Ethics and the Hiroshima Bomb - Essay Example

Running head: Ethics and The Bomb Ethics and the Bomb There was a noiseless flash, larger than that produced by 20,000 tons of TNT. Everything within a mile was destroyed. People who were there and not killed received horrible burns throughout their body. The ground below the flash reached 4,000 degrees. Firestorms destroyed everything they touched within four miles of the blast. The total number of deaths is still unknown because whole families were destroyed and there was no one left to tell us. The estimate is 140,000. To this day there are birth defects and great illness related to that fateful day in Hiroshima. Blackburn in Being Good (2001) would have us believe that there are times that we put aside our moral beliefs in order to accomplish something we believe in. There is the thought that we create a moral environment around us that affects everything we do. He feels that ethics are not futile or irrelevant but may be a hopeless pursuit. Only we can decide what is ethical as it is we that must live with the result (Blackburn, 2001). Was the bomb over Hiroshima and Nagasaki ethical? This paper will attempt to support the belief of the writer which is no, it was not ethical. The loss of so many innocent lives and the long term pain of the incident was too much for any reason. We must quickly define our belief here, just before we tell the story. Gradualist ethics is defined by going along with the policy even when we believe it is wrong. This happens a lot with those that work in the government and in other industries. The belief that we have to make a decision because that is what is expected is part of the gradualist’s beliefs and they are willing to do what is expected. The deontological ethic is one where the belief is that one must consider the basic duties and rights of individuals or groups and act in accordance. That decision is made on moral obligation as it is seen by the person making the decision and moral rules are applied. Using others as a means to your own desire to wrong thing to do. In the deontological point of view, it is difficult to support the idea that ethics works differently for the State than for the individual. This writer believes that everyone must do the right thing under stated rules whether it is the State or an individual. If this writer believed that the true reason for dropping the bomb was to save lives on both sides, then the decision would be that it was an ethical decision. However, this writer is not convinced that was the true reason for the decision and therefore the belief is that it was not an ethical decision. The justification for opening dropping the atomic bomb was to end the war and save countless American and Japanese lives or was it? Was Japan not already on the verge of surrender? Were there other ways to bring it to its knees? The Truman administration’s decision to use the atomic bomb remains a hotly contested issue. Why? This writer believes that it is because we are still trying to find a way to convince ourselves fifty years later that it was the right thing to do, that it was morally responsible. Scholars, theologians, and laypersons alike have argued this issue and yet we cannot resolve it (Bonnett, 1997). There were many options, according to many, to resolving the war, without the bomb but we will never really know because we were not there in the chair of the person making that decision. This writer’s review of the history indicates that is true, other possibilities were there and that possibly saving lives was not the reason for dropping the bomb. Those other reasons may have been to impress Russia of our power or to assure occupation of Japan. It began in 1939 when it was believed that the Germans already had a bomb and we rushed to win the contest of development. It became the Manhattan Project. Dr. Robert Oppenheimer said in 1954, “we always assumed if they {atomic bombs} were needed, they would be used.” (Morton, 1967). During the time they were building it, they saw it as important until Germany was almost at defeated and Japan was failing. They began to question whether the use of such awesome power should occur. Stimson, then in charge of the Manhattan Project, briefed the new president by telling him that they had completed the most terrible weapon in human history. An Interim Committee was formed to advise the President. That committee came back and recommended that the bomb should be used against Japan as soon as possible. They felt that it should be used against a military target surrounded by other building and it should be used without prior warning. It was felt that “to extract a genuine surrender from the Emperor and his military advisers, they must be administered a tremendous shock which would carry convincing proof of our power to destroy the empire (Morton, 1967). In May, Germany had surrendered. Manila fell in February, Iwo Jima was in American hands; and the success of the Okinawa invasion was assured. Japan was cut off by air and submarine from the resources of the Indies and B29s were pulverizing Japans cities and factories. The Imperial fleet had been essentially driven from the ocean. Japanese naval bases were being regularly hit. Admiral Leahy could not see the point of an invasion of an already defeated Japan (Landesman, 2003). There was discussion of letting Japan know there was such a weapon and preventing having to use it by its threat. In Feb 1945, Roosevelt and Stalin had agreed on the terms of Soviet participation in the war. Soviet intervention was expected by June 1945. It was believed that “Russian entry will have a profound military effect inn that almost certainly it will materially shorten the war and thus save American lives” However, the War Department thought less and less of involving the Russians at this stage due to the fact that the war in Europe was essentially over and Japan was virtually defeated. It was determined that an Invasion of Japan would therefore cost millions of American lives. The Americans wanted unconditional surrender of Japan (Landesman, 2003). After much debate Stinson felt that the best thing to do was to warn Japan about the bomb that they had. He felt that the Japanese would surrender under the circumstances but an invasion would cause them to fight with everything they had. The first bomb was dropped On August 6th, 1945. On August 7th Ambassador Sato was handed a declaration of War from Russia in Moscow. The second bomb was the last one we had. It was supposed to be dropped on Kokura and was dropped on Nagasaki instead on August 7th, 1945. The next day Japan surrendered. The Japanese had been trying desperately to get out of the war. These bombs were dropped three months before the planned invasion and Japan was essentially defeated. The war ended with the United States in full control of Japan. Was this decision made to save lives? This writer does not believe so. The decision seems to have been made to convince the world of this awesome power and to prevent Russia from entering the war and sharing in Japans defeat. This is an unethical and immoral reason for the decision. To this day, we are not sure why Japan surrendered. Was it the bomb? Would they have surrendered anyway because they were in a state of collapse? Was it because Russia would enter the war on the side of the United States? Either way, it leaves us with a moral and ethical dilemma. Japan might have surrendered without the bomb and this writer believes that it was our moral and ethical responsibility to give them that option. Why would their lives be less important than those of our own? The war might have ended right away considering that Japan was already in tatters and to be told that a weapon that there was as terrible as the atomic bomb would have been very encouraging. Could we have dropped the first bomb and then given them time to make a decision without dropping a second bomb? Would we have dropped a third bomb if we had one? In conclusion, ethics is a difficult thing to touch. Each of us is brought up in a moralistic and ethical belief system. Each of us decides where we stand on most issues. Are we sometimes swayed from our beliefs based on what we are told? The answer has to be yes. As Americans our basic belief system is that the importance of the one is more important than the importance of many. However, when applied to the government, we believe that the importance of many is greater than that of the one. Does that not make it difficult to decide which is correct when we try to decide something as large as “Was it ethically correct to drop the A-Bomb on Japan?” References Blackburn, Simon. (2001). Being Good. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Bonnett, John (1997). Jekyll and Hyde: Henry L. Stimson, Mentalite, and the Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb on Japan. War in History. 4 (2) Retrieved from http://www.ebscohost.com December 2, 2009. Landesman, Charles (2003). Rawls on Hiroshima: An Inquiry into the Morality of the use Of Atomic Weapons in Aug. 1945. The Philosophical Forum, Vol.XXXIV, 1. Retrieved from http://www.ebscohost.com November 29, 2009. Imai, Ryukichi (2005). Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) in the Twenty-first Century. Asia-Pacific Review, Vol. 12, 2. Retrieved from http://www.ebscohost.com November 29, 2009. Morton, Louis (1967). The decision to use the atomic bomb. Council of Foreign Affairs. Retrieved from http://www.ebscohost.com December 2, 2009. Read More