablaze.
The atomic bomb is just a more powerful and more deadly bomb. Its effects merely magnifies that of other bombs. If its use is immoral, then one must also question the bombing of civilians in places like Tokyo and Dresden.
The use of the atomic bomb was necessary to expedite victory. It may not be imperative to victory, given that sustained fire bomings of all major Japanese cities until total destruction could perhaps have achieved the same result, but it lead to a quick conclusion to the war without the innumerably higher casualties on both sides that an amphibious invasion would have incurred. It is sometimes necessary to choose the lesser of two evils.
merged: 03-30-2006 ~ 07:13am
All the above definitions of ethics concern some aspects of morality. Descriptive ethics is morality. Normative ethics is how one ought to act, the standard of which is morality. Metaethics is the elucidation of ethic determinations, which are judgments of morality. Again, if you precondition a judgment of immorality, then there cannot be further discussion of ethics. What is ethically allowable but morally wrong? That is a self-contradictory question in ethics.
His code of ethics is the code of conduct based on what is morally right. Morality does not need to be religious.
Were the Japanese considering morality as they were brutalizing the peoples of Manchuria, Korea, and the New Guineas? Even now there is reluctance to acknowledge that in Japan today.
To say the least, the nuclear strikes in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a necessary evil of war. As Liger and many other have stated in topics just like this, an invasion of the Japanese mainland would have rot more death devestation than the two bombings could have achieved. Ironically, these weapons of mass destruction potentially saved more lives than it took. Not just for the Japanese, but the rest of the world when you consider the arms race that occuredduring the Cold War. Seeing the destructive power of such weapons in these cities, both East and West were forced to consider the worth of engaging in a full fledge nuclear war (though we were at the brink of that once or twice).
In the history of warfare, there are always new machines that come to improve the art of killing. That has always be the case. I see the nuclear weapon no differently from the Machine Gun in WWI or "ships of the line" from the 18th century. Even today the latest in warmachines, direct energy weapons, are coming into being. Questioning the morality of the deployment of such things are frivolous and apologetic, they will continue so long as man fights one another.
No marality does not mean religous you are correct but morality can get in the way of a lawyers ethical responsibilites especiliy if that person follows a moral code from the religon. ( i do take an ethics class in high school and the book asks is it morraly right and ethically right whith some questions) tommorow i will get the name of the book i do not have it with me.
When i searched ethics on the web some of the sites said it was diffrent others said ethics are not it is a debatble issue but that is not what this thread is about.
ethic
(n.)
A set of principles of right conduct.
ethic
(n.)
The rules or standards governing the conduct of a person or the members of a profession: medical ethics.
I think it was the right choice to drop bolth bombs and in such close proximity time wise. Else it would have been a very bloody ground war.
I realy don't think the US gov did any realy major immoral act in WWII. They did in the wake of the war but.
Though i do appriciate your opinion, and your post on this thread i am glad, it is an honor when a moderator decides to give his/ her opinion in my opinion.
No, that is not the purported topic of this thread. However, your did pose the question whether it is moral and whether it is ethical as two different entities, and therefore it is important to clarify the definitions. You participate in debate. You should know the importance of clear definitions.
When you study ethics deeply enough, you will see that ethics and morality are inextricably linked. Rules of conduct (medical ethics) will all at their core seek to answer the question "what is the morally correct course of action?" Ethics strives to move beyond the "what" in that question to answer "why."
At any rate, let this thread pertain specifically to whether the use of the atomic bomb in World War II is a morally right course of action and why.
I agree on what LigerZSchnider say about one point.. In war, is to kill or to be killed..
In war, anything will come in mind.. whether dirty tactics, espionage, assasination or even like atom bomb.. All this is just to win the battle... Emotion should be put aside totally in war..
So whether it is moral or not but in war anything will be done just to win the war n war also take a lot of sacrifices no matter big or small.... No war comes with no sacrifices n deaths...except the 'Cold War'.
Im pretty much..nah, completely in agreeance with LigerZSchnider and miryuri. War is..war; its not pretty, glamorous, nice, easy, moral, ethical..its just war. You get up and throw whatever deadly things you can find at the other side, hoping to either wipe them out or convince them to stop attacking you. The bigger, nastier things you can throw(nuclear weapons, biological and chemical agents, truly nasty stuff from scifi, etc) the greater the odds of the other side giving up. If they dont, the quicker you eliminate them.
A nuke isnt even particularly decent in terms of military usage anyway; not when you consider most folk(I am not one of them) want to avoid collateral damage, or would like to use the land they bombed.
Now me, Id turn my opponent`s lands into big plains of smoking, radioactive glass for a few generations. Someone`s gone and picked a fight, said group has no rights to mercy or fair play.
There was no way anyone could argue for it to be a moral soloution. The question is, was is the lesser of two evils?
Japan defended fiercely. They would not give up. Many Japanese soldiers were prepared to fight a losing battle. If this was to go on, many American and Japanese soldiers would go on to be killed. I doubt not nearly as much as the atomic bomb casualties, yet American men nonetheless.
That said, I believe that it was completely immoral. In Harper Lee's words, "It is a sin to kill a mockingbird." The civilians had done no wrong. 'twas the government that chose to carry on. The civilians were mockingbirds ready to be killed.
The only way in which it can be justified was if America had notified Japan of their intentions to bomb these two major cities so an order of evacuation could take place. Hopefully, this would show off the power of the bomb, scaring the Japanese, yet not harming civilians. Is this realistic? How long does it take to evacuate such large cities?
At least the soldiers had a chance to fight for their lives. The civilians were sitting ducks.
merged: 03-30-2006 ~ 08:59am
I would say that the killing of any civilians in any way is immoral.
that would have been a really hard choice......
but as the US got deeper and deeper in Japans territory they saw that Japan wouldnt surrender, under any conditions..... japanese soldiers were given specific orders: "defend your position with your life", plus japanese citizens were told that american soldiers did brutal things in the towns they captured... so a long term war against japan wouldnt mean only defeating the army... but in the tonws the citizens, which would have costed thousands of lifes....
the basic idea was to show Japan what would an Atomic bomb do... but they realiced that Japan wouldn surrender so there was no choice left that to use it....
I guess I would have use it... I would prefer to drop the bomb, even if the world later hated me, than to see thousands of my fellow country men dead and know I could have prevented that....
Dropping the bombs were necessary. The Japanese believed in fighting to the last man. We would have had to have killed nearly all of them in order to win the war.
The first atomic bomb was covered up by the Japanese government. They blacked out communications. Few people knew what happened.
That made Nagisaki necessary.
It gave the Japanese pause. It made them realize that we COULD kill all of them, and without any casualties to our people. Suddenly, continuing the war was far las desireable.
hmmm...this was a really hard decision, but in the end I chose 'no' just for the heck of it. It IS civilians and although they are brainwashed, killing them were unnecessary. However, it was necessary to stop the Japanese. Dropping the bombs to stop them is another problem - was there any other way? Since the governments of both countries are so secretive to us, it is impossible to tell what both sides were thinking. I DO have evidence that the US had threatened Japan beforehand and that the Japanese had said, 'Mokustatsu'. This is important because mokusatsu means 'withholding comment' (pending a decision), but was interpretted as 'treat with contempt' in Washington. This is a fact to be considered, as it greatly affects the justification of USA's actions.
bweb but do you belive it was moral in killing civilans?
a small sentence sums up everything: Stupid einstien
considering that the bomb was used to kill civilians, it's definitely immoral. civilians had done nothing wrong. it's the government, and it's always the government. but then again, the US had already taken down japan's triumph card admiral yamamoto, the naval strategist that planned the attack on pearl harbor, while on a bomber when US planes striked it. what more could they want?
It wasn't right, but the number of Americans that were projected to be killed to launch a full blown invasion in Japan would be high. That was the justification used to drop these bombs, and we'll never know if it would be true or not.
IF WE DIDN'T DROP THE BOMB ON JAPAN, WELL OVER 250,000 AMERICAN LIVES ALONE WOULD HAVE BEEN LOST IN THE INVASION OF JAPAN, AND MILLIONS MORE CASUALTIES ON THE JAPANESE SIDE. What does it matter if we dropped bombs on CIVILIANS? The British firebombed german cities for months on end, and thats what it took to win the war on the European Front. If you know anything about Hiroshima and Nagaski, you would know that they were both military production cities. Besides, the Japanese had it coming to them when they bombed Pearl Harbor, and if i remember correctly, civilians were killed at Pearl Harbor as well as Military servicemen. Besides, it wasn't only einstein who was working on the Nuke. The Germans were working on their own atomic bomb, ever since the end of world war 1, and history shows that they were very near to completing it before the war ended. Infact, the nazis even had a plan to Nuke New York City. geezs people, learn some history and take in the fact that war isn't pretty, than you can come back and say how unethical it is to bomb someone. Im sure if YOU were one of the soldiers who was preparing to invade Japan (which you would have a 50% chance of dieing), im sure you wouldnt mind that we dropped the BIG BOMB on them.
Disclamer:IM not in anyway, shape, or form against Japanese people, i am a member of MTafter all..
Dropping the bomb was the SMARTEST decision made in the war next to DDay. But dont forget we also dropped the bomb to scare the Russians.
Also, Einstien had a friend who came to him and said" that if E=MC2 was turnned around it can have a desructive affect, and the Germans were close to making an atomic bomb." We were trying to scare the Russians becouse we thought that a satalite could bomb us.