This post was triggered by the latest Israel-Lebanon war, but the point I’d like to discuss is wider, and may be applied for any other war (WWII comes to mind).
In the recent events, one could hear arguments that goes like “Lebanon has over a thousand casualties, while Israel has less than 200. Therefore, Lebanon has the moral high ground*”
Over-simplifying to make a point, naturally.
The people making these claims need a math lesson!
Now, I claim that the casualties from the two sides of war should not be subtracted from each other. If country A had X casualties and country B had Y casualties, and X>Y, it doesn’t follow that country A is more right or moral that country B.
On the contrary, I claim that the war casualties from both sides should be added, and the moral fault of all casualties is the aggressor’s. So, in the “example” above, if country A initiated the hostilities, they bear the fault for the X+Y casualties of war.
A few notes:
Let’s try not to hijack this thread to another Anti/Pro - Israel / Arab one.
Off course it’s important whose country the casualties are. Every country, when going to war, tries to minimize their casualties. I just say that the country that succeeded in doing that is not necessarily the guilty one.
And yes, sometimes it’s difficult (or even impossible) to determine who the initial aggressor was. Let’s assume it can be determined. Then, if necessary at a particular case, the debate can focus on who is the aggressor rather than who suffered more losses.
You must take in the appropiateness of the response. For example if I shoot at you and you shoot back killing me, and wounding a innocent bystander then the entire blame rests on me. On the other hand if I shoot at you, and you turn around with a machine gun and mow down me and 100 innocent bystanders you bear a good deal of the responsibility for those 100 bystanders.
Appropiate Response —> Blame rests on the aggressor
Inappropiate Response —> Some blame rests on the aggressor and some rests on the aggressed.
I was under the impression that the “moral high ground” argument was based mainly on a presumption that Lebanon and Hezbollah were separate entities, and therefore that a large number of Lebanese who were not necessarily enemies of Israel were made to suffer; not simply on who’s casualties were higher. I’m not saying I fully accept that myself, just that a lot folks seem to feel that way.
Personally, I think it was the mother of all stupid battles, about as sensible as the “soccer war” between El Salvador and Honduras in 1969. Shame on everyone involved.
Not much else to say, except that despite the OP’s wishes, the chances of this quickly degenerating into a pro/anti-Israeli pissing match are high.
** jjimm**, my answer (with obvious changes) applies to you too.
OK, let’s assume you are correct. What would you make of the following variations?
I shoot back, and then an explosive charge I did not know you were carrying explodes killing a hundred bystanders.
The same as (1), except I knew about the charge, but did not expect it to go off.
You shoot me, and I have only two options: doing nothing (knowing I would be killed) or shooting back with my machinegun (endangering many bystanders).
Just before shooting at me, I noticed you were working on setting up an explosive charge that may kill hundreds. I know I can either run away, knowing hundreds may be killed, or shoot back using my machinegun endangering dozens.
One more thing, ** jjimm**. Analogies from “every day life” are not very appropriate. For example, if you deliberately punch me, and I kill you, I’m guilty of murder. If a soldier from a certain country shoots (without hitting) across the border toward another soldier, and the latter shoots back and kills the offender, he is not guilty of murder.
By raising this line of thought, I think you may be trying to argue with this scenario that the principle of self-defense may still hold even if the defender is incapable of reacting with any degree of discretion.
Bringing this back to real life for a moment, I suppose that this line of reasoning could justify Israel’s actions in the recent war, however, isn’t this exactly the same kind of logic that has been used by terrorists for an awfully long time? As in, there’s no way a terrorist organization could stand toe-to-toe with a strong, modern military, so it must take offensive action using means that knowingly cause indiscriminent death of innocents, but it is okay because they can then blame the other guy for starting it.
The act of perpetrating indiscriminent violence in itself is a moral (not to mention legal) wrong. One need not add up casualty totals to figure out that even a single violent act that disproportionately risks innocent life against the weight of whatever threat may exist is simply and utterly wrong.
Not your fault. Shooting back is a reasonable response, and so long as there is no reason to suspect explosives then you are in the clear.
Depends on if you reasonably should have expected it to go off or not. If it was a freak occurance then no fault lies with you, but if you should have expected it then some blame rests on you.
I can’t imagine a situation where the only two options are dying or blowing away a bunch of innocent bystanders, but if this is truly the situation then you should stand there and die.
Too many factors come into play here but as a general rule, yes you can kill bystanders if it saves many more people.
To a certain degree it’s true that war != everyday life, but we are not talking realpolitik here: you are trying to make the moral argument that all the fault should be heaped on the aggressor. Morals do not depend on politics but on deontics.
That said, it is true that war != everyday life in that when attacked, a certain degree of civilian casualties on both sides are inevitable most of the time. If the attacked does not respond at all for fear of civilian casualties they will cease to exist sooner or later.
However, I feel your weak point is
Say, for instance, the nation of Freedonia adjacent to the USA attacked us with several divisions of their army and occupied Western NY. We retaliate by turning their entire nation into radioactive glass, when we could have easily repelled their invasion with the full force of our Armed Forces with several orders of magnitude fewer civilian casualties.
Now, certainly Freedonia bears some of the responsibility for the deaths. But surely the tens of millions of deaths cannot entirely be blamed on them? The people? All of them? Especially if they are living in a dictatorship and most are morally opposed to the war?
I bolded the parts that I think answers your objection.
OK, but how do you determine appropriate proportions? Take case (2) from above: is it moral to shoot?
BTW, just to make perfectly clear: I do not claim that every reaction from the side of the aggressed is justified. I do say that the number of casualties is not a relevant index of morality. I also (cautiously) say that the aggressed should have a (slightly) more “moral leeway” as compared to the aggressor (but am not convinced, and am willing to be stand corrected on the second point).
OK, but let’s take less drastic proportions. The nation of Freedonia attacked the USA unprovoked, and captured Western NY, in the process killing a 100 US citizens. The US reacts by employing the full force of their Armed Forces, taking over Freedonia, their C&C centers and the local government facilities. In this retaliation, a 1000 Freedonian citizens are killed. Whose moral fault is it?
do you state that there is a possibility that it is more nuanced than the rest of your OP (and some people arguing the opposite side of course) would claim. But upon rereading I think we both agree that it is not black and white. In the case of 100 vs 1000, I don’t know until we have more information, and I am loathe to make moral judgements anyhow. Ethically, however, it is the fault of the people of Freedonia if their citizens unanimously made a willful decision to go to war, less so if they elected the officials who made the decision, even less so if they are ruled by a dictator. However, in neither of those situations does it make the goverment of the USA more ethically culpable: it removes the responsibility to the leadership of Freedonia, which is not always the same as its people.
treis, I must admit I’m a little bothered by your answer to case (3). Would you really stand there to die?
Don’t you think it give a lot of power to immoral people ready to wield these techniques?
But let’s make it more, hmmm… difficult.
You are the security guard, and for some reason you only have a machine gun. You are guarding a popular shopping mall. The guy shooting at you announced that he intends to kill as many bystanders as possible. He starts with shooting at you, as you’re the only armed person there. Now what? If you choose the option of dying you in fact endanger others that he may (or may not) kill later. But if you shoot, you will surely harm quite a few. (Yes, I realize it’s not the same scenario. So let’s call it case (5)).
Well obviously it’s Freedonia’s fault.
Look, wars are not won or lost by keeping score. If that were true, we would have won Vietnam many times over. If a nation attacks your nation, your nation has every right and is obligated to defend itself. That doesn’t mean you go hog-wild and wipe their country off the map if you don’t have to. But you can certainly inflict enough hurt on them to either destroy their ability to wage war or force them into a ceasefire. If you punch me once in the face, I’m not going to punch you back. I’m going to try to beat your ass so that you never think about punching me again.
Let’s take another practical example. Japan destroyed the American fleet at Pearl Harbor and killed a couple thousand Americans. The appropriate response is not to destroy an equal number of boats and kill the same number of Japanese. It is to destroy their warmaking ability.
Point taken, but let’s not focus excessively on the verbiage I used to describe the views of various terrorists. Terrorist groups routinely describe their “military operations” as some sort of self-defense against the aggression of whatever country they dislike – Al Qaeda has described its attacks as justified under the principle of the Islamic world being entitled to self-defense from Western agression. In short, I don’t think focusing on the definitions of the terms I used actually answers my question at all.
I’m afraid that it is rather a fantastical situation, not unlike the nuclear bomb that will go off in five minutes if we don’t torture someone to get answers from him. It just cannot be answered glibly; a moral question of such weight takes on different answers depending on the facts that you have not described. For example, has the guy who might shoot the guy with the bomb refused to negotiate, thereby escalating the situation into inevitable violence? That’s a very important factor. The moral question can’t be answered without an explaination of what alternatives have been rejected and why. Just because a false dilemma is constructed as a moral puzzle doesn’t unmake it a fallacy.
Who, exactly, is claiming that? I think you’ve constructed a great big strawman that distorts what people have really said about the numbers of casualties in the recent war.
Would I? I have no idea, but as the saying goes, “knowing what’s right is easy, it’s doing it that’s hard.”
Perhaps but it’s going to be tough to continually surround yourself with innocent people.
I think you are coming up with scenarios that are just way beyond the realm of reality. Anways for the heck of it, if you reasonably think that the guy shooting at you is going to kill all 100 innocent bystanders then go ahead and open fire.
Puzzler, I’m curious. Based on your premise (with your modifications), would it have been appropriate for the U.S. to nuke all of Southeast Afghanistan in the interest of effectively taking out all of the al Qaida command officers in early October 2001, before our attack had forced them into hiding?
