Box 97, Item 6: Working draft of On the ethics of large-scale nuclear war and war-deterrence and the political fall-out
Title
Box 97, Item 6: Working draft of On the ethics of large-scale nuclear war and war-deterrence and the political fall-out
Subject
Typescript working draft. Paper published, Routley R (1984) 'War and peace. 1: on the ethics of large-scale nuclear war and nuclear deterrence and the political fall-out', Discussion papers in environmental philosophy, 5. Dept. of Philosophy, Australian National University.
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Source
The University of Queensland's Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291, Box 97, Item 6
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This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, Dr. N.A.J. Taylor.
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Text
WORKING DRAFT
ON THE ETHICS OF LARGE-SCALE NUCLEAR WAR AND WAR-DETERRENCE
AND THE POLITICAL FALL-OUT
Because of their projected effects - which are said to differ from those of
the
even
largest
difference in kind -
generated,
encounters.
exchanges
either
at
all
wars
nuclear
large-scale
World
(the
wars
conventional
Wars)
raise
to
as
and
not
or nearly so forcefully, by previous human military
Certainly exchanges such as nuclear wars involve,
such
constitute a
questions
ethical
deterrence
nuclear
investigation
is
and
threatened
presupposes, are neither envisaged nor
fully accommodated by traditional theories of just wars.
reflection
as
even
required,
if
Much new
philosohical
well-tested and
rather
old-fashioned moral principles will serve as ethical base.
Nuclear wars - though a fine class of nonexistent object,
is
existence
whose
however best confined to other (already uncomfortably neighbouring) possible
worlds - have several distinctive properties and come in several varieties.
particular,
limited
nuclear
wars
which
(of
tactical
or
strategic
subvarieties) contrast with large-scale nuclear wars, LN-type-wars,
large quantities of nuclear devices over a sizeable region;
two
main
parameters:
are
need
A large-scale nuclear war involves the explosion of
however be unlimited
not
which
In
quantity
it is a function of
of explosive) and distribution.
(megatonnage
Such a war differs markedly from a limited (or tactical
or
strategic)
nuclear
war which is limited - by assumption, the chances of escalation are however very
real
3
- to much smaller quantities of explosives
characteristically
circumscribed,
installations in a given region.
wars
and
their
prevention,
and
where
the
targets
are
confined
to
military
Though the focus in what follows
is
upon
e.g.
limited
in
nuclear
principle
LN
wars are by no means a separate
Page 2
issue, since a nuclear arsenal is
escalation
of
such
are
wars
a
and
prerequisite,
high
probabilities
of
assumptions of
reasonable
usual
(given
the
follow-up or second strike, etc.)
§1.
is
What
different
old
of
appropriateness
and
models
wars:____ the
nuclear
about
theories
resulting
war.
of
limited
model of war that
A
dominates much thinking, including [even] strategic thinking, is the
two
party
4
(or even two person) game or, a complication of that, the clan or tribe battle .
A picture of war built up, especially as a result of medieval discussion of
just
war,
which
inapplicable.
for
such
technological
have
advances
The traditional theory, hardly surprisingly,
phenomena
Dresden and Tokyo.
mass
as
bombing
inappropriate
rendered
no
made
the
and
allowance
large cities, such as occurred with
of
And nuclear bombing, with its many further
crucial
effects
beyond mass bombing, adds further new dimensions.
Yet it is Important, for the argument to
anchors,
historical
linkages
and
to be aware of what counted as war (the semantics of the matter^), and
of when, and why, wars and military actions
Firstly,
retain
were
accounted
unjust
war is essentially a matter of states and their control:
or
wrong.
to elaborate
the OED account, war is ’hostile contention by means of armed forces, carried on
between
nations,
states,
or
rulers, or between parties in the same nation or
state’ for control of the state :
literal,
but
transferred,
antagonists or players;
other
metaphoric,
forces comprising
senses
of
etc.?
States
armed
the
’war’
noun
not
the protagonists,
are
soldiers
are
are
the
means
of
contention or combat, and combat or forceful (typically violent) exchange is the
actual experience.
function
of
remove states:
Thus wars are external or internal (civil),
states or their rule.
but
always,
a
An obvious way then to eliminate wars is to
in short, wars are an outcome of political
structure,
and
are
Page 3
altering the structure .
by
removed
This is an initial reason why the radical
argument against nuclear wars and deterrence devolves into an
argument
the (self-legitimised) war-declarers and war-makers, against states.
the traditional theory, wars
were
restricted
to
external
against
In fact on
which
wars,
were
construed as the right of states or their rulers (princes) for certain political
purposes, the argument being that private persons with grievences had access
the
while
courts,
did not
states
legitimate
(wars were, so to speak, the international
But this is itself a very
analogue of the law courts).
the
9
to
statist
conception
of
the semantics is not so restrictive and permits
place of wars;
internal wars, for example, to end wars.
Let us however - to bring out what is different now - confine attention
a
basic
and most familiar case, external wars between two states or set (axes)
of states, two-player external wars.
games
competitive
could
be
won.
It was assumed
be
well
no
winning strategy.
waste
of
the
Northern
huge surrounding areas of countryside.
hemisphere
and
not
like
a
draw,
or
like
the
strange
out
for
the
simultaneously knock each
other
element,
emphasis
the
inevitable
is
disputes,
removed:
be
pointfully
fought.
Certainly,
elements of gamesmenship had a role
count.)
in
for,
deterrence,
earlier
wars,
(So
where two boxers
situation
on pure deterrence;
that are most elaborately prepared for (exercised
never
the
settled with main protagonists substantially obliterated^, and all
is
is
there
Thus too the point of
main players very substantially worse off than at the outset of the "play".
it
like
An LN war could involve destruction of all
war as traditionally seen, to settle serious interstate
nothing
wars,
that
With LN wars it no longer holds;
main Western metropolitan agglomerations in
laying
firstly
That assumption still held good for massive
armed exchanges such as the World Wars.
may
to
Hence
another
newer
the phenomenon of wars
etc.),
but
which
can
bluff,
and
the other
it
was
not
but
pure
Page 4
deterrence.
to
principle
important,
Most
military
next,
traditional
and
targets
military
gross ways to uninvolved parties sacrifice
effects
nuclear
of
large nuclear wars cannot
(presented
horrifying
in
be
confined in
be
could
This
exchanges.
feature
is
for, as we shall see, wars that spill over in
fundamental as regards just wars;
special
wars
any
The
morality.
to
pretension
explosives, especially in mass, mean however that
legitimately
detail
in
confined.
popular
These
effects
special
sources such as Schell) include
radioactivity, ozone destruction, shockwaves, fireball or firestorm devastation,
etc., etc .
. ..
The moral situation, and the tendency of moral
§2.
entirely
in the context of war.
submerged
case of war to maintain a firm grasp on the
expediency.
What
is
to
considerations
become
It is particularly important in the
distinction
between
morality
done in war, especially for local or national advantage,
may be very different from what ought morally to be done, whether the latter
ought not to be
done
codes and conventions of war, or otherwise
in
war
is
done,
despite
modern
.
military
conventions and the like, for one (alleged) advantage or another.
live in a rather barbarous age:
go
unremarked,
if
so
numbing,
codes
the history gets written (accurately) that is.
tends
13
to
induce
a
and
Militarily we
will
the horrors of the twentieth century
military thinking and strategic planning
is
A
,
Much that
12
the
using
determined
and
not
Furthermore
certain
moral
that a range of morally excluded actions, such as wiping our rural
populations, become real ("moral’') possibilities, to be reckoned,
for
example,
into consequentialist calculations of maximising expediency.
The reason is that
strategic planning is characteristically based on expediency
(and
extent
displaces
morality).
so
to
that
For each side in a military encounter determines
its "strategy" by considering only its own advantages and disadvantages, its own
gains
and
losses
as a result of alternative possible moves, not, as it ought,
Page 5
those of the other side(s) as well.
Indeed it has been contended that war should be planned and conducted
way,
no-holds-barred-combat fought to the maximal (local) advantage, without
a
limits, moral or other (except insofar as technology limits the means of
etc.,
themselves).
Such
is
the
And Clausowicz tries to
repeated.
argue,
through
14
an
be
broken
by
player
each
in
from
And the argument is inconclusive;
c
Thus too an
It would follow
for the
players
from
the
can
choose
15
A state engaged in war - this will no doubt include nuclear
nowadays
war
sees itself as entirely bound by constraints of morality:
to be mere prudence on the part
no-immoral-holds-barred
of
approach
those
they
attacked
to
take
-
seldom
it is taken
account
of
the
may well encounter, especially from the
So each group potentially engaged in war forces
other side.
the
question
not
as to what it ought to do in morally permissible situations, but also both
what it ought really do and what it can do in the morally flawed
finds
enforced)
escalate, and, for example, agree to abide by arranged practices, types
to
of weapons, etc.
only
The
that the idea of a limited war is some sort of contradiction in terms.
But it is not.
not
escalation
externally
for advantage.
turn
extraordinarily narrow motivational base is assumed.
argument
incremental
), that there can be no limit.
assumption is that any merely selected (as distinct
will
force,
so-called "classic" view of Clausowicz, oft
argument (but really "the bald man" fallacy
limit
this
itself
in.
But
last
the
question
does
not
then
situations
it
reduce to one of
expediency.
There is
expediency,
involves.
no
question
of
morality
giving
or
having
to
give
way
to
for instance under extreme circumstances such as prospect of LN war
For it is not as if shaky considerations of morality are bound to
to
Page 6
give
not only
firm ground of expediency when the chips are down:
the
to
way
does this in fact often enough not happen in crises situations, but the fact
that
is
both morality and expediency fall within the same, equally shaky or solid,
Expediency does not (meticulously) deliver us from
domain of value theory.
fact, but simply takes narrowly-construed local advantage or power as
to
value
what is valuable, as what matters;
family,
that
urges
values
local
-
of
self,
region or nation - are what really count and override or
class,
clan,
it
are to be maximized at the expense of
remote
or
considerations.
foreign
By
morality requires, as a matter of its proper characterisation, a much
contrast,
more universal distribution of value
thereby
the
through
imposes,
requirements
general
of
universalizable
intersubstitutivity
resultant
equillbity
fairness,
of the same results not holding when x and y are interchanged, under
Not
evaluations 16.
certain
principles,
justice.
and
and
principles,
The
deep
expediency derives from the failure of interreplacement,
of
unsatisfactoriness
so
and
only
can
expediency
be given a deontic presentation, as
expediency
through such slogans as "might is right", but theories or utility do not have to
be
positions
of
expediency
utilitarianism proper —
morality,
which
if
can
utility
meet
not
is
locally
intersubstltutivity
Thus
confined.
requirements
of
unlike the war game theory, does not assign different weights
which,
to (say) the individual utility of Americans as opposed to Russians — is not
to
be dismissed as considering only expediency.
There are however significant moral differences, between
and
utilitarians
17
deontologists especially, which serve to further complicate the moral picture
Thus utilitarian approaches have seemed to
justify
ugly
strategies
and
practices
render
as
morally
regards
deontological principles would not permit (even with the
convenient
law
of
double
effects).
But
this
is
permissible
enemy
best
already
or
civilians,
bending
to
of
to
that
the
effect some
Page 8
Characteristically, national interest is taken
to
differently,
to
override
morality
impose Irresistible ethical claims that dominate more ordinary
ethical considerations (such as even the immorality of killing millions).
as
or,
Schell puts it,
Thus,
’What is being claimed is that one or two countries have the
right to jeopardise all countries and their descendents in the name
certain
of
beliefs’ (II, p.70).
But morally national interest can do neither of those things.
simply
the
The first is
substitution of expediency for morality, which entirely lacks moral
justification, while
second,
the
the
alleged
moral
dominance
of
national
fails in important classes of cases, including, so the argument will
Interests,
go, the case of LN war.
States may insist upon operating on a selfish national interest basis,
let
it
not
pretended
be
expediency (’’group
governments.
Morality
it
is
a moral basis as distinct from one of
There
is
no
that
egoism’’).
works
in
the
special
dispensation
moral
For
example,
what
ought
be
to
as
regards
x
semantically, what would happen as regards x in all ideal worlds;
no
difference
x
is
an
individual
or
States such as Israel (in its recent
organisation.
behaving
whether
just
as
immorally
as
brigands
individual
invasion
or mass killers:
difference.
Certainly there are grounds on which states or
claimed
been conceded special moral dispensations;
or
for
same way for groups as for individuals:
there is no logical difference in the pattern of justification, or
obligation.
but
are no more than that and do not stand up to criticism.
of
analysis
is,
analysed
and it
makes
system, group or
of
are
Lebanon)
there is no moral
their
agents
have
but the excuses offered
A
satisfactory
moral
theory cannot furnish two (Incompatible) moralities, a state or public one and a
private or individual citizen one - state expediency and individual
morality
-
Page 7
partisanship - since utilitarians would
the
reject
description
practices
of
permitted under their principles as ’ugly’ - and an objective in what follows is
to avoid metaethlcal partisanship, to achieve metaethical, though of course
moral,
neutrality.
argument can begin.
several
And morally there is a large area of consensus
Virtually all positions
cities
major
in
agree
that
the
18
not
from which
obliteration
of
a LN war would be wrong - indeed morally outrageous.
Where there is dissension, as there may be among nuclear strategists who seem to
feel
qualms
no
when it comes to trading loss of some American cities for some
Russian ones, simply increase the costs involved, up to loss of whole nations if
necessary,
then try to work down again.
until moral repugnance is encountered;
The fact remains however that things have got substantially out of
perspective,
Strategic thinking, in particular, has tended to abandon, or suppress
morally.
moral considerations (as indeed many theories of the state also pretend to do).
Naturally the fact of broad consensus as to the morality of the matter does
not
mean that there are none who would welcome such outrageous happenings, that
total nuclear destruction of the North even, would be
Consider
the
world empire.
be
realised.
rising
southern
(hemisphere)
no
one’s
While the superpowers of the north remain SS’s dream
Thus
his
best
strategy,
exchange
in
the
North.
There
advantage.
strongman, SS, who has visions of
will
can
be
to
a
encourage
point
an
all-out
then in securing
institutional arrangements so that potential SS’s do not accumulate much
especially
given
the
that is to anticipate:
has
its
limitations,
structural adjustments.
hardly
rid of southern waters of US
having
submarines and southern lands of US bases, is to try
nuclear
to
power,
apparent instability of crucial world arrangements.
the present point is that (the fact of) moral
and
is
an
inadequate
But
consensus
constraint without accompanying
Page 9
19
because this would lead to violations of substitutivity , neutrality, etc.
instance, a state operative x could use state
cover
morally impermissible ways, ways ruled out (e.g.
y are permuted.
derivative
A group or organisation or
in
consideration
can
but
role,
bound
be
by
moral principles.
special
these are derivative
principles, good for any such institution, which fit within and answer
general
in
y
by state interests) when x and
person
its
of
virtue
citizen
damage
to
For
back
to
So it is also with a state which is an institutional
arrangement justified (insofar as it is) by the way it answers back to some
least)
its
of
citizens:
its
(at
charter does not legitimate emergent allegedly
moral principles which conveniently coincide with those of state expediency.
particular,
In
state is not (morally) entitled to risk the lives of many of its
a
own citizens and of other peoples and creatures for its own ends, even
its
for
own survival.
§3.
Arguments to the Immorality of LN wars.
can
which
set
be
since
aside,
the
concede that war per se is not a crime.
but
pacifist
positions
immorality of LN wars follows at once -
Not all wars are immoral,
though
states.
aristocratic
Among
young
men
admissible
wars
are
the
external
tournaments
or
of
or warriors who volunteer as soldiers where the action
does not spill over onto noncombatants, and some early and medieval wars,
few
even
wars may be pointless or inferior ways of settling political issues
inoffensive
between
All
no combatants even were killed in war.
where
Since the establishment of such
induction practices as conscription and recruitment of the near-destitute,
have
largely
ceased
to take these inoffensive forms:
far removed from the ideal
ecotopian
literature
war-tournament
(where
type,
that
its position is dubious).
immoral, but few to such an extent as LN wars.
wars
modern massive wars are
features
now
only
in
Most sorts of wars are
Page 10
argument
The first key
to
(1KA)
the
of
(and
wars
LN
of
immorality
sufficiently large-scale wars generally) takes the following form:
Pi.
The deliberate killing in mass of noncombatants is wrong.
Pli.
LN wars involve the killing in mass of noncombatants.
(KA)
What involves what is wrong is wrong.
Piii .
LN wars are wrong.
J
Supplementary remarks are called for:- Firstly, the
(1KA)
is
one
just
representative
of
a
Characteristically, in Western culture, it
is
arguments
of
that
thought
argument
given
of
type.
mass
this
taken
But the focus can be
off
the
killing:
destruction
of
a first variation on (KA) replaces ’killing
the
is
basis
of
may
each
be
attacked
of its premisses.
wrong
is
as
There
slack
by
a
has
in
effect
been
Let us consider these in
that
what
involves
are,
in
particular,
such
those generated by Good Samaritan arguments, which purport to show
that some proper obligations involve wrongdoing.
too
noncombatants’
wrong, often expanded to a "distribution of obligation over
entailment" principle, has been challenged.
problems
(and
The principle, Piii, used in the argument,
reverse order.
what
of
Other variations will emerge in the discussion.
but
The argument is valid,
on
mass
Thus
concerning ’huge destruction of lifestyle of uninvolved or not
clause
directly involved creatures’.
attacked)
in
of
lifestyle
nonhumans and humans alike that an LN war will bring is sufficiently evil.
suitable
of
killing
about the worst thing that can happen (after the killing of police).
is
humans
set
particular
a
notion
of
involvement;
linked to paradox-free entailment
20
But the problems
derive
from
with a tighter Involvement connective,
, the problems disappear, and Piii stands.
Page 11
As against Pii, it may be
legitimately
argued
against
directed
nuclear
that
military
targets.
wars
can
encounters
be
But given the character of
nuclear weapons, LN wars could in no way be confined to such targets.
merely the likelihood that many missiles explode off target.
not
the other effects of large-scale nuclear bombings, for example
down-wind
fallout
There
is
There are all
the
radioactive
military targets, which in the case of US and European
from
targets especially will effect large concentrations of people, Including therein
perhaps uninvolved countries such as Canada.
There may be an attempt to avoid the problem of massive civilian casualties
by
appeal
to such dubious principles as the doctrine of double effect (or side
21
effect)
If missiles were characteristically
was
which
intended
only
to
destroy
an
reliably
underground
unmanned
unfortunately went off course and destroyed a large city, it
the
that
Such claims should be rejected:
not
wrongness
lessened
could make a difference;
for
firing
the city.
the
and
one
missile silo
could
be
claimed
mass destruction is legitimised under the double effect
(unintended)
principle.
target,
on
the action would be wrong, and
by the given intention.
the
Nonetheless the circumstances
for they may mitigate attitudes to
those
responsible
missile, since it was not as if they had deliberately aimed at
The double effect principle confuses [diminution of]
the
allocation
of responsibility for an act with the [diminution of] wrongness of the act.
As against Pi, and as regards the middle term of Pi
argued
that there is an important equivocation.
the bracketed term,
killing
’deliberate’.
While it will
and
Pii,
it
may
be
The equivocation is induced by
be
that
admitted
deliberate
of genuine innocents is impermissble , it will be contended firstly that
they
noncombatants, insofar
as
innocent,
directly
many
being
are
distinguishable,
involved
in
are
by
no
means
all
military effort, whether just as
Page 12
taxpayers or as suppliers of goods
farmers
or
services
used
innocent.
second
The
point
Because Pii so amended in less defensible, and/or other reasons,
discussed.
leave
to
out the "modifier" ’deliberate’.
of
the perpetrators.
it
What is important for the
present purposes is the moral status of what is done, not that
motives
e.g.
military,
a much narrower - and less defensible - version of premiss Pll already
concerns
best
the
and secondly LN wars do not involve the
or bootmakers or entertainers;
deliberate killing of those properly excluded as
is
by
mixed
with
the
So ’deliberate’ is out, equivocation is avoided,
22
Pii stands, and so does
Pl.
For
not
does
Pi
’deliberate’, or ’intentional’ or the like.
require
the
qualification
Admittedly also ’noncombatant’ is a
fuzzy term, but none the worse for that, and there
is
no
problem
serious
in
marking out a class of clear noncombatants, people who are not directly involved
in the command and action chains.
practice,
deriving
from
There is, moreover,
Catholicism,
of
no
need
to
the
adopt
stating an initial version of Pi in
terms of innocents - at least as problematic a class as that of noncombatants to
try
to characterize - and then endeavouring to make the difficult transition to
noncombatants.
Not only can arguments against the premisses of the argument be met,
art
arguments
for
the
premisses, though for the substantive moral premiss Pi
they are of the characteristically nonconclusive moral sort
vary somewhat with the underlying ethical theory.
and
will
tend
seriously
understate
the
point)
minimal respect owed to them as persons
doing
so
23
The argument from historical requirements on just wars
from
convergence.
conclusion
that
fails to treat them with the
§4.
The
to
For example, one argument for
Pi, and for objecting to the killing of noncombatants, is the Kantian one,
(to
there
that
and
the
argument
LN wars cannot be justly waged - and
Page 13
accordingly are unjustified - is not merely something dreamed up by contemporary
opponents
The same conclusion falls out of various traditional requirements, worked
etc).
out
America or of the capitalist State (and communistically inspired,
of
times
mdeieval
in
just
for
variant on the key argument (1KA).
was
justly
that
not
it
be
One of the requirements gives but a
wars.
For a necessary condition for fighting a war
the
that
case
noncombatants are bound to be killed (cf.
numbers
large
[innocent]
of
Barnes, p.775).
A just war requires just means, that the war should be
fought
morally
by
which
implies in particular that there is no indiscriminate
killing of noncombatants.
The implied principle was escapsulated in a principle
legitimate
of
means,
(between combatants and others) which ’prohibits all actions
discrimination
directly Intended to take the lives of
p.312)
24
civilians
and
of
(PL,
noncombatants’
LN wars, where not only military installations are targeted, violate
.
U.
.
25
this requirement
Overlapping the requirement of just means is that of
proportion being that of net evil to net good):
’the damage to be inflicted and
costs Incurred by the war must be proportionate to the good expected
up
arms’
(PL,
p.312).
disproportionate
to
moral
goods
proportionality requirement is
criterion
of
by
the
which
achieved
in
doctrine
"improvement" through war :
not
are
of
that
nationally
way.
confined,
overall
consequences
of
abstaining
improvement "puts wrongs to rights":
"ameliorative"
conditions
and
war
according to the first,
justly
the
’X wages war
bad,
from war’ (Barnes, p.72).
’A nation wages war
are
Entangled with the
justly upon y if the overall consequences of war are better, or less
the
taking
is not difficult to see that LN wars violate this
It
the damage and costs,
requirement:
(the
proportionality
only
than
Similarly
if
the
for that nation or the wronged nation it is supporting have a decent
Page 14
chance of being better after the fighting ends’ (Wakin, p.20).
way
LN war can in no
satisfy these conditions, as scenarios depicting the aftermath of such wars
reveal.
Some of the lesser requirements for a just war are infringed
wars;
LN
It seems that there can
for example, that of reasonable expectation of success.
be no reasonable expectation of success in an LN
by
war,
the
whatever
prospects of success with more limited nuclear exchanges.
(limited)
What is less clearcut
is the question of whether LN wars conflict with the requirements of just
cause
or due fault and of right intention.
For this depends on the sensitive issue of
the weight assigned to what are seen
as
basic
rights
human
and
fundamental
values, and the extent to which just wars can be ideologically justified.
the
mainstream
justified
position
and
wars
definitively excluded
however,
in
puzzling
of
medieval
"humanitarian"
by
the
over
decisive against LN wars.
theory
wars
(cf.
traditional
was
opposed
to
While
ideologically
Barnes, p.778), these were not
theory.
There
is
merit,
little
dubiously effective requirements, when so many are
Finally, these arguments from historical requirements
do not violate prescriptive requirements:
the argument is not a simple argument
from historical authority, but also
premisses
uses
requirements imposed (and used) were justified.
the
to
effect
that
the
As they are.
In the Christian tradition there were two main strands of reflection on the
moral
rightness
or
justness
of
wars
9A
,
the
just
war
theory
and a rival
pacificist strand, prominent in early Christianity, but submerged from Augustine
on until contemporary times.
Both exclude nuclear wars, one strand because they
are inevitably unjust, the other because they are wars and
This
is
the
involve
violence
beginning of the convergence argument against nuclear wars:
such wars are excluded from all ethical perspectives, once
expediency
is
27
that
duly
Page 15
The detailed argument
They are morally wrong however you look at it.
removed.
is an exhaustive case by case one, from each type of moral theory.
can
details
For deontological and contractual theories lead back
be shortcut.
to requirements for a just war,
violate.
Fortunately
which
it
has
already
shown,
been
In fact conditions for just wars were sometimes arrived at or defended
through principles of such moral theories, so that a good deal of the
work
argumentative
already
has
brand
utilitarian
of
finally accomplished;
for
such
and
is
adopted,
not
is
far
to
have
effect
in
shown
pleasure,
reason
The
wars Involves such massive
that
this
dominates
genuine alternative to LN war is better
or
28
outlined
against
overwhelming moral case against such wars.
wars
LN
do
not
exhaust
the
For there are other moral principles
(derivative in some of the theories just considered) which the waging of
war would violate.
in
are accomplished in utilitarian fashion, so that any
they
The arguments given
LN
that
utility maximisation is
however
seek:
infliction of pain and colossal removal of
however
others
requisite
latter point holds also as
LN wars are excluded on utilitarian grounds.
convergence
assessments
The
done.
been
regards utilitarianism, where Lackey
whatever
wars
LN
an
LN
Among such principles are conservative ones, that we have an
obligation to maintain the earth in proper shape and not
degrade
its
systems,
that we have a responsibility to future generations, to whom we are accountable,
to "pass the world on" not in substantially worse condition
it".
Such
conservative
principles
than
we
"received
- however they are finally satisfactorily
formulated - are bound to be violated in the event of an LN war.
§5.
The shift to
nuclear
lobby
nuclear
arguments
deterrence:
to
its
immorality.
The
has a way of halting, and if not defeating, certainly deflating,
arguments against
the
immorality
of
LN
wars,
namely
there
is
no
actual
Page 16
such
any
In
engagement
wars.
different from engagement in
war:
LN
being done is, it is claimed, quite
is
What
is
deterrence
indeed
important
most
precisely in preventing such wars from ever occurring, as well as in maintaining
(other) fundamental [Western] values.
obtaining
desiderata.
both
is
deterrence
pronouncements,
claims
The
reasons:- A first reason is that
Indeed it is the only
there
are
is
much
for
more
than
deterrence can account neither for
strategy
military
Western
disarmament to
expected
be
On
deterrence.
29
the
despite
For if it
and sometimes even a drive for superiority.
this,
actual
nuclear
of
In fact there has been a
were "sufficiency" to deter would be an adequate goal.
quest
that,
evidence
the - the only - military goal.
not
way
dubious, for several
decidedly
too
practical
nor
weapons
for
Pure
orthodox
Nor has deterrence set in motion the process of
.
to
armaments
reduce
"its"
under
contrary,
to
levels
impulse
there
sufficient
has
for
been almost
unlimited acceleration in building arms (PL, p.318, quotes inserted).
Another
of
deterrence
reason
for
the
type
serious
that
is
doubt
being
concerns
other reasons also, connected
with
pure
deterrence
The reasons include the
for
nuclear
war
and
with
to
For
original
(its
threatening
posture
deterrence
for, the propaganda that must be promulgated to maintain credibility with
a population whose interests are being
etc.
conditions
the "cold war", the probability of a LN war has increased considerably
in the last 30 years.
calls
factor:
to that extent, at least, enhanced its prospects of occurring.
and
setting)
probability
practised, which involves full-scale
preparation for nuclear war, has prepared the
occur,
the
The
"sacrificed"
for
objectives,
situation has now been reached where many theorists think there is a
high probability at least of an LN war this century, i.e.
certainly
military
be
before 2000.
It
can
argued - though there seems no way to make any such a probability
argument at all tight, and it may be demonstrable that it cannot be made tight -
Page 17
that there is a non-negligible probability of an LN war before 2000.
If it is wrong that X should occur, then it is also wrong that
Cl.
be
But
highly
probably
that
should
it
X occur, and it is wrong to increase the probability
that X occur.
This is the first
several
of
connecting
doxastic
mapping
principles
moral
considerations against LN war into arguments against deterrence of LN war by the
perverse practice of preparing for it and thereby helping "to
the sense of raising the probability).
(in
it
bring
about"
But like most principles in ethics,
Cl requires complication to avoid defeat by counterexamples.
The second part of
Cl encounters apparent trouble where clash of principles occurs.
Thus it may be
argued that it is permissible to increase the probability that X occurs to avoid
a
greater
Consider for example the pilot who increases the probability
evil.
that the passenger plane he is flying crashes in order to
aircraft
troubled
does
not
make
hit city apartment buildings
30
.
sure
Such a defeating
condition does not apply in the case of nuclear deterrence where
is
there
(though
of principles) wrongness of a practice is not offset or removed by
clash
a
the
that
its role in avoiding greater evil.
It can be argued that it is;
argument
from
the
previous
such is part of
success
of
the
deterrence.
point
of
the
popular
This inductive argument
deserves little more credence than the racing driver’s argument, perhaps from
similar
that because he hasn’t had a fatal crash yet (despite some
base,
time
a
close calls), he won’t.
There are, furthermore, reasons for concluding
continue
to
work.
of
will
not
One is the deterrence depends upon judgements regarding the
other side, which may be mistaken:
perception
deterrence
that
what
strategy
’each
is
is
at
rational",
the
mercy
what
kind
the
of
of
other’s
damage
is
Page 18
one
"unacceptable", how "convincing"
Not
p.313).
threat
side’s
other’
the
(PL.
as
rational,
regards
limited
but there must be severe doubts as to whether rational principles
war,
As to the last consider, for example, the
are operating effectively.
idea
to
is there evidence that one side (the USA) has misjudged the
only
other side’s (the USSR’s) perception of what is
nuclear
is
(already
erroneous
to, as held in high places of power) that LN war can be
alluded
survived in rudimentary shelters, and also won.
Deterrence consists in preventing something (often some wrong) by
threats
including
31
OED) .
(cf.
fright
For most
people
without
not
Immoral
destruction of New York.)
deterrence,
that
is
his graphic descriptions
But though deterrence per
deterrence
from
suchmeans is of course not immoral.
publishing
in
them
LN
expense, trouble and wastage of preparing to
enormous
And deterrence by
engage in them.
was
the
all
or
scenarios
vivid
portraying the horror or LN wars would serve adequately to deter
wars,
fear
by
complete
se
is
the
of
(Schell
nuclear
permissible,
war
preparation of the object to be
prevented, is not, where this object Itself is not
permissible.
The
argument
for this is through the principle
C2.
If X is wrong then complete preparation of X is wrong.
Hence since LN wars are wrong and war-deterrence implies
of LN wars is wrong.
war—deterrence
X is just as bad as doing X:
Y.
preparation,
It is not being claimed that preparing for
Y and Z may both be wrong and Z (much) worse
than
, 32
What is wrong is by no means uniformly evil
Principle C2
principles:
a
part
is
way
succeeds
or
down
the
line
in
a
series
of
connecting
principle of the same sort that it higher in the series is that
connecting X with attempted X:
X
complete
not
33
.
But
if X is wrong then attempted X is wrong, whether
the
series
ends;
it cuts off well before mere
Page 19
intentionality, contrary to the claims
example,
it
does
various
of
religious
For
positions.
not follow that if X is wrong then the contemplation of X is
wrong or that mere non-action-oriented consideration of carrying out X is wrong.
The
applies
point
nightmares.
or
war,
equally
sexual fantasies, power fantasies, and nuclear
to
In particular there is nothing
reflecting
upon
it,
as we are:
wrong
nuclear
nuclear wars, even if their horrors
don't bear thinking on, are not unthinkable, and in
thinkable.
contemplating
with
some
senses
are
all
too
Indeed one of the reasons why the connecting principles hold is that
each involves decidedly increased probability of the evil
outcome
it
connects
Accompanying the increased probability are certain sets of reprehensible
with.
these are not those
attitudes tied to the action the evil outcome involves;
mere passive contemplation
of
34
this
War-deterrence involves not only war preparation, but announcement of
accompanied by threats and a threatening posture.
For some party, the potential
enemy, has to be frightened, if deterrence is to succeed.
This aspect of (war-)
deterrence yields a further connecting principle,
If X is wrong then threatening X is also wrong.
C3.
is
wrong
to do ...
then
the
declared
Intent
put
to
that
Intending to do wrong is wrong, and so also is
favourable
circumstances
for
one’s
alternatively be argued semantically:
(e.g.
into
Intending
position
committing
35
.
rape)
The
is
practice is also wrong.
to
prevail.
if a world with X
'What
Ramsey:
is wrong to threaten ...’ (quoted in Walzer p.272)
reason is that if putting something into practice
wrong
Thus too
is
do
wrong
The
never
unless
point
ideal
can
then
neither is a world in which X is only conditionally blocked, in which X may well
occur.
Page 20
By detachment from the connecting principles - one sound one would
but
logically,
defensible
three
ones is good measure - nuclear deterrence by
preparation for and threat of LN war is
This
wrong.
also
reveals
suffice
Deterrence
wrong.
of
this
type
the suggestion that the morality of the whole
why
deterrence thing depended on war itself never occurring was so bizarre:
connections between war and war-deterrence.
the
out
is
it left
War-deterrence should not
be practised any more than nuclear war itself should be engaged in - unless
directions can be drastically changed (e.g.
its
at least limited, per impossible in
the case of nuclear, to purely military targets).
There are other concomitant reasons for
the
Firstly,
with
dissatisfaction
deterrence.
it has provided (nuclear peace, as there is no shortage of
peace
small-scale conventional wars) is at least a tenuous peace, which is not stable,
liable
but
upset at any stage by a range of factors, including error (both
to
It does not offer genuine peace, of the sort required for
human and technical).
a
international life, but only a fragile "peace of a sort" (PL, p.316).
stable
Secondly, there is enormous cost, the
because
on
expenditure
it
moral
excludes
Bishops put their point in a surprising
opportunity
urgent
other
by
Marxist
cost
of
deterrence,
The US
moral priorities.
way:
in
terms
of
’the
between what is spent for destructive capacity and what is needed
contradiction
for constructive development’ (PL, p.316).
§6.
The
and
super-states;
arguments to
persuasive
prudential
practical,
the
the
resulting
arguments
(that
have
war
persuaded
justifiability of nuclear war preparation in
basic
argument
is
simply
an
elaboration,
build-up
nuclear
situation.
moral-fix
nuclear
of
immorality
to
argument
Not
preparation;
many
the
or
theorists)
present
of
the
only are there
there
to
are
the
circumstances.
also
moral
The
state-uplift, of that for the
Page 21
escalation of weapons at the local level, for acquiring a gun or for stocking-up
the
armoury [and every bit as doubtful as that argument].
neighbourhood
that nuclear preparation,
first
danger:
of
nuclear destruction.
blackmail,
’so we have
been
told,
against
guards
all atomic blackmail and foreign domination;
The two
together,
go
since
if
did
we
double
the
and second of
not
the
fear
we might adopt a policy of appeasement or surrender and so avoid the
destruction’ (Walzer, p.273).
In fact it is supposed to guard against more than
there is a crucial third element, namely, loss of basic rights (freedom,
these;
equality, etc.) and fundamental values (preservation of
etc.)
and
ways of life integrated with these.
truth,
dignity,
human
This further set of elements is
linked to the danger of foreign domination - which is really a separate
from
It is
risk
blackmail.
of
element
Though foreign domination need not imply the loss of
most basic values it does imply the loss of at least of one, self-determination,
freedom
to choose various national objectives;
conversely loss or infringement
of basic values can occur without foreign domination, e.g.
of
by
internal
change
government or governmental approach, by the increased security and control a
nuclear state demands, etc.
values,
through
Nuclear destruction can also involve loss of
destruction
but the converse does not hold.
basic
of the material base of the cherished life-style;
It should be observed that not all
the
values
concerned are equally fundamental:
one of the main values of deterrence theory,
the resistance to and
of
containment
"communism",
is
questionable
this
in
regard.
The theme is, in short,
NA.
Because of multiple (connected)
states)
which
have
nuclear
dangers
from
another
state
(or
other
weapons, a state - any state that is too large to
rely upon other states - is obliged to invest in [matching] nuclear weapons.
Page 22
Hence, by detachment, a nation-state, such as USA, ought to
order
the
of
nuclear
armoury
that
it
something
have
in
has, or, weakening the theme to meet
objections concerning excess, "overkill", capacity, at least a solid core of the
nuclear
devices
it
has.
out whether the obligation is a moral one,
Sorting
because for instance of the character of the values supposedly being
merely
or
one
protected,
of prudential reason - it is presumably somewhat more than mere
expediency - can be set aside for the present.
On the
same
basis
it
can
be
argued that unilateral disarmament against a dangerous nuclear opponent would be
prudentially irrational.
It can be freely admitted that what is prudentially required is,
like
the
common strategies of the prisoners’ dilemma situation and of certain competitive
games, a suboptimal strategy;
sufficient
trust,
that a
superior
strategy
for
adversaries,
if
etc., could be achieved, would be a cooperative arrangement.
Joint agreement would be better not merely in removing the moral dilemma, but in
a
range of other respects:
it would be much less risky, expensive, draining of
resources and destructive of the environment, etc.
However for the present
and
the foreseeable future the prospects of cooperation appear, so we are repeatedly
told, unfortunately rather remote:
or
the only sure insurance is nuclear
if one is a smaller nation, a larger ally who has an arsenal.
force
(Here a level
of trust is called for which is far from foolproof, and which contrasts strongly
with
the
lack of trust displayed elsewhere.)
The nuclear theme for a middling
or lesser power is a bit different from NA and ends rather as follows:
MA.
Because ..., a state that cannot rely on
obliged
ally.
its
own
nuclear
resources
is
to accommodate the nuclear installations and facilities of a protecting
Page 23
Principle MA is not very plausible, nor are the
for
substitutes
obvious
Not only MA but also NA, is now coming under question by disarmament
it ° .
who
groups,
more
challenge
the
basic
assumptions
of
the
underlying
general
retaliatory model that
Safely lies in weapons, and
1)
More weapons imply more security
ii)
37
Certainly, for more isolated states, such as New Zealand,
lies
attack
submarines).
more
of
a
in
excluding
nuclear
facilities
from
safety
nuclear
(including visits from nuclear
Europeans are arguing in a similar way, that the present system is
risk
[liability] than a protection (p.251, Thompson);
nuclear installations, Europe cannot be the
envisaged
and without
for
theatre
a
limited
nuclear war it is now seen as by US (but not Soviet) strategists.
Once i) and ii) are questioned, other assumptions of the retaliatory
model
and its variants come up for examination, namely
iii)
iv)
Whether the proper response to danger is armament, in particular
Whether the proper response is through nuclear armament, as
opposed
to other military responses (such as conventional arms),
and generalising on part of Hi),
v)
Whether military approaches/procedures (through armaments, etc.)
the
proper
is
method, or should be the method, of conflict resolution
at the international level.
It is plausibly argued against military procedures that at no ordinary level
do
we set about meeting danger or settling disputes by acquiring lethal weapons and
threatening to use them - except perhaps
warranted,
frontier
ethics.
But
on
an
out-dated,
and
never
really
this takes us into the issue of alternative
defence systems, an important matter beginning to
obtain
the
contemporary
38
explanation it deserves, but one that already anticipates subsequent questioning
Page 24
While the state system is intact,
of the framework of nation-states.
not
and
exceptional
inevitable:
according
military
to
is
are
to
be expected and are likely
permanent place
in
the
procedures
’force has [a] ...
force
nation-state
system’
Ramsey (p.xv) who uses this as part of his case for a nuclear war
doctrine.
far
Assembling the arguments so
to as the nuclear fix:-
referred
hereafter
developed
engage
to
sections)
it
is
and
immoral,
in war-deterrence, for prudential reasons (as argued using NA
This dilemma is no idle construction
and MA).
dilemma,
deontic
States both ought not to engage in
war-deterrence, because (as argued in previous
ought
the
yields
(concocted
to
demonstrate
of paraconsistent logic), but a serious real-life dilemma, the outlines
virtues
of which are repeatedly encountered in texts on nuclear war and its aspects
The nuclear fix is in part simply a more intense
dilemma
beyond
produced
purely
by
itself^,
war
military
typically
transport,
(since
targets
rely
on
or
version
of
deontic
the
civilian ones).
e.g.
arrangements,
military
rail
The main dilemma arises from a
War is
required
for defence of the state and values it upholds (or pretends to uphold);
also involves immoral acts and evil consequences.
also
seen
be
’some
The doctrine
"just
of
justifications
of
war
evil
alm
are
consequences
to
morally
war’
(Walls, p.260).
dilemmas, e.g.
most
difficult
war"
the
aegis
War and preparedness for war also generate subsidiary
a severe tension between freedom and
problems
justified.
show that actions deemed normally
forbidden by moral mandates are now permissible when performed under
of
but war
as attempting a reconciliation by trying to show that under
certain circumstances these really
Thus
39
at least war which spreads inevitably
combination of the retaliatory model with the features of war.
can
the
of
war
Involves
authority:
defending
a
’one
of
the
free society without
Page 25
destroying the values that give it meaning and validity’ (PL, p.324).
The essential feature of a moral dilemma is that both A and the negation of
A
are
well
essential role of moral dilemmas is not widely or
literature
41
The place and
(or differently, obligatory), for some suitable A.
wrong
.
positions
Moreover
understood
utilitarianism
like
cannot
ethical
in
at all easily
accommodate moral dilemmas or the data which gives rise to them - but then
such
positions do not really offer reportive accounts of wrong and obligation anyway.
Contrary to utilitarian perceptions a dilemma
does
not
any
have
necessarily
moral solution, though there may be better and worse ways out.
Reactions and responses that are characteristic of
the
from
nuclear
moral
dilemmas
There is an unsteadiness, an uncertainty as to what to
fix.
do, which way to proceed, which principles in watered-down form to
temporary
Thus,
crutch.
for
world’
best"
42
as
a
of
way
"morally
never
our
exercising
moral
, that is in a morally-strapped world.
ethical
Bishops who
the
of
’strictly
conditional’
moral fix.
Deterrence has a strictly temporary role
but
can
be
responsibility
a
shift
"morally
in a fallen
to
a
’moral
"second
acceptability’
try to escape ’the paradox of deterrence’, i.e.
while
acceptability,
good",
A similar
deterrence
we
as
(as from good to acceptable) is made by the US Catholic
functor
speak
grasp
example, the Bishop of London contends that the
possession of nuclear weapons ’while
acceptable"
emerge
the
object
must
and
strictly
be to move beyond deterrence,
of
from the
conditional
’towards a
world free of the threat of deterrence’ (PL, p.317), out of the nuclear fix.
To make matters worse the nuclear fix
is
is,
not
furthermore,
a
fix
of
(more
something they happened into, by
affluent)
states’
accident.
The initial nuclear involvement was deliberately chosen, primarily by
USA,
and
the
own
making.
It
escalation has by and large also been deliberately chosen, again
Page 26
In these respects the situation is like that
often by the USA.
who
person
deliberately lets perself to be involved in two incompatible relations, and
that
currency,
of
adoption
nuclear
is
the
that
nuclear
build-up.
The recent (1980)
programme is to be in addition to existing
are
(which
Soviet
USA Initiated nuclear armament, and has frequently led
escalation, and apparently still does.
resources
some
weaponry, and nuclear build-up, in North
America occurred on a defensive basis in response to
fact
with
It is a myth, though one
builds up conflicting obligations thereby.
The
the
of
generally
United
strategic
be already in excess of
to
agreed
States’
Russia’s, and which always have been so) (Thompson, p.21).
The present dilemma is then a direct outcome
advanced
of
state
policy,
especially
by
capitalist nations, and not merely a response to the Soviets (or state
socialism).
There is a two-way connection between world political arrangements
and
nation-states
the
nuclear
fix.
On
the
one
hand,
situation
increasingly
is
political arrangements
/ Q
;
seen
political
these
arrangements are an evident source of the dilemma with the result
through
that
nuclear
as indicating the inadequacy of present world
on the other, the nuclear fix tends to lock political
arrangements into the statist form (into statist arrangements of an increasingly
centralist cast).
peace
The espoused purpose of nuclear weapons may be
to
keep
the
(!) and to defend national interests, but there are other reasons such as
perpetuating the system of sovereign states and politically
confrontation.
The
argument
to
the
theme
that
advantageous
the very nuclear situation
arising from the statist arrangements and interrelationals (economic
conflicting
rivalries,
ideologies, etc.) tends to, and is used to, lock the world into the
present arrangements of sovereign states and zones of interest, is
practical
state
one.
Consider
first,
the
matter
from
a
piecemeal
the Soviet side where the
Page 27
pattern of national control and military economic reorientation is clearer.
The threat from the West, whether it exists
or
not
(and
in
Soviet
perception it certainly does), has become a necessary legitimation for
the power of the ruling elites, an excuse for their many economic
and
social failures, and an argument to isolate and silence critics within
their own borders.
In the West we have
controlled
carefully
...
and
...
selective
release of ’official information’ (Thompson, p.20).
Secondly, there is evidence of entrenchment of the arrangements,
by
the
SALT negotiations:
of
rules
not
regarded
as
threatening
US
in
place
by
The Soviet
invasion
interests", and so the US is not
"vital
What was different, what
particularly worried about Afghanistan and its people.
it
held
penalty for breaking the rules is the threat of annihilation).
(the
Thirdly, there are cases, such as the Afghanistan example.
is
shown
there are fixed superpowers and a (growing) nuclear
club of nations all governed by a negotiated set
deterrence
as
was worried about and made nuclear threats concerning, were adjacent Western
these lay within the US zone of interest.
oil supplies:
44
and complicates other dilemmas
The nuclear fix enhances
contemporary
sovereign
state, in particular the deep tensions between national
security and the operation of liberal-democratic arrangements (e.g.
liberty,
popular
control of institutions, etc).
personal subsidiary dilemmas, as for example the
obligations
to
a
nuclear
conflicting obligations
the
by
induced
as
state,
a
or
doctor
It also spotlights other more
extent
role-induced
or
a
individual
nuclear
of
(political)
one’s
dilemmas
armaments
such
as
one’s
processor
or
researcher (the question of political obligations is considered in Appendix 2).
§7.
Ways out of the moral dilemmas:
[initial]
political
fall-out
from
the
Page 28
conclusions.
ethical
all the ways are ways of limitation, and they
Virtually
all Involve in one way or another limitations on nuclear arms or
are
limitations on the powers of states.
and
deployed
the
they
way
The limitations may be
45
reached by agreement and negotiation and more or less voluntarily
agreed
,
to
or they may be imposed, or worst of all, they may emerge from an initial war.
As with other fixes produced by
are
there
suggested
structure
there
and
relations
power
and
extra—state
approaches.
"realistic",
attempts
All
to
cow,
as unilateral disarmament.
is
it
states
the
or
alter
the
remove them altogether,
allegedly
familiar,
the
seriously
do
which
and
"practical"
nuclear problem - e.g.
disarmament by
they do not tamper with that
- are inter-state;
But in fact there is nothing very sacred
not
even
a
very
long-standing
arrangement, nor, as a matter or empirical fact, is
one.
states,
of
and the same goes for less "realistic" proposals, such
the state;
nation-state;
arrangements
which
ways
are
of
resolve
neutral arms limitations, etc.
sacred
structural
out which do not interfere with these arrangements,
ways
inter-state approaches,
the
it
form
about
the
political
of
particularly
a
stable
We are certainly free - in more liberal states, it should be everywhere -
to theorise as to its demise and replacement by alternative arrangements.
Extra-state approaches take one of two
routes,
the
way
up,
to
genuine
46
power, or the way down, through fractionation or deunionisation
international
of states.
not
to
The ways up and down are by no means one and the same;
necessarily
world
government
Were
law-courts.
remedy, namely
intra-state
incompatible.
the
through
to
Some of the important machinery, for the way up
operate,
courts
legal
but they are
is
assigned
action,
already
there
sufficient
that
medieval
the
international
authority
and power, the
in
theorists
saw
to
all
disputes could be extended to interstate disputes, and the just war
Page 29
between states S and T superseded by the just case of S versus T.
one
statist,
more
legalistic
of trying to get to grips with the nuclear
way
problem, and accordingly is often mentioned, though
dismissed
47
in
,
orthodox
The Way Up is
mostly
passing
in
strategic texts on thermonuclear war.
It is however
beginning to be much more sympathetically considered by those who take
rather than strategic viewpoint.
moral
a
There is a renewed emphasis on world order, in
reaching ’towards a morally integrated international system’;
element
be
to
and ’the
missing
of world order today is the absence of a properly constituted political
The Way Down - though, like The Way
authority’ (PL, p.320).
by
Up,
no
means
new, turning back to the anarchist positions of a century ago - is, by contrast,
scarcely mentioned in the orthodox discussions, but is making an
appearance
(a
which
is
comeback) in some more radical discussions.
A main argument for The Way Up is
to
supposed
underpin
statist
just
arrangements
a
repetition
in
first
the
argument from (generous) variations upon the Prisoners’
that
of
place, namely the
Dilemma,
the
as
such
Tragedy of the Commons, that authority and coercion - in the form of the state are requiried to ensure best solutions,
ecological order.
especially
regards
of
part
the
sort of super-state.
of
the
"tragedy"
is
destruction
when
to
assume
in
fact
assumptions
48
of
a
commons by nuclear war, the solution is now said to be some
Of course, this begins to undermine an earlier application
argument,
since
states
will
lose
their sovereignty, and
political obligation to states will be correspondingly weakened.
is
and
order
So with the "tragedy of nation-states", where the players are
not herdsmen but nation-states, and one of the prospects
good
public
But
all
this
that these "tragedy" arguments are good ones in the first place,
they
are
not
but
are
only
sound
under
quite
restrictive
Page 30
There are many problems with the Way Up, both theoretical and
practical.An
theoretical hitch is that the Way Up merely repeats statist arrangments
initial
at a level up, by way
contingency,
of
super-state
It
arrangements.
only
is
through
a
of there being no rival Intelligent civilisations nearby, that the
problems of interstate relations
not
are
repeated
level
a
The
up.
major
practical hitch is that there is no prospect at all of getting such a "solution"
to work in time to serve its intended
interstate
future
the
For
purpose.
ideological differences, including especially differences as
to how political arrangements should be effected, exclude
world
operative
hostilities.
government
of
prospect
any
an
or world legal system capable of resolving nuclear
In some ways, perhaps, this is just
World
well.
as
government
be extremely monolithic, would entrench bureaucracy with all its damaging
would
features, and could easily tend to totalitarianism.
on
nuclear
foreseeable
the
It would
impose
certainly
an exploitative economic system which would do immense damage to
world
many remaining natural systems.
The Way Up thus presupposes an unlikely,
undesirable,
level
ideological,
indeed
requisite
unity
of
political
paradigmatic,
cannot
be
and
and
expected
unity
economic
separation
with
some
in
of
nuclear
main
crucial
respects,
Moreover,
given the
Northern
cultures,
deadlines.
When not even
nuclear weapons limitations can be worked out how much less likely
much
more
sweeping
sovereignty, could
be
agreements,
negotiated?
Involving
genuine
There
an
is
is
limitations
almost
endless
that
it
of
state
series
of
blockages and deadlocks in the way of such state reconciliation.
The nuclear fix emerging from nation-state arrangements - combined with the
apparent
impotence
of
interstate relations to alleviate the situation, indeed
with the ability only to push the world further into the situation and nearer to
Page 31
nuclear
now
is
-
"brink"
taken
to
indicate (from yet a further angle) the
inadequacy of nation-state political arrangements, and has given new impetus
resolutions.
extra-state
other
of
consideration
to
The thesis that the nuclear
problem indicates the radical unsatisfactoriness of national sovereignty and the
present
system
namely in Schell.
’full-scale
nation states has even reached the best-seller book stands,
of
According to Schell the nuclear situation should
they operate' ...
which
himself
avoids
these
reality
and in ’workfing] out the practical steps by which
'awesome
(III,
p.92).
Schell
However
urgent tasks, which, imposed on us by history,
constitute the political work of our age’^9,
history
consonant with the global
can reorganise its political life’
mankind ...
a
of the foundations of political thought’ required to
reexamination
make ’the world’s political institutions ...
in
to
lead
So, not feeling the
pressures
of
overimpressed by the realities of (unstable) nation-states, do most
or
political theorists.
But, having rashly ventured this far, we can hardly
avoid
some of these tasks.
The central argument arising from the nuclear fix, for questioning
political
arrangements
and
seriously
current
considering changing them (in theory at
least), takes the following shape:-
H1.
Political arrangements should answer back to certain requirements and
justified
in
terms
of
doing
so.
are
These requirements include such things as
enabling good and meaningful lives for those who operate under the arrangements,
at least where (as certainly in the West) the basic material conditions for such
lives are met.
H2.
these
Because of the nuclear fix, nation-state arrangements have ceased to
requirements.
For
guarantee the prospect of
arrangements.
nation-states,
good
and
at
meaningful
meet
least in the North can no longer
lives
to
those
under
their
A life's meaningfulness is certainly diminished if it ends before
Page 32
its prime in a nuclear disaster;
yet there is a non-negligible probability that
many such lives may terminate, less than fulfilled, in this way.
Therefore,
Nation-state arrangements have forfeited their justification,
H3.
should
and
be changed.
There is enough evidence that power brokers who control states,
both
more
powerful states and lesser states (sometimes with some claim to popular mandate,
often without), have lost sight of - or worse don’t care about -
the
point
of
political arrangments, of what justifies or is supposed to justify their states.
The situation has been reached where ’nuclear powers, or
higher
value
This is already illustrated
by
states in nonnuclear military situations:
have
much
forfeited
of
what
claim
Vietnam
Israel,
many
and
the principles of just warfare
have been blatantly violated repeatedly, as have many
states
put
statesmen,
on national sovereignty than they do on human survival’ (Schell’s
conclusion, p.76).
other
their
they
Such
principles.
other
had to external respect or
internal political obedience.
It could just be, of course, that there are no alternatives, or no possibly
better
But
alternatives.
alternatives there are, as we have seen, though but
little work has been expended on working out the range of alternatives or
features (except perhaps for the option of world government).
As to whether all
such alternatives can be dismissed, for instance as lacking feasibility,
difficult
to
be all sure without being dogmatic:
operate,
once
adjusted,
very
far
on
organising
is
humans,
for
under substantially different arrangments.
But, once again, nuclear deadlines do not appear
proceed
it
alternatives have been given
very little opportunity to work, and we know very little about how
instance,
their
to
give
sufficient
time
to
and trying out alternative arrangments, even
those of the more accessible Way Down.
Thus alternative
political
and
social
Page 33
while theoretically feasible and certainly a longer-term goal, do
arrangements,
not presently offer a satisfactory practical response to the nuclear fix.
There is no need to insist upon a
dilemma
to
single-track
the
of
out
nuclear
We can not only
quite the contrary.
exclusion of all others:
the
way
afford to be fairly catholic about "second best" approaches pursued and
whatever
to be working or looks like helping, within reorganised ethical
seems
Indeed,
(and other) constraints:
situation,
methods,
should
we
as
such
urgency,
the
the
of
direness
the
and
nondemocratlc
very
(and
down
certainly
negotiations on arms limitations between main nuclear states.
The direction of most hope
is
given
be fairly catholic and not inflexibly commited to narrow
bogged
unrepresentative)
direction
embrace
for
especially new.
not
has
progress
however
come
into
view;
the
The political means of the Way Out are what
they have been on almost every larger liberal or
that
issue
humanitarian
has
from outside state governmental apparatus by organised pressure from
mattered;
within or without upon it, characteristically Bottom-Up
Such
Top-Down.
familiar
and
practically
never
considerations are but part of the more general, and
very effective, case against reliance upon states for a range of things they are
now
supposed
required,
to
more
supply,
effectively
but
can almost Invariably be obtained, where
which
and
less
expensively
without
(and
them
their
monopolies).
In the case of security it is states, with very few exceptions,
that
have
imposed, or acquiesed in, military solutions involving nuclear installations and
The
nuclear weapons.
frequently
from
across nations.
installations
opposition
local
and
the
to
neighbourhood
These groups have been
and
establishing,
for
escalating
groups,
successful
the
time
nuclear
fix
has
come
some of them now federated
in
blocking
being,
some
some
nuclear
nuclear-free
Page 34
The patchwork grass-roots movement against nuclear is strongest
neighbourhoods.
in
which
Europe,
- as the movement realised, and what gave it impetus - a
is
leading theatre, on US
American
touching
thinking,
strategic
American nuclear installations in Europe will make it a
contrary
it
probable
seems
nuclear
limited
a
war
that
Europe
safer
much
become
will
place:
safer
on
the
if
the
anti-nuclear movements succeed in having these installations removed and
rendered nuclear-free.
not
is extremely doubtful that increasing NATO and
It
shores.
for
Europe
The chances of grossly immoral conduct will thereby also
be considerably reduced.
What the movements must press for is accordingly clear
it
is
in
broad
outline:
what they have been pushing for, nuclear reduction and disarmament.
But
the argument also makes it clearer how far this should go, namely all the way to
nuclear
unilateral
disarmament
if
necessary,
certainly to local disarmament
across progressively larger parts of the planet’s surface.
is
its
demoted,
importance
and
the
necessity
of
For once
the
state
its maintenance properly
downgraded and reliance on its decision-making diminished in favour of localised
decision-making
(say)
-
once
all
that
happens or is allowed for, one major
component in the nuclear fix is removed, namely the worry about
sovereignty.
the
of
that
sovereignty
has
of
been assigned a mistaken
weakest links in the moral fix structure.
In the weigh-up that should
occur in charting a way out of moral dilemma, much more Important elements
features
state
The state, and accompanying features such as misplaced nationalism,
importance.
are
Maintenance
loss
than
the state are those things the state is supposed to safeguard such
of
as individual and local welfare and autonomy, but they are better ensured by the
removal
of
nuclear
weapons.
The
nuclear circumstances threaten the loss of basic values,
autonomy,
for
in particular,
main reasons are familiar;
such
as
welfare
and
many creatures and regions, and the potential loss is in general
Page 35
much greater than in a nuclear-free situation (even should
party
remain
armed
with nuclear weapons).
for example, the production
(because
of
nuclear
another
ideological
There are also subsidiary reasons;
weapons
reduces
local
both
welfare
of the opportunity costs of weapons manufacture) and autonomy (because
of the accompanying security measures).
Thus the nuclear fix is resolved, theoretically at
loss
of the state.
any
rate,
by
risking
But, although that is the best way out at least cost in the
circumstances, it will be strongly resisted in practice, since
those
who
hold
power hold it, in one way or another, under the auspices of state.
FOOTNOTES
1.
The US Catholic Bishops make the point forcefully:
’Nuclear weapons
...
and nuclear warfare ... are new moral issues ... There exists a capacity
to do something no other age could imagine: we can threaten the
created
order ...
We could destroy [God’s] work’ (PL, p.312). While the analysis
offered in what follows has a great deal in common with the
Bishop’s
position, it differs significantly in removing the religious backdrop and
associated features and, it is hoped, in bringing out the logical structure
of the argument more clearly and sharply (the paper was Initially drafted
independently of PL).
To illustrate the differences that emerge with
removal of the religious backdrop and its acoutrements, consider two
examples from PL, p.323:- Firstly, peace is possible without religious
enlightenment if it is possible with it: religious enlightenment is not an
essential condition as there implied. Secondly, violence does not take all
the forms the Bishops try to give it, e.g. sexual discrimination is hardly
a form of violence, pornography can operate without it, etc.
It is a
serious mistake to try to heap so many diverse and independent issues
together under the one head (forms of violence) as if they stood and fell
together, e.g. abortion and nuclear war.
2.
Another dimension of variation concerns the sequence of the war, especially
the type of strike involved. Though the sequence is important for the moral
assessment, for example of the main actors, it is in no way alters the
immorality of LN wars, as will emerge.
3.
’The overwhelming probability [is] that a nuclear exchange would have no
limits’,
(PL, p.314). Hence a major argument against limited nuclear wars:
that any such war risks, indeed renders highly probable, an unlimited war,
and risk is far too large to take.
The point in fact follows by
straightforward application of decision theory, multiplying the massive
undesirability (moral and otherwise) of an LN war by its probability given a
Page 36
limited nuclear war. Given the character of weapons development and present
communication arrangements, the idea of a purely nuclear exchange between
the superpowers, perhaps in the European "theatre", is really a myth.
But
limited wars are not the present focus.
4.
There was a substantial element of sport (and connected features of prowess)
in traditional wars that has been eroded in modern technological wars.
Nuclear wars are not just unsporting, in that no notice is given, etc. They
are unjust in a much deeper way.
5.
There are interesting sidelights concerning even the etymology of the term
’war’, which was derived from a term meaning ’confusion’. In particular,
’it is a curious fact that no Germanic nation in early historic times had in
living use any world properly meaning ’war’’.
(OED)
6.
But of course there can be something quite analogous to war between clans,
multinational firms, even nature, etc.
(To this extent, a strict definition
of ’war’ is being insisted upon.) So the diffusion of power structures has
to extend beyond just the break-down of states.
7.
Thus the ubiquitous war against Nature of modern times, which features just
as large in marxists as in capitalists. As could have been guessed, someone
- it was James - suggested chanelling all war into "war" in the metaphorical
sense against that unarmed and nonaggressive "opponent", Nature. James
proposed as a substitute for war proper, conscription of the youth for a war
against Nature (see Wasserstrom, p.12). What it boiled down to, however,
was that youth was to be channelled into all the dirty work, in that way to
acquire manly virtues military activities "rightly" instil, especially
discipline, but also service, devotion, physical fitness, constructive
exertion, responsibility, and order. Another less diabolical substitute for
wars proper is through war games and other games of competitive cast. Again
specious arguments enter for bringing out the "best" in human males.
8.
War can be seen as a structural problem of state arrangments, to be removed
along with these (otherwise defective) arrangements.
Wars arise from
political organisation of states - a situational fix.
9.
Thus Aquinas and Grotius for example (see Barnes, p.776, top). The argument
presupposes rather a lot, Including a neat public/private distinction. Put
Aquinas’s way, it looks as if it could be readily transferred into an
argument for international government, or at least effective law-courts.
Yet all Christendom was supposed at that time to be one state!
10.
There is however the degenerate idea of war as annihilation or extinction,
and of winning a nuclear war as annihilation of the enemy while not being
entirely annihilated oneself: the side that somehow "survives" is said to
"win".
But this is an extremely tenuous sense of winning. Moreover any
such war is radically unjust, because of violation of the traditional
requirement of proportionality, and for other reasons developed in the text.
Recent talk about winning or even surviving a nuclear war must
reflect a failure to appreciate a medical reality: Any nuclear
war would inevitably cause death, disease and suffering of
pandemonic proportions and without the possibility of effective
medical intervention ... (PL, p.313).
Page 37
Unfortunately as documented in Scheer, significant officials who are
responsible for the nuclear destiny of the U.S.A. - and so of the world think that the devastation of nuclear war can be survived and that a global
nuclear war can actually be won!
11.
In practice they often were not, they drained limited economies, they layed
waste countryside (though to a minor extent by nuclear or chemical or modern
mining standards), impoverishing Inhabitants, etc.
12.
For as Nagel contents (early on), there are moral restrictions on the
conduct of warfare which are not legalistic only and which are neither
arbitrary not merely conventional nor a matter of usefulness. These themes
run entirely counter to the classic theory of war of Clausowicz - a theory
outlined in Walzer.
13.
As Nagel remarks.
14.
The progressive escalation argument is an incremental
Sorites. This is part of the so-called "logic of war".
15.
As Walzer argues, p.24.
16.
The severe limitations of those
also come from the failure
person from inside the homeland
which excessive applications of
17.
Thus the differences between Nagel on the one side, and Brandt and
the other, in Cohen et al.
18.
The pattern of moral argument has much in common with procedure in anarchist
political discussion.
19.
There are other arguments against two (or
Routley and Plumwood.
20.
For details see Routley and Plumwood.
21.
According to the doctrine, which is one concerning responsibility, we are
responsible
only
for
the intended effects or consequences of our
freely-chosen actions, and not for other (side) effects or consequences,
even
if
these are forseen and/or intimately tied to the intended
consequences. The doctrine is pernicious allowing those who adjust their
intention
suitably to escape responsibility for evil they knowingly
perpetrate. Thus, for instance, a Russian supreme command which intended
only to take out US military targets would, under double effects,
effects have no
responsibility for the resultant effect on American and Canadian cities!
22.
Despite Nagel’s suggestion (pp.158).
23.
Of course there are counterarguments too, and not merely from military in
the case of small numbers of obstructive noncombatants. One is a variation
of the Bald Man:
there is no clear line between
combatants
and
noncombatants.
However as Nagel argues (p.20) there are distinctions
between them, firstly in terms of their roles, e.g. in carrying or using
argument
like
the
lesser virtues, nationalism and patriotimsm,
of replacement - try for example swapping a
by one from outside as regards treatment patriotism can engender.
multiple)
morality
Hare
lines:
on
see
Page 38
arms or directing those who do, and secondly in terms of their harmfulness,
the threat they offer. See also PL, p.312, where a simple and effective
paradigm case argument is applied.
24.
The principle can be argued to in various ways.
One (not entirely
conclusive) way is Nagel’s way, from the requirements of directness and
relevance in combat, the underlying principle being that, ’whatever one does
to another person intentionally must be aimed at him as a subject, with the
intention that he receive it as a subject’. (p.15)
25.
The situation with limited nuclear wars where the targets are essentially
military ones, and noncombatants are unaccountably killed "indirectly' is
different. Such wars are not however excused by the pernicious doctrine of
double effect.
For such wars remain unjust on several counts, e.g. they
inflict disproportionate damage, e.g. on life systems. As Zuckermann says,
’It is still inevitable that were military installations rather than cities
to become the objectives of nuclear attack, millions, even tens of millions
of civilians would be killed ...’ (quoted in Thompson and Smith, p.14 where
the Italics are added).
26.
Throughout the OED equations,reflecting common usage, of just with
right or correct, and unjust with morally wrong, are adopted.
27.
These alternatives are not as far removed practically as may appear.
For
the aim of just war theory is not ’to legitimize war but to prevent it.
The
presumption is against the use of force’ (PL, p.312).
And most types
of
wars are ruled out by the theory.
However not all wars or violent
revolutions are excluded, and that is enough to guarantee the distinction
between the alternatives.
In particular, defensive wars are allowed - at
least for the defending side, though from a wider viewpoint these too may be
condemned - ’the classic case [of the just war] ... was the use of lethal
force to prevent aggression against innocent victims’
(PL,
p.311).
Under
Twentieth Century international law defence, narrowly construed, is the only
legitimate basis for war; Roman law was only slightly more generous, in
allowing for the restitution of goods (see Barnes, p.780).
28.
An argument of this sort is developed in more detail, though not in complete
generality, in Goodin.
29.
As to the first point, there is not only overkill capacity and the drive for
superiority (often represented via "negotiating" strength) but the matter of
counterforce weapons which are offensive weapons.
As regards the second
point, US policy has been decidedly expansionist with regular intervention
in other nations; there have been repeated US threats to use nuclear
weapons, especially to deal with revolutionary activities in the third
world, but also in Europe in "limited" nuclear war;
and in official
military strategy no sharpline has been drawn between conventional and
nuclear weapons: on these and other related points see further Lackey 82,
p.l91ff., and also Thompson and Smith.
30.
The example was supplied by D.
31.
Deterrence also commonly includes elements of
mendacity,
deception,
misinformation.
There is a grain of truth in the claim that ’deterrence is
primarily about what the other side thinks, not what we think’
(Pym quoted
morally
Johnson.
Page 39
in Thompson, p.19).
simply
32.
Nor are degrees of wrongness required:
ordered as regards worseness.
33.
Can this be done semantically in terms of closeness/worseness
The attempted X world is close to the X world?
34.
There is a need for further clarification here.
Passive spectatorship of
evil events where one is in a position to make a difference is quite another
thing, from contemplation of other worlds where evil occurs.
35.
It is this principle especially that forces Ramsey, a Protestant theologian
who is a nuclear hawk, into the tight position he ends in, which as Walzer
explains, really leaves no room to move. For in virtue of C3 it must be
allowed that the threatened wars are permissible to carry out. Ramsey tries
to limit these to military exchanges. But to be effective as a deterrent,
the exchange permitted must both threaten and also, in view of C3, not
threaten nonmilitary targets, collateral non-combatant populations.
It
appears that Ramsey’s position, if worked out, would be inconsistent.
wrongs
can
be
partially
of
worlds?
Principle C3 is also invoked by the US Catholic Bishops:
see PL, p.316.
They put the point both in terms of threat and of declared intent to use
nuclear weapons, which they pronounce morally wrong.
36.
As is widely known, inadmissible considerations of expediency frequently
enter into reasons why states allow foreign nuclear facilities upon their
territories, e.g. economic considerations such as trade or local revenue
and jobs.
37.
Cf.
38.
It was considered long ago in China by the
alternative systems, see especially Sharp.
39.
Thus Green, along with many others, ’find[s] nuclear deterrence ...
the
best of practical policies available to us now ... given the realities of
world politics’ but ’still demurfs] because of moral qualms’ (p.xil). Green
also represents both Morgenthau and Halle as having ’rather agonisingly
presented a ... case for a deterrence strategy, even while asserting that
the strategy is morally indefensible according to the traditional ethical
codes’ (p.252). Walzer ends in a similar dilemma (he is committed to a
stronger and less qualified form of it than he sets down):
’... though it
[deterrence] is a bad way, there may well be no other that is practical in a
world of sovereign and suspicious states’ (p.274) (an indictment of the
state system that Walzer does not pursue).
the last article in Thompson.
Mohists.
For
contemporary
Similarly the Catholic Bishops present the situation in terms of a moral
dilemma:
they speak of ’the political paradox of deterrence ... the
dilemma of how to prevent the use of nuclear weapons ... (PL, p.313).
40.
Situations in war are also a major source of moral dilemmas.
See Routley
and Plumwood where several examples are given. A general logical account of
and theory of moral dilemmas is elaborated therein.
Page 40
41.
There are exceptions of course, e.g. Sartre; and Nagel’s final example is
very instructive.
For a full theory of moral dilemmas see however Routley
and Plumwood.
42.
Reported in The Economist; reprinted in The
1983, Weekend Magazine p.2.
43.
This is no longer a radical theme but is widely promulgated.
The source of
the nuclear problem comes from state arrangements: it is ’... a world of
sovereign states ... which brought the world to the present dangerous
situation’.
(PL, p.313)
44.
It is not alone responsible for these other dilemmas.
Large-scale nuclear
power and other types of warfare and security arrangements also contribute.
45.
In principle it would be relatively easy for states to agree to settlement
of their disputes by less damaging and expensive contests than military
ones, e.g. by contests of selected representatives, and not just through
fighting in some form but by contests of footballers, singers, dancers,
lawyers, or etc. In practice, however, such more civilized alternatives are
never considered. Animals, by contrast, are smart enough to settle disputes
by means much more like these.
46.
Americans, for example, tend to forget that their State (like USSR) is a
union, of fairly recent origin; and that a State of the Union message could
consider the dissolution of the union.
47.
Thus for example, Kahn, where such a "solution" is quickly dismissed as,
impractical,
etc.
Hardly necessary to say the Way Up has won most favour
with the legal fraternity, and from more authoritarian organisations.
48.
See further Routley and
especially Griffin.
49.
Schell does not make it clear whether he is thinking of the Way Up or the
Way Down, but some of the names he drops suggest the Way Up. So can some of
what he says, e.g.
’Thus the peril of extinction is the price that the
world pays not for "safety" or "survival" but for its [sic!] insistence on
continuing to divide Itself up into sovereign nations’ (p.76, III), as if
the natural or original state were an undivided one?
Routley
and
Australian,
material
referred
February
to
12-
therein,
13
and
Page 41
APPENDIX 1; Remarks on J. Schell’s THE FATE OF THE EARTH.
Schell’s book is an important and influential document, which is
significant
having
a
and
urgently
needed effect in shifting attitudes towards nuclear.
It is especially
valuable
for
aftermath
example
defects.
is
Some
exhibits,
also
it
just
nothing else that we undertake together can make any
sense
...’
the
of
both
for
rubbish,
a world-wide program of action for preserving the [human]
’without ...
species ...
moral
scenarios
horrifying
Unfortunately
severe
philosophically and factually,
and
vivid
attack.
nuclear
of
its
(p.104,
Humans
rearranged).
however like rabbits in
are
Australia, virtually beyond human power to extirpate.
or
practical
The claim presupposes two
of the major defective assumptions of the book:
51.
That nuclear war will eliminate life, human life, at least, on earth
total extermination assumption);
(the
and
52.
That very many notions, not only those of morality and value, but those of
time
and
space,
make
no sense in the absence of humans, or, to put it into a
more sympathetic philosophical form, in the absence of an actual
context
human
(the anthropocentric assumption).
The frequent applications of S2, which
philosophical
depth
and
induce
give
the
book
some
of
its
apparent
suitable puzzlement through their paradoxical
without total extermination
aspects, depend essentially on SI;
there
will
be
humans, about to make past and future, good and evil, go on making sense!
Now although the factual assumption SI is
possibility,
unlikely.
example,
it
appears
in
Schell’s argument
on
an
unjustified
no
means
ruled
out
as
a
light of present (inadequate) knowledge most
the
to
by
SI
is
extremely
extrapolation
from
Hemisphere, but for the most part it does that very
flimsy.
It
depends,
for
the Northern to the Southern
North
American
thing,
of
Page 42
the
contracting
North
to
world
(All that matters, all worthwhile
America.
civilization, is in USA, or at least, to be more charitable,
and
Europe,
also be wiped out, i.e.
will
which
eliminated in the nuclear holocaust).
the
example
out of date.
America
North
its human population will be
Some of the data Schell relies upon,
for
of nuclear explosions on the ozone layer, is significantly
Other effects than ozone destruction transfer even less well
South.
to
North
effect
in
from
A factually superior study of nuclear disaster that Schell’s,
Preddy and others, indicates that parts of the Southern Hemisphere, New
Zealand
and Southern Africa and America could escape relatively unscathed even from most
massive northern exchanges.
The penetration of human chauvinism as in S2 is not something
Schell
but
product
a
is
of
truths
necessary
mathematics
of
and
in Wittgenstein ’s philosophy, where even the
are a product of human conventions and would
In Schell human chauvinism is dished up in a particularly
vanish with humans!).
powerful
obnoxious
Kantian
Thoughts
form.
tenses, values and morality, all depend in the
and
propositions, time and
presence
life-giving
of
human
- past or future or merely potential humans are not enough, persons that
beings
are not humans are certainly not enough.
’...
e.g.):
Thus according to
(II,
Schell
p.74,
the thought "Humanity is not extinct" is an impossible one for a
rational person, because as soon as it is, we are not.
In imagining
any
other
we look ahead to a moment that is still within the stream of human time,
event,
...’.
right
to
philosophy especially, which is still
European
unfortunately alive and well (e.g.
peculiar
The thought is however perfectly possible for humans;
now.
Though
we
(p.74)l.
’...
outside
can
have
it
no doubt have it falsely a later rational creature may
well be able to have it truly.
"later"
we
the
Schell erroneously denies
human
tenses
of
past,
that:
there
is
no
present, and future ...’
Human extinction eliminates ’the creature that divides time into past,
Page 43
present
future’:
and
so annihilation cannot ’come to pass’ (p.77).
simply false that the tenses are human:
the
tenses
depend
on
But it is
time
local
a
(perceptible to many creatures other than humans, but not depending at
ordering
all on perceptibility for its viability) relating other times to the present, to
now
(also
a
human-independent location, evident to other creatures, and borne
witness to by such sequences as the passing seasons).
too
easily
come
And annihilation may also
to pass, for many humans in the North at least, as it came to
pass in recent geological times that humans began to exist upon
that there was a time before there were any human beings.
earth.
Before
Here as elsewhere the
human chauvinism is mixed with other distorting metaphysical assumptions of
Western
our
heritage, verlficationism and Implicit ontic assumptions (to the effect
that there are severe difficulties in talking about what does not exist).
Thus,
for example, Schell takes over dubious metaphysics from Freud, according to whom
"it is indeed impossible to imagine our own death;
do
so,
we
(p.77/4?).
In
can
perceive
that
we
are
in
attempt
and whenever we
fact still present as spectators"
The second clause goes a good distance towards refuting
first.
the
fact there is no great problem in describing counterfactual situations which
undermine both Freud’s claims.
chauvinism
into
one
of
The same goes for Schell’s extensions
human
of
its main traditional strongholds, value theory:
the simple and basic fact [sic!] that before there can be good or evil,
or
to
service
harm, lamenting or rejoicing there must be life’, human life (p.103).
are no facts, but entrenched philosophical assumptions which have
been
’...
These
exposed
2
and criticised elsewhere .
Another obnoxious theme, which Schell repeatedly infiltrates, is
the
Pogo
theme, which
S3.
Distributes responsibility for
the
present
really) onto everyone, every human in the world.
nuclear
situation
(fiasco,
An especially blatant example
3
Page 44
the world’s political
runs as follows:
menace
leaders
...
though
the earth with nuclear weapons, do so only with our permission, and even
at our bidding.
theme
At least, this is true
elsewhere
elaborated
is
’...
for
democracies’
pay
4
we are the authors of the destruction .
while for the peoples of the non-nuclear-armed world it
sense
to
an
argument
of
all
The moral cost of
only
true
in
the
sensitivity
nuclear
of
representative
And again ’...
we
is
it
armaments
that
of us underwriters of the slaughter of hundreds of millions - ’.
And again ’[as] perpetrators ...
is not sacred but is worthless;
be killed’ (p.88).
vote
the
against
of the populace they allegedly govern.
many
are potential mass—killers.
makes
is
that they fail to try to do anything about the danger)’ (p.87).
But this is more of
government
since
extinction and support the governments that pose the threat of it,
for
negative
The
III).
(p.106,
(For the populations of the superpowers this is true in a positive sense,
we
now
they
we convey the steady messsage ...
it ...
that ...
Little of this is true.
that
life
is acceptable for everyone to
Those who campaign against nuclear,
against nuclear-committed parties so far as is possible, and the like, are
certainly not the authors of potential destruction, and responsibility
nuclear situation does not simply distribute onto them.
- or the unlikely opinions as
to
worth
Schell
everyone - fall on those who have done less.
for
the
Nor does responsibility
illegitimately
attributes
to
Responsibility for decisions taken
in "liberal democracies" even by representatives (in the unlikely event of
this
happening in the case of anything as important as defence) cannot be traced back
to those represented, since among many other things, a
representative
of
a
party
is
only
which offers a complex and often ill-characterised
package of policies, and a voter may vote for zero
package.
representative
or
more
policies
of
this
Only in the (unlikely) event of a clear single issue referendum, which
is adopted, can responsibility, still of a qualified sort, be sheeted
home,
to
Page 45
those who voted for it, not every one in the community.
When however the Pogo assumption is disentangled from the
following
theme
what results is decidedly along the right lines:
The controllers [not to be confused, in Schell’s fashion, with all of
S4.
have failed to change our pre-nuclear institutions.
The sovereign system is out
HI)
(p.51,
of step with nuclear age, the one-earth system, etc.
earth
us]
(the
whole
Unfortunately Schell often loses sight of this important theme.
theme).
S4 forms part of Schell’s critique of the state which is, by an large, scattered
and
fragmentary.
As
we saw, in §7, Schell arrives at the conclusion that the
nation-state has outlasted its usefulness, and that new
institutions
political
more ’consonant the global reality’ are required as a matter of urgency.
evades what he admits is the major task, making
viable
out
But he
alternatives.
most he makes some passing suggestions, some of which point to the Way Up.
he remains clear about are the serious defects of the state and
the
At
What
frequently
immoral purposes for which the state is used.
At one stage he contrasts what he calls Socratic-Christian ethics with that
of
state,
where ’the end [state] justifies the means . .., the raison d’etre of
government, is the basis on which
themselves
to
commit
crimes
of
governments,
every
in
sort’.
anything whatever in the name of [their] survival’.
that
all
So
times,
licensed
’states may do virtually
Schell then argues however,
extinction nullifies end-means justification by destroying every end;
that argument is far from sound, and depends again on extreme
(S2)
have
combined with ontic assumptions.
under system SI) ends could remain, e.g.
human
but
chauvinism
Even if all humans were extinguished (as
for nonhumans (actual or not).
Page 46
As to the part of the state and (state) sovereignty in war,
in
us
Schell
leaves
A sovereign state is virtually defined as one that enjoys the
no doubt.
right and power to go to war in defence or pursuit of its interests (III, p.51).
War
from how things are:
arises
jealous nation states (p.51).
and
sovereignty
from the arrangement of political affairs via
Indeed there is a two-way linkage between
On the one side, sovereignty is, Schell
capacity to wage war.
contends, necessary for people to organise for war.
is impossible to preserve sovereignty.
it
war
transparently clear as they stand.
having
On the other side,
without
Neither of these contentions is
Now that the state system in entrenched,
it
however easy for conservatives (in particular) to argue from the "realities"
is
of international life, which include self-interest,
is
It
on
basis
this
that
peace
arrangements
aggression,
readily
are
hatred.
fear,
dismissed
as
unrealistic, utopian, even (amusingly) as extremist.
Schell’s further theme that nuclear "war" is not war threatens to undermine
his
case
erroneous
an
sovereign
characterisation
nation to achieve an end’ (III,
sufficient
for
p.52):
war as ’a violent means employed by a
of
but
neither
considerations
but not all wars or games are won).
It
they
fail
(even
on one side being defeated
on
a
But in nuclear "war" this doesn’t happen, ’no one’s strength
But what these sorts
contribute to showing is not that nuclear wars are not wars,
but that they are not wars of certain sorts, e.g., not just wars
because
nor
LN
falls until both sides have been annihilated* (III, p.52).
of
necessary
if
is also claimed that war depends on weakness;
by arms.
is
But nuclear attacks can certainly have ends
cannot be won in the older sense:
decision
this
It is then claimed that war requires an end which nuclear
war.
"war" does not have.
wars
state based, for example, on its nuclear war
But the not-war theme needs much qualification, and starts out
making capacity.
from
the
against
on
such
criteria
as
reasonable
when
LN
wars
prospect of success and
Page 47
improvement, not rational wars (in a good sense), and so on.
wars
nuclear weapons have also ruined "conventional" wars, and
that
demise
the
war
of
not
just
on
his
connected
the
mistaken
has
removed
been
proposition
The
(p.52).
concerning
the
conventional war and the mistaken proposition that war of some sort
the
theme
has left no means to finally settle disputes between
nations, for the final court of appeal
depends
conventional
nuclear times does damage to Schell’s argument that
into
persisted
have
That
theme
demise
has
to
of
be
"court of appeal" between nations (for, as observed, there are other
final
types of contests that could serve, and there is also the
cooperative
behaviour,
e.g.
joint referenda);
possibility
of
more
it also imports the assumption
of Clausowicz (criticised earlier) that war has to proceed to the
technological
limit - as if war and violence were thoroughly natural activities independent of
recognised social settings (for winning, surrender, etc.) and ruleless.
wars
contrary,
are
parasitic
on
On
the
social organisations such as states and are
They are a social
governed by a range of understandings, conventions and rules.
phenomenon, with a rule structure if not a logic.
Much capital has been made from what is called "the
and
the
"logic
logic
of
deterrence"
The message that is usually
of nuclear (strategic) planning".
supposed to come through is that the massive nuclear arraangements the world
now
entangled
in
are perfectly logical, sound, reasonable, rational.
this represents little more than a cheap semantical
the
justifies
reasonable.
can
be
present
arrangements,
or
trick.
anything
in strategic planning;
values
no
in
way
in Jeffrey)
which
but is does not yield specific results
without desirability measures being assigned to alternative
without
However
like them, or renders them
There is a logic of decision (as presented e.g.
applied
Logic
is
being pumped in, extralogically .
outcomes,
that
is
There are varaious ways these
value assignments may be determined, to meet moral requirements or not;
but
in
Page 48
nuclear
planning
strategic
(Selecting the usual
expediency.
automatically;
is
have invariably been settled on the basis of
game
theory
setting
based
something
cover
strategy of’.
term
almost
Thus too the presumption in Walzer, p.277, that the logic of
on eye-for-eye and tooth-for-tooth assumptions.)
’logic of’ tends to be used very generously, as a word of general
to
this
to
sees
for it is then assumed that each player plays to maximize his or
her own advantage.
deterrence
they
like
In fact
commendation,
’rational considerations entering into the policy or
In these terms, Schell, who like others enjoys playing
with
the
’logic of’, should write of ’the illoglc of deterrence’, for he emphasizes
(III, p.80) the disparity between the supposed rationality of threatening use of
nuclear
weapons and the irrationality (even from a national interest viewpoint)
of actually using them should the threat fail:
doctrine
depends
irrational use.
deterrence
(e.g.
on
credibility
of
the
yet the
threat
of
of
success
this
deterrence
unjustifiable and
Indeed Schell wants to go further and locate a contradiction in
HI,
pp.67-8):
but the argument depends on an interesting
confusion of contradiction with cancellation, which deterrence
is
supposed
to
(etc.)
is
involve.
FOOTNOTES
1.
The appalling theme that humans create past, present and
repeated, e.g. p.104 top.
2.
See e.g.
’Human chauvinism and environmental ethics’ in Environmental
Philosophy (editor Mannison and others), Research School of Social Sciences,
Australian National University, 1980.
3.
Another example of spreading the responsibility runs as follows (Schell
p.46, III): we plan to exterminate species in certain circumstance, though
we don’t quite admit this to ourselves, as sane or sensible (or rational?).
Further (p.55 III),
’the world ...
chose the course of attempting to
refashion the system of sovereignty to accommodate nuclear weapons’:
the
world?
Connected with this is the argument from defence of fundamentals
[ideology] - e.g. for liberty, the (USA) nation, and against socialism. In
the course of this yet another fallacious assumption is rolled out:
’The
means to the end are not limited, for the end itself sets the limits in each
future
Page 49
case’
[?]
4.
There is also, mixed in, a weaker more plausible claim that gives lie to the
stronger one, namely that we have some responsibility (the Nazi situation is
compared).
5.
There is however a simple solution to Schell’s problem of the missing
motive, namely an ideological one: remove the rival ideology from future
dominance.
Page 50
APPENDIX 2: Strategies and the Matter of Collective and
Individual Responsibility
What one does depends, naturally, on where one lives
and what sort of power it is.
responsibility
work
to
entirely
to
an
In present circumstances states have
and
states,
there
ends:
responsibilities
these
no individual, or (smaller scale)
is
collective responsibility to work out a policy or
people
on
stance
matters
such
as
While such a non-responsibility
nuclear and still less to act on such a stance.
(or opt-out) theme no doubt suits many
evident
There are however some persuasive
out their policies.
arguments that this is where the responsibility
accrue
one
means
what
as what strategy a state should adopt depends on where it is located
much
has,
and
—
many
for
some,
themselves,
especially more authoritarian power-holders, for others - it does involve opting
out of moral responsibilities, responsibilities acquired by virtue
of
being
a
person within the framework of certain social arrangments.
Now there is no doubt that individuals and a group can
out.
They can neglect their moral responsibilities;
in doing so.
being
this,
do
can
opt
but they are not justified
Against this claim, which is based ultimately upon
each
person’s
caught in a web of responsibility-inducing social relations, whether they
like it or not, there are some neat arguments which appear to permit opting out.
One goes as follows:
1.
The (ordinary) individual,
difference to what happens.
2.
Such
difference.
3.
individuals,
or
or
group,
has
no
possibility
of
making
a
make
a
Therefore
groups,
have
no
obligation
to
try
to
Hence
Such individuals, or groups, are not morally responsible, for instance when
things go wrong.
Page 51
There are two main assumptions
resisted;
this
in
argument,
both
which
of
be
firstly, a variant of the ought implies can theme , and secondly, the
assumption that individuals can’t make a difference.
cannot
individuals
competitive
highly
that
true
What an
individuals
do.
full of hopeful free-riders, a person may
communities,
encouter a familiar impasse:
is
on their own, together they can.
much
accomplish
it
While
individual can achieve depends on what sufficiently many other
In
should
that he or she acts M-ly (e.g.
against
morally,
nuclear arrangements, present destruction) at considerable personal cost with no
Such an impasse no
guarantee that others will also act M-ly.
longer
faces
so
many in the West at least as regards initial steps against nuclear arrangements.
The individual can cooperate with others in ways that do make a difference.
An
individual is not exonerated from responsibility by the argument.
While individuals can respond by joining organisations whose activities are
at
directed
difference, many individuals also have the option of
some
making
more individualistic action in such
disobedience.
important
An
forms
as
or
deployment)
Evidently,
various
or
parts
redirection
however,
work more effectively
go
slows,
political
form of individual resistance, already adopted in
Canada and north-western USA is refusal to pay
defence
boycotts,
thereof
of
such
(e.g.
taxes,
income
taxes
nuclear
for
directed
weapons
Instance
towards
production
to
peace
and
funds.
all these more individualistic forms of political activity
if
individuals
integrate
their
activities
since
the
impacts aggregate (and appear after a certain stage to exponentiate).
There are arguments of some weight that individuals are under some sort
moral
obligation
to take political action to disaffiliate themselves from what
contributes to the prospects of nuclear
depends
on
the
of
sort
of
state
war.
What
type
of
action
this
is
one resides in, e.g., whether it is a nuclear
Page 52
power, whether it provides nuclear
issues
complicating
as
or
bases
facilities,
and
such
on
kind of preventive action the state is likely to
what
One argument - it is one of a type
take in return.
etc.,
be
can
that
varied
from
making nuclear weapons to, for example, providing facilities for them - proceeds
from the wrongness of nuclear war to the position that it is
making
weapons
the
such
for
The
war.
argument
here
not
applies
principles (like that of §5), for instance that the manufacture
of such weapoons increases the risk of such war.
right
and
to
connecting
deployment
But if it is not morally right
to be making such weapons then those who live in a state that is doing so
to
disaffiliate
themselves
from
such
substantive
without
The argument is
but
the
assumptions
opt-outers
and
do-nothingers
assumption,
ought
defence production, and disaffiliation
2
includes not paying for such production through defence taxes .
not
be
morally
appear
reasonable and defensible.
Such arguments not only
insofar
as
they
put
to
contribute
national
for
those
3
take action, even limited action such as redirection of taxes .
in some fashion to moral obligations;
political obligations.
And
political
limited, by moral constraints.
are
already
answer
for then moral obligations override
obligations
are
already
significantly
The nuclear situation does not so much bring out
new limits on political obligation, as emphasize the
obligations
who
There is
however no dilemma under any theory which takes political obligations to
back
spot
the
objectives, they also raise serious
questions and perhaps dilemmas as regards political obligations
would
on
limited,
and
respects
in
which
those
introduce further moral considerations
against sponsorship of national defence arrangements.
Page 53
An obligation to try
war
does not commit one to more than this:
for
an
to an obligation, for example,
work
to
But
alternative national defence policy which avoids nuclear elements.
no doubt this would be a good thing to try to contribute to.
one
nuclear
spending part of one’s working life contributing indirectly to it,
not
by
to disaffiliate oneself from preparation for
attempts
depends
commitments, and
on
forth.
so
where
lives,
one
For
not
only
the
level
are
Once
of
again,
one’s pacificist
types
different
what
policy
of
appropriate for different nations and regions, but there are more
reorientation
superficial and deeper reorientations that can be worked out and promoted,
schemes
that
"conventional"
leave
e.g.
warfare apparatus more or less Intact, and
deeper (ecological) schemes that change that.
The US Bishops, for example, present a shallower set of goals for
such
power
as
the
USA,
which
includes
such
as preventing the
objectives
working
development and deployment of destabilizing nuclear weapons systems and
for
better
of already operational systems (see PL, p.317).
control
super
a
For those
whose very limited political Influence is exerted in considerably lesser
even
the
shallow goals may look quite different:
there are no weapons (except
perhaps those of another power planted on local territory)
better
control.
The
view
from
the
very
minor
to
in
or
redeploy
to
powers in the Antipodes is
furthermore different from that of the medium powers in Europe.
prospect
powers
is
There
some
the Antipodes of avoiding the more immediate effects of an LN war,
while there is little such prospect in Europe (cf.
Preddy and
others).
There
is accordingly some obligation - an obligation little considered and not grasped
by the power holders - on those in the Antipodes to make some effort to preserve
there
elements
of
what is valuable in world civilization.
Local and regional
self-interest would also suggest steps towards self-preservation that
been initiated.
have
not
Page 54
What is broadly required in the Andipodes is a
work
out
once
removal of American bases
alliance, which is in any case of questionable merit;
and
withdrawal
of
American
rightss for nuclear-carrying equipment to
access
ports, air bases and other facilities, so as to remove
pursuit
of
more
a
evenhanded
policy
targets;
nuclear
is
That much
easy,
in
principle.
difficult to ensure is that economic and cultural collapse does not follow
an LN war in the North.
independence
Secondly then the building of Increased
in the Antipodes is required.
sustainable
of
life
its
exercise unless combined with
and
Preddey
it
others
is
own.
’the region must also
other
desirable
objectives:
unlikely - the structural readjustment
aims
of
moving
for
example,
in
estimated that 25 per cent of GDP would have to be
included Australia the costs would be less.
desirable
have
For a small region that looks a very costly
diverted to build up New Zealand’s economic independence.
which
socio-economic
It is not enough to make the region
a nuclear-free zone not worth targeting militarily:
a
local
of nonalignment (something quite small
powers elsewhere have managed to achieve).
More
to
Firstly, withdrawal from the American
goals are glimpsed.
the
matter
straightforward
the
were
For a
larger
region
If, furthermore - what seems
combined
with
the
independently
whole region towards a multicultural conserver
society and diverting "defence" spending to connected self-management and
civil
be considerably lessened.
They only appear great in the
setting of an on-going consumer-defence socleity.
In any case where life itself
defence
goals,
would
is concerned, the costs do not appear excessive.
FOOTNOTES
1.
Any satisfactory deontic theory which takes moral dilemmas with due
seriousness is bound to reject this theme. There are also independent
grounds for jettisoning this Kantian theme:
see Routley and Plumwood.
Page 55
Seatie
2.
An argument of this type was deployed by Bishop
support of his refusal to pay defence taxes.
3.
This dilemma and option is now removed for most wage earners by Pay As You
Earn taxation schemes, schemes apparently introduced to give the state
interest on gross earnings, but obviously very effective in removing
taxation power from most workers, and so from individuals to the state.
4.
Given the power of institutions and the state one may be able to do little
more than try, without giving up one’s work and therby one’s ability to
contribute to other deserving causes. For example, it may be virtually
impossible for one to avoid contributing to a superannuation fund which is
investing in projects which one opposes and/or ought to oppose.
Hunthaassen
of
in
Page 56
REFERENCES
Berg, Reinhabiting a Separate
1979.
P.
M.
Cohen, Nagel, Scanlan
Princeton, 1974.
Country,
(editors)
Planet
War
and
Drum,
Moral
San
Francisco,
Responsibility ,
R.E.
Goodin,
’Disarming nuclear apologists’, typescript, 1982.
R.E.
Goodin,
’Disarmament as a moral certalnuity’, typescript, 1983.
P(hilip) Green, Deadly Logic: The Theory of Nuclear Deterrence, Ohio State
University Press, Columbus, 1966.
N.
Griffin, ’Lifeboat USA', typescript, 1982.
Ground Zero Organisation, Nuclear War:
New York, 1982.
R.
Jeffrey, The Logic of Decision
H.
Kahn, On Thermonuclear War.
What’s In It For You?
Pocket
Book
(editor
D.P.
Lackey, ’Ethics and nuclear deterrence*, in Moral
James Rachels), Harper and Row, New York, 1979.
D.P.
Lackey,
'Missiles and morals:
a utilitarian look at nuclear
deterrence’ Philosophy and Public Affairs 11 (1982) pp.189-213.
J.C.
Problems
Murray, Morality and Modern War,
T.
Nagel, ’War and Massacre' in Cohen et al, pp.3-24.
J.
Narvesen,
'Violence and War’ in Regan, pp.109-146.
National Conference of Catholic Bishops, Committee on War and Peace,
’The
challenge of peace: God’s promise and our response’, Origins 12 (20)
(1982) pp.306-328 [hereafter referred to as PL, for ’New Draft of
Pastoral Letter’].
G.F.
Preddey and others, Future Contingencies 4.
Nuclear Disasters, A
Report
to
the
Commision for the Future, Government Printer,
Wellington, New Zealand, 1982.
T.
Regan (editor), Matters of Life and
1980.
R.
Routley and V. Routley,
Alternatives, (1982).
R.
Routley and V. Plumwood, 'Moral dilemmas and
(edit.
notions’ in Paraconsistent Logic,
Philosophla Verlag, 1983.
'The
Death,
Random
irrefutability
of
the
G.
House,
New
anarchism’,
York,
Social
logic of deontic
Priest and others)
Page 57
R.
Scheer, With Enough Shovels:
House, New York, 1982.
J.
Schell, ’Reflections (Nuclear Arms - Parts I-III)’, The New Yorker,
February
1, 8, and 15, 1982, pp.47-113, 48-109, and 45-107,
respectively. This series subtitled The Fate of the Earth, has now
appeared as a book with that title (Kopf, New York, 1982). References
in the text are to the original articles.
All references by parts
labels ’I’-’III’ are to these articles.
T.C .
Reagan,
Bush
and
Nuclear
Sharp, Exploring Nonviolent Alternatives, Boston, 1971.
T.
Taylor, Nuremburg and Vietnam:
R.W..
M.M..
M.
R.A.
S.
Random
Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, Harvard University Press, 1980.
G.
E.P..
War,
Thompson and D.
New York, 1981.
An American Tragedy,
Smith, Protest and Survive,
Monthly
Review
Press,
Tucker, The Just War,
Wakin (editor), War, Morality and the Military Profession,
Boulder, Colorado, 1979.
Westview,
Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, Basic Books, New York, 1977.
Wasserstrom (editor)
California, 1970.
War
and
Morality,
Wadsworth,
Zuckerman, Nuclear Illusion and Reality, Collins, London, 1982.
Belmont,
ON THE ETHICS OF LARGE-SCALE NUCLEAR WAR AND WAR-DETERRENCE
AND THE POLITICAL FALL-OUT
Because of their projected effects - which are said to differ from those of
the
even
largest
difference in kind -
generated,
encounters.
exchanges
either
at
all
wars
nuclear
large-scale
World
(the
wars
conventional
Wars)
raise
to
as
and
not
or nearly so forcefully, by previous human military
Certainly exchanges such as nuclear wars involve,
such
constitute a
questions
ethical
deterrence
nuclear
investigation
is
and
threatened
presupposes, are neither envisaged nor
fully accommodated by traditional theories of just wars.
reflection
as
even
required,
if
Much new
philosohical
well-tested and
rather
old-fashioned moral principles will serve as ethical base.
Nuclear wars - though a fine class of nonexistent object,
is
existence
whose
however best confined to other (already uncomfortably neighbouring) possible
worlds - have several distinctive properties and come in several varieties.
particular,
limited
nuclear
wars
which
(of
tactical
or
strategic
subvarieties) contrast with large-scale nuclear wars, LN-type-wars,
large quantities of nuclear devices over a sizeable region;
two
main
parameters:
are
need
A large-scale nuclear war involves the explosion of
however be unlimited
not
which
In
quantity
it is a function of
of explosive) and distribution.
(megatonnage
Such a war differs markedly from a limited (or tactical
or
strategic)
nuclear
war which is limited - by assumption, the chances of escalation are however very
real
3
- to much smaller quantities of explosives
characteristically
circumscribed,
installations in a given region.
wars
and
their
prevention,
and
where
the
targets
are
confined
to
military
Though the focus in what follows
is
upon
e.g.
limited
in
nuclear
principle
LN
wars are by no means a separate
Page 2
issue, since a nuclear arsenal is
escalation
of
such
are
wars
a
and
prerequisite,
high
probabilities
of
assumptions of
reasonable
usual
(given
the
follow-up or second strike, etc.)
§1.
is
What
different
old
of
appropriateness
and
models
wars:____ the
nuclear
about
theories
resulting
war.
of
limited
model of war that
A
dominates much thinking, including [even] strategic thinking, is the
two
party
4
(or even two person) game or, a complication of that, the clan or tribe battle .
A picture of war built up, especially as a result of medieval discussion of
just
war,
which
inapplicable.
for
such
technological
have
advances
The traditional theory, hardly surprisingly,
phenomena
Dresden and Tokyo.
mass
as
bombing
inappropriate
rendered
no
made
the
and
allowance
large cities, such as occurred with
of
And nuclear bombing, with its many further
crucial
effects
beyond mass bombing, adds further new dimensions.
Yet it is Important, for the argument to
anchors,
historical
linkages
and
to be aware of what counted as war (the semantics of the matter^), and
of when, and why, wars and military actions
Firstly,
retain
were
accounted
unjust
war is essentially a matter of states and their control:
or
wrong.
to elaborate
the OED account, war is ’hostile contention by means of armed forces, carried on
between
nations,
states,
or
rulers, or between parties in the same nation or
state’ for control of the state :
literal,
but
transferred,
antagonists or players;
other
metaphoric,
forces comprising
senses
of
etc.?
States
armed
the
’war’
noun
not
the protagonists,
are
soldiers
are
are
the
means
of
contention or combat, and combat or forceful (typically violent) exchange is the
actual experience.
function
of
remove states:
Thus wars are external or internal (civil),
states or their rule.
but
always,
a
An obvious way then to eliminate wars is to
in short, wars are an outcome of political
structure,
and
are
Page 3
altering the structure .
by
removed
This is an initial reason why the radical
argument against nuclear wars and deterrence devolves into an
argument
the (self-legitimised) war-declarers and war-makers, against states.
the traditional theory, wars
were
restricted
to
external
against
In fact on
which
wars,
were
construed as the right of states or their rulers (princes) for certain political
purposes, the argument being that private persons with grievences had access
the
while
courts,
did not
states
legitimate
(wars were, so to speak, the international
But this is itself a very
analogue of the law courts).
the
9
to
statist
conception
of
the semantics is not so restrictive and permits
place of wars;
internal wars, for example, to end wars.
Let us however - to bring out what is different now - confine attention
a
basic
and most familiar case, external wars between two states or set (axes)
of states, two-player external wars.
games
competitive
could
be
won.
It was assumed
be
well
no
winning strategy.
waste
of
the
Northern
huge surrounding areas of countryside.
hemisphere
and
not
like
a
draw,
or
like
the
strange
out
for
the
simultaneously knock each
other
element,
emphasis
the
inevitable
is
disputes,
removed:
be
pointfully
fought.
Certainly,
elements of gamesmenship had a role
count.)
in
for,
deterrence,
earlier
wars,
(So
where two boxers
situation
on pure deterrence;
that are most elaborately prepared for (exercised
never
the
settled with main protagonists substantially obliterated^, and all
is
is
there
Thus too the point of
main players very substantially worse off than at the outset of the "play".
it
like
An LN war could involve destruction of all
war as traditionally seen, to settle serious interstate
nothing
wars,
that
With LN wars it no longer holds;
main Western metropolitan agglomerations in
laying
firstly
That assumption still held good for massive
armed exchanges such as the World Wars.
may
to
Hence
another
newer
the phenomenon of wars
etc.),
but
which
can
bluff,
and
the other
it
was
not
but
pure
Page 4
deterrence.
to
principle
important,
Most
military
next,
traditional
and
targets
military
gross ways to uninvolved parties sacrifice
effects
nuclear
of
large nuclear wars cannot
(presented
horrifying
in
be
confined in
be
could
This
exchanges.
feature
is
for, as we shall see, wars that spill over in
fundamental as regards just wars;
special
wars
any
The
morality.
to
pretension
explosives, especially in mass, mean however that
legitimately
detail
in
confined.
popular
These
effects
special
sources such as Schell) include
radioactivity, ozone destruction, shockwaves, fireball or firestorm devastation,
etc., etc .
. ..
The moral situation, and the tendency of moral
§2.
entirely
in the context of war.
submerged
case of war to maintain a firm grasp on the
expediency.
What
is
to
considerations
become
It is particularly important in the
distinction
between
morality
done in war, especially for local or national advantage,
may be very different from what ought morally to be done, whether the latter
ought not to be
done
codes and conventions of war, or otherwise
in
war
is
done,
despite
modern
.
military
conventions and the like, for one (alleged) advantage or another.
live in a rather barbarous age:
go
unremarked,
if
so
numbing,
codes
the history gets written (accurately) that is.
tends
13
to
induce
a
and
Militarily we
will
the horrors of the twentieth century
military thinking and strategic planning
is
A
,
Much that
12
the
using
determined
and
not
Furthermore
certain
moral
that a range of morally excluded actions, such as wiping our rural
populations, become real ("moral’') possibilities, to be reckoned,
for
example,
into consequentialist calculations of maximising expediency.
The reason is that
strategic planning is characteristically based on expediency
(and
extent
displaces
morality).
so
to
that
For each side in a military encounter determines
its "strategy" by considering only its own advantages and disadvantages, its own
gains
and
losses
as a result of alternative possible moves, not, as it ought,
Page 5
those of the other side(s) as well.
Indeed it has been contended that war should be planned and conducted
way,
no-holds-barred-combat fought to the maximal (local) advantage, without
a
limits, moral or other (except insofar as technology limits the means of
etc.,
themselves).
Such
is
the
And Clausowicz tries to
repeated.
argue,
through
14
an
be
broken
by
player
each
in
from
And the argument is inconclusive;
c
Thus too an
It would follow
for the
players
from
the
can
choose
15
A state engaged in war - this will no doubt include nuclear
nowadays
war
sees itself as entirely bound by constraints of morality:
to be mere prudence on the part
no-immoral-holds-barred
of
approach
those
they
attacked
to
take
-
seldom
it is taken
account
of
the
may well encounter, especially from the
So each group potentially engaged in war forces
other side.
the
question
not
as to what it ought to do in morally permissible situations, but also both
what it ought really do and what it can do in the morally flawed
finds
enforced)
escalate, and, for example, agree to abide by arranged practices, types
to
of weapons, etc.
only
The
that the idea of a limited war is some sort of contradiction in terms.
But it is not.
not
escalation
externally
for advantage.
turn
extraordinarily narrow motivational base is assumed.
argument
incremental
), that there can be no limit.
assumption is that any merely selected (as distinct
will
force,
so-called "classic" view of Clausowicz, oft
argument (but really "the bald man" fallacy
limit
this
itself
in.
But
last
the
question
does
not
then
situations
it
reduce to one of
expediency.
There is
expediency,
involves.
no
question
of
morality
giving
or
having
to
give
way
to
for instance under extreme circumstances such as prospect of LN war
For it is not as if shaky considerations of morality are bound to
to
Page 6
give
not only
firm ground of expediency when the chips are down:
the
to
way
does this in fact often enough not happen in crises situations, but the fact
that
is
both morality and expediency fall within the same, equally shaky or solid,
Expediency does not (meticulously) deliver us from
domain of value theory.
fact, but simply takes narrowly-construed local advantage or power as
to
value
what is valuable, as what matters;
family,
that
urges
values
local
-
of
self,
region or nation - are what really count and override or
class,
clan,
it
are to be maximized at the expense of
remote
or
considerations.
foreign
By
morality requires, as a matter of its proper characterisation, a much
contrast,
more universal distribution of value
thereby
the
through
imposes,
requirements
general
of
universalizable
intersubstitutivity
resultant
equillbity
fairness,
of the same results not holding when x and y are interchanged, under
Not
evaluations 16.
certain
principles,
justice.
and
and
principles,
The
deep
expediency derives from the failure of interreplacement,
of
unsatisfactoriness
so
and
only
can
expediency
be given a deontic presentation, as
expediency
through such slogans as "might is right", but theories or utility do not have to
be
positions
of
expediency
utilitarianism proper —
morality,
which
if
can
utility
meet
not
is
locally
intersubstltutivity
Thus
confined.
requirements
of
unlike the war game theory, does not assign different weights
which,
to (say) the individual utility of Americans as opposed to Russians — is not
to
be dismissed as considering only expediency.
There are however significant moral differences, between
and
utilitarians
17
deontologists especially, which serve to further complicate the moral picture
Thus utilitarian approaches have seemed to
justify
ugly
strategies
and
practices
render
as
morally
regards
deontological principles would not permit (even with the
convenient
law
of
double
effects).
But
this
is
permissible
enemy
best
already
or
civilians,
bending
to
of
to
that
the
effect some
Page 8
Characteristically, national interest is taken
to
differently,
to
override
morality
impose Irresistible ethical claims that dominate more ordinary
ethical considerations (such as even the immorality of killing millions).
as
or,
Schell puts it,
Thus,
’What is being claimed is that one or two countries have the
right to jeopardise all countries and their descendents in the name
certain
of
beliefs’ (II, p.70).
But morally national interest can do neither of those things.
simply
the
The first is
substitution of expediency for morality, which entirely lacks moral
justification, while
second,
the
the
alleged
moral
dominance
of
national
fails in important classes of cases, including, so the argument will
Interests,
go, the case of LN war.
States may insist upon operating on a selfish national interest basis,
let
it
not
pretended
be
expediency (’’group
governments.
Morality
it
is
a moral basis as distinct from one of
There
is
no
that
egoism’’).
works
in
the
special
dispensation
moral
For
example,
what
ought
be
to
as
regards
x
semantically, what would happen as regards x in all ideal worlds;
no
difference
x
is
an
individual
or
States such as Israel (in its recent
organisation.
behaving
whether
just
as
immorally
as
brigands
individual
invasion
or mass killers:
difference.
Certainly there are grounds on which states or
claimed
been conceded special moral dispensations;
or
for
same way for groups as for individuals:
there is no logical difference in the pattern of justification, or
obligation.
but
are no more than that and do not stand up to criticism.
of
analysis
is,
analysed
and it
makes
system, group or
of
are
Lebanon)
there is no moral
their
agents
have
but the excuses offered
A
satisfactory
moral
theory cannot furnish two (Incompatible) moralities, a state or public one and a
private or individual citizen one - state expediency and individual
morality
-
Page 7
partisanship - since utilitarians would
the
reject
description
practices
of
permitted under their principles as ’ugly’ - and an objective in what follows is
to avoid metaethlcal partisanship, to achieve metaethical, though of course
moral,
neutrality.
argument can begin.
several
And morally there is a large area of consensus
Virtually all positions
cities
major
in
agree
that
the
18
not
from which
obliteration
of
a LN war would be wrong - indeed morally outrageous.
Where there is dissension, as there may be among nuclear strategists who seem to
feel
qualms
no
when it comes to trading loss of some American cities for some
Russian ones, simply increase the costs involved, up to loss of whole nations if
necessary,
then try to work down again.
until moral repugnance is encountered;
The fact remains however that things have got substantially out of
perspective,
Strategic thinking, in particular, has tended to abandon, or suppress
morally.
moral considerations (as indeed many theories of the state also pretend to do).
Naturally the fact of broad consensus as to the morality of the matter does
not
mean that there are none who would welcome such outrageous happenings, that
total nuclear destruction of the North even, would be
Consider
the
world empire.
be
realised.
rising
southern
(hemisphere)
no
one’s
While the superpowers of the north remain SS’s dream
Thus
his
best
strategy,
exchange
in
the
North.
There
advantage.
strongman, SS, who has visions of
will
can
be
to
a
encourage
point
an
all-out
then in securing
institutional arrangements so that potential SS’s do not accumulate much
especially
given
the
that is to anticipate:
has
its
limitations,
structural adjustments.
hardly
rid of southern waters of US
having
submarines and southern lands of US bases, is to try
nuclear
to
power,
apparent instability of crucial world arrangements.
the present point is that (the fact of) moral
and
is
an
inadequate
But
consensus
constraint without accompanying
Page 9
19
because this would lead to violations of substitutivity , neutrality, etc.
instance, a state operative x could use state
cover
morally impermissible ways, ways ruled out (e.g.
y are permuted.
derivative
A group or organisation or
in
consideration
can
but
role,
bound
be
by
moral principles.
special
these are derivative
principles, good for any such institution, which fit within and answer
general
in
y
by state interests) when x and
person
its
of
virtue
citizen
damage
to
For
back
to
So it is also with a state which is an institutional
arrangement justified (insofar as it is) by the way it answers back to some
least)
its
of
citizens:
its
(at
charter does not legitimate emergent allegedly
moral principles which conveniently coincide with those of state expediency.
particular,
In
state is not (morally) entitled to risk the lives of many of its
a
own citizens and of other peoples and creatures for its own ends, even
its
for
own survival.
§3.
Arguments to the Immorality of LN wars.
can
which
set
be
since
aside,
the
concede that war per se is not a crime.
but
pacifist
positions
immorality of LN wars follows at once -
Not all wars are immoral,
though
states.
aristocratic
Among
young
men
admissible
wars
are
the
external
tournaments
or
of
or warriors who volunteer as soldiers where the action
does not spill over onto noncombatants, and some early and medieval wars,
few
even
wars may be pointless or inferior ways of settling political issues
inoffensive
between
All
no combatants even were killed in war.
where
Since the establishment of such
induction practices as conscription and recruitment of the near-destitute,
have
largely
ceased
to take these inoffensive forms:
far removed from the ideal
ecotopian
literature
war-tournament
(where
type,
that
its position is dubious).
immoral, but few to such an extent as LN wars.
wars
modern massive wars are
features
now
only
in
Most sorts of wars are
Page 10
argument
The first key
to
(1KA)
the
of
(and
wars
LN
of
immorality
sufficiently large-scale wars generally) takes the following form:
Pi.
The deliberate killing in mass of noncombatants is wrong.
Pli.
LN wars involve the killing in mass of noncombatants.
(KA)
What involves what is wrong is wrong.
Piii .
LN wars are wrong.
J
Supplementary remarks are called for:- Firstly, the
(1KA)
is
one
just
representative
of
a
Characteristically, in Western culture, it
is
arguments
of
that
thought
argument
given
of
type.
mass
this
taken
But the focus can be
off
the
killing:
destruction
of
a first variation on (KA) replaces ’killing
the
is
basis
of
may
each
be
attacked
of its premisses.
wrong
is
as
There
slack
by
a
has
in
effect
been
Let us consider these in
that
what
involves
are,
in
particular,
such
those generated by Good Samaritan arguments, which purport to show
that some proper obligations involve wrongdoing.
too
noncombatants’
wrong, often expanded to a "distribution of obligation over
entailment" principle, has been challenged.
problems
(and
The principle, Piii, used in the argument,
reverse order.
what
of
Other variations will emerge in the discussion.
but
The argument is valid,
on
mass
Thus
concerning ’huge destruction of lifestyle of uninvolved or not
clause
directly involved creatures’.
attacked)
in
of
lifestyle
nonhumans and humans alike that an LN war will bring is sufficiently evil.
suitable
of
killing
about the worst thing that can happen (after the killing of police).
is
humans
set
particular
a
notion
of
involvement;
linked to paradox-free entailment
20
But the problems
derive
from
with a tighter Involvement connective,
, the problems disappear, and Piii stands.
Page 11
As against Pii, it may be
legitimately
argued
against
directed
nuclear
that
military
targets.
wars
can
encounters
be
But given the character of
nuclear weapons, LN wars could in no way be confined to such targets.
merely the likelihood that many missiles explode off target.
not
the other effects of large-scale nuclear bombings, for example
down-wind
fallout
There
is
There are all
the
radioactive
military targets, which in the case of US and European
from
targets especially will effect large concentrations of people, Including therein
perhaps uninvolved countries such as Canada.
There may be an attempt to avoid the problem of massive civilian casualties
by
appeal
to such dubious principles as the doctrine of double effect (or side
21
effect)
If missiles were characteristically
was
which
intended
only
to
destroy
an
reliably
underground
unmanned
unfortunately went off course and destroyed a large city, it
the
that
Such claims should be rejected:
not
wrongness
lessened
could make a difference;
for
firing
the city.
the
and
one
missile silo
could
be
claimed
mass destruction is legitimised under the double effect
(unintended)
principle.
target,
on
the action would be wrong, and
by the given intention.
the
Nonetheless the circumstances
for they may mitigate attitudes to
those
responsible
missile, since it was not as if they had deliberately aimed at
The double effect principle confuses [diminution of]
the
allocation
of responsibility for an act with the [diminution of] wrongness of the act.
As against Pi, and as regards the middle term of Pi
argued
that there is an important equivocation.
the bracketed term,
killing
’deliberate’.
While it will
and
Pii,
it
may
be
The equivocation is induced by
be
that
admitted
deliberate
of genuine innocents is impermissble , it will be contended firstly that
they
noncombatants, insofar
as
innocent,
directly
many
being
are
distinguishable,
involved
in
are
by
no
means
all
military effort, whether just as
Page 12
taxpayers or as suppliers of goods
farmers
or
services
used
innocent.
second
The
point
Because Pii so amended in less defensible, and/or other reasons,
discussed.
leave
to
out the "modifier" ’deliberate’.
of
the perpetrators.
it
What is important for the
present purposes is the moral status of what is done, not that
motives
e.g.
military,
a much narrower - and less defensible - version of premiss Pll already
concerns
best
the
and secondly LN wars do not involve the
or bootmakers or entertainers;
deliberate killing of those properly excluded as
is
by
mixed
with
the
So ’deliberate’ is out, equivocation is avoided,
22
Pii stands, and so does
Pl.
For
not
does
Pi
’deliberate’, or ’intentional’ or the like.
require
the
qualification
Admittedly also ’noncombatant’ is a
fuzzy term, but none the worse for that, and there
is
no
problem
serious
in
marking out a class of clear noncombatants, people who are not directly involved
in the command and action chains.
practice,
deriving
from
There is, moreover,
Catholicism,
of
no
need
to
the
adopt
stating an initial version of Pi in
terms of innocents - at least as problematic a class as that of noncombatants to
try
to characterize - and then endeavouring to make the difficult transition to
noncombatants.
Not only can arguments against the premisses of the argument be met,
art
arguments
for
the
premisses, though for the substantive moral premiss Pi
they are of the characteristically nonconclusive moral sort
vary somewhat with the underlying ethical theory.
and
will
tend
seriously
understate
the
point)
minimal respect owed to them as persons
doing
so
23
The argument from historical requirements on just wars
from
convergence.
conclusion
that
fails to treat them with the
§4.
The
to
For example, one argument for
Pi, and for objecting to the killing of noncombatants, is the Kantian one,
(to
there
that
and
the
argument
LN wars cannot be justly waged - and
Page 13
accordingly are unjustified - is not merely something dreamed up by contemporary
opponents
The same conclusion falls out of various traditional requirements, worked
etc).
out
America or of the capitalist State (and communistically inspired,
of
times
mdeieval
in
just
for
variant on the key argument (1KA).
was
justly
that
not
it
be
One of the requirements gives but a
wars.
For a necessary condition for fighting a war
the
that
case
noncombatants are bound to be killed (cf.
numbers
large
[innocent]
of
Barnes, p.775).
A just war requires just means, that the war should be
fought
morally
by
which
implies in particular that there is no indiscriminate
killing of noncombatants.
The implied principle was escapsulated in a principle
legitimate
of
means,
(between combatants and others) which ’prohibits all actions
discrimination
directly Intended to take the lives of
p.312)
24
civilians
and
of
(PL,
noncombatants’
LN wars, where not only military installations are targeted, violate
.
U.
.
25
this requirement
Overlapping the requirement of just means is that of
proportion being that of net evil to net good):
’the damage to be inflicted and
costs Incurred by the war must be proportionate to the good expected
up
arms’
(PL,
p.312).
disproportionate
to
moral
goods
proportionality requirement is
criterion
of
by
the
which
achieved
in
doctrine
"improvement" through war :
not
are
of
that
nationally
way.
confined,
overall
consequences
of
abstaining
improvement "puts wrongs to rights":
"ameliorative"
conditions
and
war
according to the first,
justly
the
’X wages war
bad,
from war’ (Barnes, p.72).
’A nation wages war
are
Entangled with the
justly upon y if the overall consequences of war are better, or less
the
taking
is not difficult to see that LN wars violate this
It
the damage and costs,
requirement:
(the
proportionality
only
than
Similarly
if
the
for that nation or the wronged nation it is supporting have a decent
Page 14
chance of being better after the fighting ends’ (Wakin, p.20).
way
LN war can in no
satisfy these conditions, as scenarios depicting the aftermath of such wars
reveal.
Some of the lesser requirements for a just war are infringed
wars;
LN
It seems that there can
for example, that of reasonable expectation of success.
be no reasonable expectation of success in an LN
by
war,
the
whatever
prospects of success with more limited nuclear exchanges.
(limited)
What is less clearcut
is the question of whether LN wars conflict with the requirements of just
cause
or due fault and of right intention.
For this depends on the sensitive issue of
the weight assigned to what are seen
as
basic
rights
human
and
fundamental
values, and the extent to which just wars can be ideologically justified.
the
mainstream
justified
position
and
wars
definitively excluded
however,
in
puzzling
of
medieval
"humanitarian"
by
the
over
decisive against LN wars.
theory
wars
(cf.
traditional
was
opposed
to
While
ideologically
Barnes, p.778), these were not
theory.
There
is
merit,
little
dubiously effective requirements, when so many are
Finally, these arguments from historical requirements
do not violate prescriptive requirements:
the argument is not a simple argument
from historical authority, but also
premisses
uses
requirements imposed (and used) were justified.
the
to
effect
that
the
As they are.
In the Christian tradition there were two main strands of reflection on the
moral
rightness
or
justness
of
wars
9A
,
the
just
war
theory
and a rival
pacificist strand, prominent in early Christianity, but submerged from Augustine
on until contemporary times.
Both exclude nuclear wars, one strand because they
are inevitably unjust, the other because they are wars and
This
is
the
involve
violence
beginning of the convergence argument against nuclear wars:
such wars are excluded from all ethical perspectives, once
expediency
is
27
that
duly
Page 15
The detailed argument
They are morally wrong however you look at it.
removed.
is an exhaustive case by case one, from each type of moral theory.
can
details
For deontological and contractual theories lead back
be shortcut.
to requirements for a just war,
violate.
Fortunately
which
it
has
already
shown,
been
In fact conditions for just wars were sometimes arrived at or defended
through principles of such moral theories, so that a good deal of the
work
argumentative
already
has
brand
utilitarian
of
finally accomplished;
for
such
and
is
adopted,
not
is
far
to
have
effect
in
shown
pleasure,
reason
The
wars Involves such massive
that
this
dominates
genuine alternative to LN war is better
or
28
outlined
against
overwhelming moral case against such wars.
wars
LN
do
not
exhaust
the
For there are other moral principles
(derivative in some of the theories just considered) which the waging of
war would violate.
in
are accomplished in utilitarian fashion, so that any
they
The arguments given
LN
that
utility maximisation is
however
seek:
infliction of pain and colossal removal of
however
others
requisite
latter point holds also as
LN wars are excluded on utilitarian grounds.
convergence
assessments
The
done.
been
regards utilitarianism, where Lackey
whatever
wars
LN
an
LN
Among such principles are conservative ones, that we have an
obligation to maintain the earth in proper shape and not
degrade
its
systems,
that we have a responsibility to future generations, to whom we are accountable,
to "pass the world on" not in substantially worse condition
it".
Such
conservative
principles
than
we
"received
- however they are finally satisfactorily
formulated - are bound to be violated in the event of an LN war.
§5.
The shift to
nuclear
lobby
nuclear
arguments
deterrence:
to
its
immorality.
The
has a way of halting, and if not defeating, certainly deflating,
arguments against
the
immorality
of
LN
wars,
namely
there
is
no
actual
Page 16
such
any
In
engagement
wars.
different from engagement in
war:
LN
being done is, it is claimed, quite
is
What
is
deterrence
indeed
important
most
precisely in preventing such wars from ever occurring, as well as in maintaining
(other) fundamental [Western] values.
obtaining
desiderata.
both
is
deterrence
pronouncements,
claims
The
reasons:- A first reason is that
Indeed it is the only
there
are
is
much
for
more
than
deterrence can account neither for
strategy
military
Western
disarmament to
expected
be
On
deterrence.
29
the
despite
For if it
and sometimes even a drive for superiority.
this,
actual
nuclear
of
In fact there has been a
were "sufficiency" to deter would be an adequate goal.
quest
that,
evidence
the - the only - military goal.
not
way
dubious, for several
decidedly
too
practical
nor
weapons
for
Pure
orthodox
Nor has deterrence set in motion the process of
.
to
armaments
reduce
"its"
under
contrary,
to
levels
impulse
there
sufficient
has
for
been almost
unlimited acceleration in building arms (PL, p.318, quotes inserted).
Another
of
deterrence
reason
for
the
type
serious
that
is
doubt
being
concerns
other reasons also, connected
with
pure
deterrence
The reasons include the
for
nuclear
war
and
with
to
For
original
(its
threatening
posture
deterrence
for, the propaganda that must be promulgated to maintain credibility with
a population whose interests are being
etc.
conditions
the "cold war", the probability of a LN war has increased considerably
in the last 30 years.
calls
factor:
to that extent, at least, enhanced its prospects of occurring.
and
setting)
probability
practised, which involves full-scale
preparation for nuclear war, has prepared the
occur,
the
The
"sacrificed"
for
objectives,
situation has now been reached where many theorists think there is a
high probability at least of an LN war this century, i.e.
certainly
military
be
before 2000.
It
can
argued - though there seems no way to make any such a probability
argument at all tight, and it may be demonstrable that it cannot be made tight -
Page 17
that there is a non-negligible probability of an LN war before 2000.
If it is wrong that X should occur, then it is also wrong that
Cl.
be
But
highly
probably
that
should
it
X occur, and it is wrong to increase the probability
that X occur.
This is the first
several
of
connecting
doxastic
mapping
principles
moral
considerations against LN war into arguments against deterrence of LN war by the
perverse practice of preparing for it and thereby helping "to
the sense of raising the probability).
(in
it
bring
about"
But like most principles in ethics,
Cl requires complication to avoid defeat by counterexamples.
The second part of
Cl encounters apparent trouble where clash of principles occurs.
Thus it may be
argued that it is permissible to increase the probability that X occurs to avoid
a
greater
Consider for example the pilot who increases the probability
evil.
that the passenger plane he is flying crashes in order to
aircraft
troubled
does
not
make
hit city apartment buildings
30
.
sure
Such a defeating
condition does not apply in the case of nuclear deterrence where
is
there
(though
of principles) wrongness of a practice is not offset or removed by
clash
a
the
that
its role in avoiding greater evil.
It can be argued that it is;
argument
from
the
previous
such is part of
success
of
the
deterrence.
point
of
the
popular
This inductive argument
deserves little more credence than the racing driver’s argument, perhaps from
similar
that because he hasn’t had a fatal crash yet (despite some
base,
time
a
close calls), he won’t.
There are, furthermore, reasons for concluding
continue
to
work.
of
will
not
One is the deterrence depends upon judgements regarding the
other side, which may be mistaken:
perception
deterrence
that
what
strategy
’each
is
is
at
rational",
the
mercy
what
kind
the
of
of
other’s
damage
is
Page 18
one
"unacceptable", how "convincing"
Not
p.313).
threat
side’s
other’
the
(PL.
as
rational,
regards
limited
but there must be severe doubts as to whether rational principles
war,
As to the last consider, for example, the
are operating effectively.
idea
to
is there evidence that one side (the USA) has misjudged the
only
other side’s (the USSR’s) perception of what is
nuclear
is
(already
erroneous
to, as held in high places of power) that LN war can be
alluded
survived in rudimentary shelters, and also won.
Deterrence consists in preventing something (often some wrong) by
threats
including
31
OED) .
(cf.
fright
For most
people
without
not
Immoral
destruction of New York.)
deterrence,
that
is
his graphic descriptions
But though deterrence per
deterrence
from
suchmeans is of course not immoral.
publishing
in
them
LN
expense, trouble and wastage of preparing to
enormous
And deterrence by
engage in them.
was
the
all
or
scenarios
vivid
portraying the horror or LN wars would serve adequately to deter
wars,
fear
by
complete
se
is
the
of
(Schell
nuclear
permissible,
war
preparation of the object to be
prevented, is not, where this object Itself is not
permissible.
The
argument
for this is through the principle
C2.
If X is wrong then complete preparation of X is wrong.
Hence since LN wars are wrong and war-deterrence implies
of LN wars is wrong.
war—deterrence
X is just as bad as doing X:
Y.
preparation,
It is not being claimed that preparing for
Y and Z may both be wrong and Z (much) worse
than
, 32
What is wrong is by no means uniformly evil
Principle C2
principles:
a
part
is
way
succeeds
or
down
the
line
in
a
series
of
connecting
principle of the same sort that it higher in the series is that
connecting X with attempted X:
X
complete
not
33
.
But
if X is wrong then attempted X is wrong, whether
the
series
ends;
it cuts off well before mere
Page 19
intentionality, contrary to the claims
example,
it
does
various
of
religious
For
positions.
not follow that if X is wrong then the contemplation of X is
wrong or that mere non-action-oriented consideration of carrying out X is wrong.
The
applies
point
nightmares.
or
war,
equally
sexual fantasies, power fantasies, and nuclear
to
In particular there is nothing
reflecting
upon
it,
as we are:
wrong
nuclear
nuclear wars, even if their horrors
don't bear thinking on, are not unthinkable, and in
thinkable.
contemplating
with
some
senses
are
all
too
Indeed one of the reasons why the connecting principles hold is that
each involves decidedly increased probability of the evil
outcome
it
connects
Accompanying the increased probability are certain sets of reprehensible
with.
these are not those
attitudes tied to the action the evil outcome involves;
mere passive contemplation
of
34
this
War-deterrence involves not only war preparation, but announcement of
accompanied by threats and a threatening posture.
For some party, the potential
enemy, has to be frightened, if deterrence is to succeed.
This aspect of (war-)
deterrence yields a further connecting principle,
If X is wrong then threatening X is also wrong.
C3.
is
wrong
to do ...
then
the
declared
Intent
put
to
that
Intending to do wrong is wrong, and so also is
favourable
circumstances
for
one’s
alternatively be argued semantically:
(e.g.
into
Intending
position
committing
35
.
rape)
The
is
practice is also wrong.
to
prevail.
if a world with X
'What
Ramsey:
is wrong to threaten ...’ (quoted in Walzer p.272)
reason is that if putting something into practice
wrong
Thus too
is
do
wrong
The
never
unless
point
ideal
can
then
neither is a world in which X is only conditionally blocked, in which X may well
occur.
Page 20
By detachment from the connecting principles - one sound one would
but
logically,
defensible
three
ones is good measure - nuclear deterrence by
preparation for and threat of LN war is
This
wrong.
also
reveals
suffice
Deterrence
wrong.
of
this
type
the suggestion that the morality of the whole
why
deterrence thing depended on war itself never occurring was so bizarre:
connections between war and war-deterrence.
the
out
is
it left
War-deterrence should not
be practised any more than nuclear war itself should be engaged in - unless
directions can be drastically changed (e.g.
its
at least limited, per impossible in
the case of nuclear, to purely military targets).
There are other concomitant reasons for
the
Firstly,
with
dissatisfaction
deterrence.
it has provided (nuclear peace, as there is no shortage of
peace
small-scale conventional wars) is at least a tenuous peace, which is not stable,
liable
but
upset at any stage by a range of factors, including error (both
to
It does not offer genuine peace, of the sort required for
human and technical).
a
international life, but only a fragile "peace of a sort" (PL, p.316).
stable
Secondly, there is enormous cost, the
because
on
expenditure
it
moral
excludes
Bishops put their point in a surprising
opportunity
urgent
other
by
Marxist
cost
of
deterrence,
The US
moral priorities.
way:
in
terms
of
’the
between what is spent for destructive capacity and what is needed
contradiction
for constructive development’ (PL, p.316).
§6.
The
and
super-states;
arguments to
persuasive
prudential
practical,
the
the
resulting
arguments
(that
have
war
persuaded
justifiability of nuclear war preparation in
basic
argument
is
simply
an
elaboration,
build-up
nuclear
situation.
moral-fix
nuclear
of
immorality
to
argument
Not
preparation;
many
the
or
theorists)
present
of
the
only are there
there
to
are
the
circumstances.
also
moral
The
state-uplift, of that for the
Page 21
escalation of weapons at the local level, for acquiring a gun or for stocking-up
the
armoury [and every bit as doubtful as that argument].
neighbourhood
that nuclear preparation,
first
danger:
of
nuclear destruction.
blackmail,
’so we have
been
told,
against
guards
all atomic blackmail and foreign domination;
The two
together,
go
since
if
did
we
double
the
and second of
not
the
fear
we might adopt a policy of appeasement or surrender and so avoid the
destruction’ (Walzer, p.273).
In fact it is supposed to guard against more than
there is a crucial third element, namely, loss of basic rights (freedom,
these;
equality, etc.) and fundamental values (preservation of
etc.)
and
ways of life integrated with these.
truth,
dignity,
human
This further set of elements is
linked to the danger of foreign domination - which is really a separate
from
It is
risk
blackmail.
of
element
Though foreign domination need not imply the loss of
most basic values it does imply the loss of at least of one, self-determination,
freedom
to choose various national objectives;
conversely loss or infringement
of basic values can occur without foreign domination, e.g.
of
by
internal
change
government or governmental approach, by the increased security and control a
nuclear state demands, etc.
values,
through
Nuclear destruction can also involve loss of
destruction
but the converse does not hold.
basic
of the material base of the cherished life-style;
It should be observed that not all
the
values
concerned are equally fundamental:
one of the main values of deterrence theory,
the resistance to and
of
containment
"communism",
is
questionable
this
in
regard.
The theme is, in short,
NA.
Because of multiple (connected)
states)
which
have
nuclear
dangers
from
another
state
(or
other
weapons, a state - any state that is too large to
rely upon other states - is obliged to invest in [matching] nuclear weapons.
Page 22
Hence, by detachment, a nation-state, such as USA, ought to
order
the
of
nuclear
armoury
that
it
something
have
in
has, or, weakening the theme to meet
objections concerning excess, "overkill", capacity, at least a solid core of the
nuclear
devices
it
has.
out whether the obligation is a moral one,
Sorting
because for instance of the character of the values supposedly being
merely
or
one
protected,
of prudential reason - it is presumably somewhat more than mere
expediency - can be set aside for the present.
On the
same
basis
it
can
be
argued that unilateral disarmament against a dangerous nuclear opponent would be
prudentially irrational.
It can be freely admitted that what is prudentially required is,
like
the
common strategies of the prisoners’ dilemma situation and of certain competitive
games, a suboptimal strategy;
sufficient
trust,
that a
superior
strategy
for
adversaries,
if
etc., could be achieved, would be a cooperative arrangement.
Joint agreement would be better not merely in removing the moral dilemma, but in
a
range of other respects:
it would be much less risky, expensive, draining of
resources and destructive of the environment, etc.
However for the present
and
the foreseeable future the prospects of cooperation appear, so we are repeatedly
told, unfortunately rather remote:
or
the only sure insurance is nuclear
if one is a smaller nation, a larger ally who has an arsenal.
force
(Here a level
of trust is called for which is far from foolproof, and which contrasts strongly
with
the
lack of trust displayed elsewhere.)
The nuclear theme for a middling
or lesser power is a bit different from NA and ends rather as follows:
MA.
Because ..., a state that cannot rely on
obliged
ally.
its
own
nuclear
resources
is
to accommodate the nuclear installations and facilities of a protecting
Page 23
Principle MA is not very plausible, nor are the
for
substitutes
obvious
Not only MA but also NA, is now coming under question by disarmament
it ° .
who
groups,
more
challenge
the
basic
assumptions
of
the
underlying
general
retaliatory model that
Safely lies in weapons, and
1)
More weapons imply more security
ii)
37
Certainly, for more isolated states, such as New Zealand,
lies
attack
submarines).
more
of
a
in
excluding
nuclear
facilities
from
safety
nuclear
(including visits from nuclear
Europeans are arguing in a similar way, that the present system is
risk
[liability] than a protection (p.251, Thompson);
nuclear installations, Europe cannot be the
envisaged
and without
for
theatre
a
limited
nuclear war it is now seen as by US (but not Soviet) strategists.
Once i) and ii) are questioned, other assumptions of the retaliatory
model
and its variants come up for examination, namely
iii)
iv)
Whether the proper response to danger is armament, in particular
Whether the proper response is through nuclear armament, as
opposed
to other military responses (such as conventional arms),
and generalising on part of Hi),
v)
Whether military approaches/procedures (through armaments, etc.)
the
proper
is
method, or should be the method, of conflict resolution
at the international level.
It is plausibly argued against military procedures that at no ordinary level
do
we set about meeting danger or settling disputes by acquiring lethal weapons and
threatening to use them - except perhaps
warranted,
frontier
ethics.
But
on
an
out-dated,
and
never
really
this takes us into the issue of alternative
defence systems, an important matter beginning to
obtain
the
contemporary
38
explanation it deserves, but one that already anticipates subsequent questioning
Page 24
While the state system is intact,
of the framework of nation-states.
not
and
exceptional
inevitable:
according
military
to
is
are
to
be expected and are likely
permanent place
in
the
procedures
’force has [a] ...
force
nation-state
system’
Ramsey (p.xv) who uses this as part of his case for a nuclear war
doctrine.
far
Assembling the arguments so
to as the nuclear fix:-
referred
hereafter
developed
engage
to
sections)
it
is
and
immoral,
in war-deterrence, for prudential reasons (as argued using NA
This dilemma is no idle construction
and MA).
dilemma,
deontic
States both ought not to engage in
war-deterrence, because (as argued in previous
ought
the
yields
(concocted
to
demonstrate
of paraconsistent logic), but a serious real-life dilemma, the outlines
virtues
of which are repeatedly encountered in texts on nuclear war and its aspects
The nuclear fix is in part simply a more intense
dilemma
beyond
produced
purely
by
itself^,
war
military
typically
transport,
(since
targets
rely
on
or
version
of
deontic
the
civilian ones).
e.g.
arrangements,
military
rail
The main dilemma arises from a
War is
required
for defence of the state and values it upholds (or pretends to uphold);
also involves immoral acts and evil consequences.
also
seen
be
’some
The doctrine
"just
of
justifications
of
war
evil
alm
are
consequences
to
morally
war’
(Walls, p.260).
dilemmas, e.g.
most
difficult
war"
the
aegis
War and preparedness for war also generate subsidiary
a severe tension between freedom and
problems
justified.
show that actions deemed normally
forbidden by moral mandates are now permissible when performed under
of
but war
as attempting a reconciliation by trying to show that under
certain circumstances these really
Thus
39
at least war which spreads inevitably
combination of the retaliatory model with the features of war.
can
the
of
war
Involves
authority:
defending
a
’one
of
the
free society without
Page 25
destroying the values that give it meaning and validity’ (PL, p.324).
The essential feature of a moral dilemma is that both A and the negation of
A
are
well
essential role of moral dilemmas is not widely or
literature
41
The place and
(or differently, obligatory), for some suitable A.
wrong
.
positions
Moreover
understood
utilitarianism
like
cannot
ethical
in
at all easily
accommodate moral dilemmas or the data which gives rise to them - but then
such
positions do not really offer reportive accounts of wrong and obligation anyway.
Contrary to utilitarian perceptions a dilemma
does
not
any
have
necessarily
moral solution, though there may be better and worse ways out.
Reactions and responses that are characteristic of
the
from
nuclear
moral
dilemmas
There is an unsteadiness, an uncertainty as to what to
fix.
do, which way to proceed, which principles in watered-down form to
temporary
Thus,
crutch.
for
world’
best"
42
as
a
of
way
"morally
never
our
exercising
moral
, that is in a morally-strapped world.
ethical
Bishops who
the
of
’strictly
conditional’
moral fix.
Deterrence has a strictly temporary role
but
can
be
responsibility
a
shift
"morally
in a fallen
to
a
’moral
"second
acceptability’
try to escape ’the paradox of deterrence’, i.e.
while
acceptability,
good",
A similar
deterrence
we
as
(as from good to acceptable) is made by the US Catholic
functor
speak
grasp
example, the Bishop of London contends that the
possession of nuclear weapons ’while
acceptable"
emerge
the
object
must
and
strictly
be to move beyond deterrence,
of
from the
conditional
’towards a
world free of the threat of deterrence’ (PL, p.317), out of the nuclear fix.
To make matters worse the nuclear fix
is
is,
not
furthermore,
a
fix
of
(more
something they happened into, by
affluent)
states’
accident.
The initial nuclear involvement was deliberately chosen, primarily by
USA,
and
the
own
making.
It
escalation has by and large also been deliberately chosen, again
Page 26
In these respects the situation is like that
often by the USA.
who
person
deliberately lets perself to be involved in two incompatible relations, and
that
currency,
of
adoption
nuclear
is
the
that
nuclear
build-up.
The recent (1980)
programme is to be in addition to existing
are
(which
Soviet
USA Initiated nuclear armament, and has frequently led
escalation, and apparently still does.
resources
some
weaponry, and nuclear build-up, in North
America occurred on a defensive basis in response to
fact
with
It is a myth, though one
builds up conflicting obligations thereby.
The
the
of
generally
United
strategic
be already in excess of
to
agreed
States’
Russia’s, and which always have been so) (Thompson, p.21).
The present dilemma is then a direct outcome
advanced
of
state
policy,
especially
by
capitalist nations, and not merely a response to the Soviets (or state
socialism).
There is a two-way connection between world political arrangements
and
nation-states
the
nuclear
fix.
On
the
one
hand,
situation
increasingly
is
political arrangements
/ Q
;
seen
political
these
arrangements are an evident source of the dilemma with the result
through
that
nuclear
as indicating the inadequacy of present world
on the other, the nuclear fix tends to lock political
arrangements into the statist form (into statist arrangements of an increasingly
centralist cast).
peace
The espoused purpose of nuclear weapons may be
to
keep
the
(!) and to defend national interests, but there are other reasons such as
perpetuating the system of sovereign states and politically
confrontation.
The
argument
to
the
theme
that
advantageous
the very nuclear situation
arising from the statist arrangements and interrelationals (economic
conflicting
rivalries,
ideologies, etc.) tends to, and is used to, lock the world into the
present arrangements of sovereign states and zones of interest, is
practical
state
one.
Consider
first,
the
matter
from
a
piecemeal
the Soviet side where the
Page 27
pattern of national control and military economic reorientation is clearer.
The threat from the West, whether it exists
or
not
(and
in
Soviet
perception it certainly does), has become a necessary legitimation for
the power of the ruling elites, an excuse for their many economic
and
social failures, and an argument to isolate and silence critics within
their own borders.
In the West we have
controlled
carefully
...
and
...
selective
release of ’official information’ (Thompson, p.20).
Secondly, there is evidence of entrenchment of the arrangements,
by
the
SALT negotiations:
of
rules
not
regarded
as
threatening
US
in
place
by
The Soviet
invasion
interests", and so the US is not
"vital
What was different, what
particularly worried about Afghanistan and its people.
it
held
penalty for breaking the rules is the threat of annihilation).
(the
Thirdly, there are cases, such as the Afghanistan example.
is
shown
there are fixed superpowers and a (growing) nuclear
club of nations all governed by a negotiated set
deterrence
as
was worried about and made nuclear threats concerning, were adjacent Western
these lay within the US zone of interest.
oil supplies:
44
and complicates other dilemmas
The nuclear fix enhances
contemporary
sovereign
state, in particular the deep tensions between national
security and the operation of liberal-democratic arrangements (e.g.
liberty,
popular
control of institutions, etc).
personal subsidiary dilemmas, as for example the
obligations
to
a
nuclear
conflicting obligations
the
by
induced
as
state,
a
or
doctor
It also spotlights other more
extent
role-induced
or
a
individual
nuclear
of
(political)
one’s
dilemmas
armaments
such
as
one’s
processor
or
researcher (the question of political obligations is considered in Appendix 2).
§7.
Ways out of the moral dilemmas:
[initial]
political
fall-out
from
the
Page 28
conclusions.
ethical
all the ways are ways of limitation, and they
Virtually
all Involve in one way or another limitations on nuclear arms or
are
limitations on the powers of states.
and
deployed
the
they
way
The limitations may be
45
reached by agreement and negotiation and more or less voluntarily
agreed
,
to
or they may be imposed, or worst of all, they may emerge from an initial war.
As with other fixes produced by
are
there
suggested
structure
there
and
relations
power
and
extra—state
approaches.
"realistic",
attempts
All
to
cow,
as unilateral disarmament.
is
it
states
the
or
alter
the
remove them altogether,
allegedly
familiar,
the
seriously
do
which
and
"practical"
nuclear problem - e.g.
disarmament by
they do not tamper with that
- are inter-state;
But in fact there is nothing very sacred
not
even
a
very
long-standing
arrangement, nor, as a matter or empirical fact, is
one.
states,
of
and the same goes for less "realistic" proposals, such
the state;
nation-state;
arrangements
which
ways
are
of
resolve
neutral arms limitations, etc.
sacred
structural
out which do not interfere with these arrangements,
ways
inter-state approaches,
the
it
form
about
the
political
of
particularly
a
stable
We are certainly free - in more liberal states, it should be everywhere -
to theorise as to its demise and replacement by alternative arrangements.
Extra-state approaches take one of two
routes,
the
way
up,
to
genuine
46
power, or the way down, through fractionation or deunionisation
international
of states.
not
to
The ways up and down are by no means one and the same;
necessarily
world
government
Were
law-courts.
remedy, namely
intra-state
incompatible.
the
through
to
Some of the important machinery, for the way up
operate,
courts
legal
but they are
is
assigned
action,
already
there
sufficient
that
medieval
the
international
authority
and power, the
in
theorists
saw
to
all
disputes could be extended to interstate disputes, and the just war
Page 29
between states S and T superseded by the just case of S versus T.
one
statist,
more
legalistic
of trying to get to grips with the nuclear
way
problem, and accordingly is often mentioned, though
dismissed
47
in
,
orthodox
The Way Up is
mostly
passing
in
strategic texts on thermonuclear war.
It is however
beginning to be much more sympathetically considered by those who take
rather than strategic viewpoint.
moral
a
There is a renewed emphasis on world order, in
reaching ’towards a morally integrated international system’;
element
be
to
and ’the
missing
of world order today is the absence of a properly constituted political
The Way Down - though, like The Way
authority’ (PL, p.320).
by
Up,
no
means
new, turning back to the anarchist positions of a century ago - is, by contrast,
scarcely mentioned in the orthodox discussions, but is making an
appearance
(a
which
is
comeback) in some more radical discussions.
A main argument for The Way Up is
to
supposed
underpin
statist
just
arrangements
a
repetition
in
first
the
argument from (generous) variations upon the Prisoners’
that
of
place, namely the
Dilemma,
the
as
such
Tragedy of the Commons, that authority and coercion - in the form of the state are requiried to ensure best solutions,
ecological order.
especially
regards
of
part
the
sort of super-state.
of
the
"tragedy"
is
destruction
when
to
assume
in
fact
assumptions
48
of
a
commons by nuclear war, the solution is now said to be some
Of course, this begins to undermine an earlier application
argument,
since
states
will
lose
their sovereignty, and
political obligation to states will be correspondingly weakened.
is
and
order
So with the "tragedy of nation-states", where the players are
not herdsmen but nation-states, and one of the prospects
good
public
But
all
this
that these "tragedy" arguments are good ones in the first place,
they
are
not
but
are
only
sound
under
quite
restrictive
Page 30
There are many problems with the Way Up, both theoretical and
practical.An
theoretical hitch is that the Way Up merely repeats statist arrangments
initial
at a level up, by way
contingency,
of
super-state
It
arrangements.
only
is
through
a
of there being no rival Intelligent civilisations nearby, that the
problems of interstate relations
not
are
repeated
level
a
The
up.
major
practical hitch is that there is no prospect at all of getting such a "solution"
to work in time to serve its intended
interstate
future
the
For
purpose.
ideological differences, including especially differences as
to how political arrangements should be effected, exclude
world
operative
hostilities.
government
of
prospect
any
an
or world legal system capable of resolving nuclear
In some ways, perhaps, this is just
World
well.
as
government
be extremely monolithic, would entrench bureaucracy with all its damaging
would
features, and could easily tend to totalitarianism.
on
nuclear
foreseeable
the
It would
impose
certainly
an exploitative economic system which would do immense damage to
world
many remaining natural systems.
The Way Up thus presupposes an unlikely,
undesirable,
level
ideological,
indeed
requisite
unity
of
political
paradigmatic,
cannot
be
and
and
expected
unity
economic
separation
with
some
in
of
nuclear
main
crucial
respects,
Moreover,
given the
Northern
cultures,
deadlines.
When not even
nuclear weapons limitations can be worked out how much less likely
much
more
sweeping
sovereignty, could
be
agreements,
negotiated?
Involving
genuine
There
an
is
is
limitations
almost
endless
that
it
of
state
series
of
blockages and deadlocks in the way of such state reconciliation.
The nuclear fix emerging from nation-state arrangements - combined with the
apparent
impotence
of
interstate relations to alleviate the situation, indeed
with the ability only to push the world further into the situation and nearer to
Page 31
nuclear
now
is
-
"brink"
taken
to
indicate (from yet a further angle) the
inadequacy of nation-state political arrangements, and has given new impetus
resolutions.
extra-state
other
of
consideration
to
The thesis that the nuclear
problem indicates the radical unsatisfactoriness of national sovereignty and the
present
system
namely in Schell.
’full-scale
nation states has even reached the best-seller book stands,
of
According to Schell the nuclear situation should
they operate' ...
which
himself
avoids
these
reality
and in ’workfing] out the practical steps by which
'awesome
(III,
p.92).
Schell
However
urgent tasks, which, imposed on us by history,
constitute the political work of our age’^9,
history
consonant with the global
can reorganise its political life’
mankind ...
a
of the foundations of political thought’ required to
reexamination
make ’the world’s political institutions ...
in
to
lead
So, not feeling the
pressures
of
overimpressed by the realities of (unstable) nation-states, do most
or
political theorists.
But, having rashly ventured this far, we can hardly
avoid
some of these tasks.
The central argument arising from the nuclear fix, for questioning
political
arrangements
and
seriously
current
considering changing them (in theory at
least), takes the following shape:-
H1.
Political arrangements should answer back to certain requirements and
justified
in
terms
of
doing
so.
are
These requirements include such things as
enabling good and meaningful lives for those who operate under the arrangements,
at least where (as certainly in the West) the basic material conditions for such
lives are met.
H2.
these
Because of the nuclear fix, nation-state arrangements have ceased to
requirements.
For
guarantee the prospect of
arrangements.
nation-states,
good
and
at
meaningful
meet
least in the North can no longer
lives
to
those
under
their
A life's meaningfulness is certainly diminished if it ends before
Page 32
its prime in a nuclear disaster;
yet there is a non-negligible probability that
many such lives may terminate, less than fulfilled, in this way.
Therefore,
Nation-state arrangements have forfeited their justification,
H3.
should
and
be changed.
There is enough evidence that power brokers who control states,
both
more
powerful states and lesser states (sometimes with some claim to popular mandate,
often without), have lost sight of - or worse don’t care about -
the
point
of
political arrangments, of what justifies or is supposed to justify their states.
The situation has been reached where ’nuclear powers, or
higher
value
This is already illustrated
by
states in nonnuclear military situations:
have
much
forfeited
of
what
claim
Vietnam
Israel,
many
and
the principles of just warfare
have been blatantly violated repeatedly, as have many
states
put
statesmen,
on national sovereignty than they do on human survival’ (Schell’s
conclusion, p.76).
other
their
they
Such
principles.
other
had to external respect or
internal political obedience.
It could just be, of course, that there are no alternatives, or no possibly
better
But
alternatives.
alternatives there are, as we have seen, though but
little work has been expended on working out the range of alternatives or
features (except perhaps for the option of world government).
As to whether all
such alternatives can be dismissed, for instance as lacking feasibility,
difficult
to
be all sure without being dogmatic:
operate,
once
adjusted,
very
far
on
organising
is
humans,
for
under substantially different arrangments.
But, once again, nuclear deadlines do not appear
proceed
it
alternatives have been given
very little opportunity to work, and we know very little about how
instance,
their
to
give
sufficient
time
to
and trying out alternative arrangments, even
those of the more accessible Way Down.
Thus alternative
political
and
social
Page 33
while theoretically feasible and certainly a longer-term goal, do
arrangements,
not presently offer a satisfactory practical response to the nuclear fix.
There is no need to insist upon a
dilemma
to
single-track
the
of
out
nuclear
We can not only
quite the contrary.
exclusion of all others:
the
way
afford to be fairly catholic about "second best" approaches pursued and
whatever
to be working or looks like helping, within reorganised ethical
seems
Indeed,
(and other) constraints:
situation,
methods,
should
we
as
such
urgency,
the
the
of
direness
the
and
nondemocratlc
very
(and
down
certainly
negotiations on arms limitations between main nuclear states.
The direction of most hope
is
given
be fairly catholic and not inflexibly commited to narrow
bogged
unrepresentative)
direction
embrace
for
especially new.
not
has
progress
however
come
into
view;
the
The political means of the Way Out are what
they have been on almost every larger liberal or
that
issue
humanitarian
has
from outside state governmental apparatus by organised pressure from
mattered;
within or without upon it, characteristically Bottom-Up
Such
Top-Down.
familiar
and
practically
never
considerations are but part of the more general, and
very effective, case against reliance upon states for a range of things they are
now
supposed
required,
to
more
supply,
effectively
but
can almost Invariably be obtained, where
which
and
less
expensively
without
(and
them
their
monopolies).
In the case of security it is states, with very few exceptions,
that
have
imposed, or acquiesed in, military solutions involving nuclear installations and
The
nuclear weapons.
frequently
from
across nations.
installations
opposition
local
and
the
to
neighbourhood
These groups have been
and
establishing,
for
escalating
groups,
successful
the
time
nuclear
fix
has
come
some of them now federated
in
blocking
being,
some
some
nuclear
nuclear-free
Page 34
The patchwork grass-roots movement against nuclear is strongest
neighbourhoods.
in
which
Europe,
- as the movement realised, and what gave it impetus - a
is
leading theatre, on US
American
touching
thinking,
strategic
American nuclear installations in Europe will make it a
contrary
it
probable
seems
nuclear
limited
a
war
that
Europe
safer
much
become
will
place:
safer
on
the
if
the
anti-nuclear movements succeed in having these installations removed and
rendered nuclear-free.
not
is extremely doubtful that increasing NATO and
It
shores.
for
Europe
The chances of grossly immoral conduct will thereby also
be considerably reduced.
What the movements must press for is accordingly clear
it
is
in
broad
outline:
what they have been pushing for, nuclear reduction and disarmament.
But
the argument also makes it clearer how far this should go, namely all the way to
nuclear
unilateral
disarmament
if
necessary,
certainly to local disarmament
across progressively larger parts of the planet’s surface.
is
its
demoted,
importance
and
the
necessity
of
For once
the
state
its maintenance properly
downgraded and reliance on its decision-making diminished in favour of localised
decision-making
(say)
-
once
all
that
happens or is allowed for, one major
component in the nuclear fix is removed, namely the worry about
sovereignty.
the
of
that
sovereignty
has
of
been assigned a mistaken
weakest links in the moral fix structure.
In the weigh-up that should
occur in charting a way out of moral dilemma, much more Important elements
features
state
The state, and accompanying features such as misplaced nationalism,
importance.
are
Maintenance
loss
than
the state are those things the state is supposed to safeguard such
of
as individual and local welfare and autonomy, but they are better ensured by the
removal
of
nuclear
weapons.
The
nuclear circumstances threaten the loss of basic values,
autonomy,
for
in particular,
main reasons are familiar;
such
as
welfare
and
many creatures and regions, and the potential loss is in general
Page 35
much greater than in a nuclear-free situation (even should
party
remain
armed
with nuclear weapons).
for example, the production
(because
of
nuclear
another
ideological
There are also subsidiary reasons;
weapons
reduces
local
both
welfare
of the opportunity costs of weapons manufacture) and autonomy (because
of the accompanying security measures).
Thus the nuclear fix is resolved, theoretically at
loss
of the state.
any
rate,
by
risking
But, although that is the best way out at least cost in the
circumstances, it will be strongly resisted in practice, since
those
who
hold
power hold it, in one way or another, under the auspices of state.
FOOTNOTES
1.
The US Catholic Bishops make the point forcefully:
’Nuclear weapons
...
and nuclear warfare ... are new moral issues ... There exists a capacity
to do something no other age could imagine: we can threaten the
created
order ...
We could destroy [God’s] work’ (PL, p.312). While the analysis
offered in what follows has a great deal in common with the
Bishop’s
position, it differs significantly in removing the religious backdrop and
associated features and, it is hoped, in bringing out the logical structure
of the argument more clearly and sharply (the paper was Initially drafted
independently of PL).
To illustrate the differences that emerge with
removal of the religious backdrop and its acoutrements, consider two
examples from PL, p.323:- Firstly, peace is possible without religious
enlightenment if it is possible with it: religious enlightenment is not an
essential condition as there implied. Secondly, violence does not take all
the forms the Bishops try to give it, e.g. sexual discrimination is hardly
a form of violence, pornography can operate without it, etc.
It is a
serious mistake to try to heap so many diverse and independent issues
together under the one head (forms of violence) as if they stood and fell
together, e.g. abortion and nuclear war.
2.
Another dimension of variation concerns the sequence of the war, especially
the type of strike involved. Though the sequence is important for the moral
assessment, for example of the main actors, it is in no way alters the
immorality of LN wars, as will emerge.
3.
’The overwhelming probability [is] that a nuclear exchange would have no
limits’,
(PL, p.314). Hence a major argument against limited nuclear wars:
that any such war risks, indeed renders highly probable, an unlimited war,
and risk is far too large to take.
The point in fact follows by
straightforward application of decision theory, multiplying the massive
undesirability (moral and otherwise) of an LN war by its probability given a
Page 36
limited nuclear war. Given the character of weapons development and present
communication arrangements, the idea of a purely nuclear exchange between
the superpowers, perhaps in the European "theatre", is really a myth.
But
limited wars are not the present focus.
4.
There was a substantial element of sport (and connected features of prowess)
in traditional wars that has been eroded in modern technological wars.
Nuclear wars are not just unsporting, in that no notice is given, etc. They
are unjust in a much deeper way.
5.
There are interesting sidelights concerning even the etymology of the term
’war’, which was derived from a term meaning ’confusion’. In particular,
’it is a curious fact that no Germanic nation in early historic times had in
living use any world properly meaning ’war’’.
(OED)
6.
But of course there can be something quite analogous to war between clans,
multinational firms, even nature, etc.
(To this extent, a strict definition
of ’war’ is being insisted upon.) So the diffusion of power structures has
to extend beyond just the break-down of states.
7.
Thus the ubiquitous war against Nature of modern times, which features just
as large in marxists as in capitalists. As could have been guessed, someone
- it was James - suggested chanelling all war into "war" in the metaphorical
sense against that unarmed and nonaggressive "opponent", Nature. James
proposed as a substitute for war proper, conscription of the youth for a war
against Nature (see Wasserstrom, p.12). What it boiled down to, however,
was that youth was to be channelled into all the dirty work, in that way to
acquire manly virtues military activities "rightly" instil, especially
discipline, but also service, devotion, physical fitness, constructive
exertion, responsibility, and order. Another less diabolical substitute for
wars proper is through war games and other games of competitive cast. Again
specious arguments enter for bringing out the "best" in human males.
8.
War can be seen as a structural problem of state arrangments, to be removed
along with these (otherwise defective) arrangements.
Wars arise from
political organisation of states - a situational fix.
9.
Thus Aquinas and Grotius for example (see Barnes, p.776, top). The argument
presupposes rather a lot, Including a neat public/private distinction. Put
Aquinas’s way, it looks as if it could be readily transferred into an
argument for international government, or at least effective law-courts.
Yet all Christendom was supposed at that time to be one state!
10.
There is however the degenerate idea of war as annihilation or extinction,
and of winning a nuclear war as annihilation of the enemy while not being
entirely annihilated oneself: the side that somehow "survives" is said to
"win".
But this is an extremely tenuous sense of winning. Moreover any
such war is radically unjust, because of violation of the traditional
requirement of proportionality, and for other reasons developed in the text.
Recent talk about winning or even surviving a nuclear war must
reflect a failure to appreciate a medical reality: Any nuclear
war would inevitably cause death, disease and suffering of
pandemonic proportions and without the possibility of effective
medical intervention ... (PL, p.313).
Page 37
Unfortunately as documented in Scheer, significant officials who are
responsible for the nuclear destiny of the U.S.A. - and so of the world think that the devastation of nuclear war can be survived and that a global
nuclear war can actually be won!
11.
In practice they often were not, they drained limited economies, they layed
waste countryside (though to a minor extent by nuclear or chemical or modern
mining standards), impoverishing Inhabitants, etc.
12.
For as Nagel contents (early on), there are moral restrictions on the
conduct of warfare which are not legalistic only and which are neither
arbitrary not merely conventional nor a matter of usefulness. These themes
run entirely counter to the classic theory of war of Clausowicz - a theory
outlined in Walzer.
13.
As Nagel remarks.
14.
The progressive escalation argument is an incremental
Sorites. This is part of the so-called "logic of war".
15.
As Walzer argues, p.24.
16.
The severe limitations of those
also come from the failure
person from inside the homeland
which excessive applications of
17.
Thus the differences between Nagel on the one side, and Brandt and
the other, in Cohen et al.
18.
The pattern of moral argument has much in common with procedure in anarchist
political discussion.
19.
There are other arguments against two (or
Routley and Plumwood.
20.
For details see Routley and Plumwood.
21.
According to the doctrine, which is one concerning responsibility, we are
responsible
only
for
the intended effects or consequences of our
freely-chosen actions, and not for other (side) effects or consequences,
even
if
these are forseen and/or intimately tied to the intended
consequences. The doctrine is pernicious allowing those who adjust their
intention
suitably to escape responsibility for evil they knowingly
perpetrate. Thus, for instance, a Russian supreme command which intended
only to take out US military targets would, under double effects,
effects have no
responsibility for the resultant effect on American and Canadian cities!
22.
Despite Nagel’s suggestion (pp.158).
23.
Of course there are counterarguments too, and not merely from military in
the case of small numbers of obstructive noncombatants. One is a variation
of the Bald Man:
there is no clear line between
combatants
and
noncombatants.
However as Nagel argues (p.20) there are distinctions
between them, firstly in terms of their roles, e.g. in carrying or using
argument
like
the
lesser virtues, nationalism and patriotimsm,
of replacement - try for example swapping a
by one from outside as regards treatment patriotism can engender.
multiple)
morality
Hare
lines:
on
see
Page 38
arms or directing those who do, and secondly in terms of their harmfulness,
the threat they offer. See also PL, p.312, where a simple and effective
paradigm case argument is applied.
24.
The principle can be argued to in various ways.
One (not entirely
conclusive) way is Nagel’s way, from the requirements of directness and
relevance in combat, the underlying principle being that, ’whatever one does
to another person intentionally must be aimed at him as a subject, with the
intention that he receive it as a subject’. (p.15)
25.
The situation with limited nuclear wars where the targets are essentially
military ones, and noncombatants are unaccountably killed "indirectly' is
different. Such wars are not however excused by the pernicious doctrine of
double effect.
For such wars remain unjust on several counts, e.g. they
inflict disproportionate damage, e.g. on life systems. As Zuckermann says,
’It is still inevitable that were military installations rather than cities
to become the objectives of nuclear attack, millions, even tens of millions
of civilians would be killed ...’ (quoted in Thompson and Smith, p.14 where
the Italics are added).
26.
Throughout the OED equations,reflecting common usage, of just with
right or correct, and unjust with morally wrong, are adopted.
27.
These alternatives are not as far removed practically as may appear.
For
the aim of just war theory is not ’to legitimize war but to prevent it.
The
presumption is against the use of force’ (PL, p.312).
And most types
of
wars are ruled out by the theory.
However not all wars or violent
revolutions are excluded, and that is enough to guarantee the distinction
between the alternatives.
In particular, defensive wars are allowed - at
least for the defending side, though from a wider viewpoint these too may be
condemned - ’the classic case [of the just war] ... was the use of lethal
force to prevent aggression against innocent victims’
(PL,
p.311).
Under
Twentieth Century international law defence, narrowly construed, is the only
legitimate basis for war; Roman law was only slightly more generous, in
allowing for the restitution of goods (see Barnes, p.780).
28.
An argument of this sort is developed in more detail, though not in complete
generality, in Goodin.
29.
As to the first point, there is not only overkill capacity and the drive for
superiority (often represented via "negotiating" strength) but the matter of
counterforce weapons which are offensive weapons.
As regards the second
point, US policy has been decidedly expansionist with regular intervention
in other nations; there have been repeated US threats to use nuclear
weapons, especially to deal with revolutionary activities in the third
world, but also in Europe in "limited" nuclear war;
and in official
military strategy no sharpline has been drawn between conventional and
nuclear weapons: on these and other related points see further Lackey 82,
p.l91ff., and also Thompson and Smith.
30.
The example was supplied by D.
31.
Deterrence also commonly includes elements of
mendacity,
deception,
misinformation.
There is a grain of truth in the claim that ’deterrence is
primarily about what the other side thinks, not what we think’
(Pym quoted
morally
Johnson.
Page 39
in Thompson, p.19).
simply
32.
Nor are degrees of wrongness required:
ordered as regards worseness.
33.
Can this be done semantically in terms of closeness/worseness
The attempted X world is close to the X world?
34.
There is a need for further clarification here.
Passive spectatorship of
evil events where one is in a position to make a difference is quite another
thing, from contemplation of other worlds where evil occurs.
35.
It is this principle especially that forces Ramsey, a Protestant theologian
who is a nuclear hawk, into the tight position he ends in, which as Walzer
explains, really leaves no room to move. For in virtue of C3 it must be
allowed that the threatened wars are permissible to carry out. Ramsey tries
to limit these to military exchanges. But to be effective as a deterrent,
the exchange permitted must both threaten and also, in view of C3, not
threaten nonmilitary targets, collateral non-combatant populations.
It
appears that Ramsey’s position, if worked out, would be inconsistent.
wrongs
can
be
partially
of
worlds?
Principle C3 is also invoked by the US Catholic Bishops:
see PL, p.316.
They put the point both in terms of threat and of declared intent to use
nuclear weapons, which they pronounce morally wrong.
36.
As is widely known, inadmissible considerations of expediency frequently
enter into reasons why states allow foreign nuclear facilities upon their
territories, e.g. economic considerations such as trade or local revenue
and jobs.
37.
Cf.
38.
It was considered long ago in China by the
alternative systems, see especially Sharp.
39.
Thus Green, along with many others, ’find[s] nuclear deterrence ...
the
best of practical policies available to us now ... given the realities of
world politics’ but ’still demurfs] because of moral qualms’ (p.xil). Green
also represents both Morgenthau and Halle as having ’rather agonisingly
presented a ... case for a deterrence strategy, even while asserting that
the strategy is morally indefensible according to the traditional ethical
codes’ (p.252). Walzer ends in a similar dilemma (he is committed to a
stronger and less qualified form of it than he sets down):
’... though it
[deterrence] is a bad way, there may well be no other that is practical in a
world of sovereign and suspicious states’ (p.274) (an indictment of the
state system that Walzer does not pursue).
the last article in Thompson.
Mohists.
For
contemporary
Similarly the Catholic Bishops present the situation in terms of a moral
dilemma:
they speak of ’the political paradox of deterrence ... the
dilemma of how to prevent the use of nuclear weapons ... (PL, p.313).
40.
Situations in war are also a major source of moral dilemmas.
See Routley
and Plumwood where several examples are given. A general logical account of
and theory of moral dilemmas is elaborated therein.
Page 40
41.
There are exceptions of course, e.g. Sartre; and Nagel’s final example is
very instructive.
For a full theory of moral dilemmas see however Routley
and Plumwood.
42.
Reported in The Economist; reprinted in The
1983, Weekend Magazine p.2.
43.
This is no longer a radical theme but is widely promulgated.
The source of
the nuclear problem comes from state arrangements: it is ’... a world of
sovereign states ... which brought the world to the present dangerous
situation’.
(PL, p.313)
44.
It is not alone responsible for these other dilemmas.
Large-scale nuclear
power and other types of warfare and security arrangements also contribute.
45.
In principle it would be relatively easy for states to agree to settlement
of their disputes by less damaging and expensive contests than military
ones, e.g. by contests of selected representatives, and not just through
fighting in some form but by contests of footballers, singers, dancers,
lawyers, or etc. In practice, however, such more civilized alternatives are
never considered. Animals, by contrast, are smart enough to settle disputes
by means much more like these.
46.
Americans, for example, tend to forget that their State (like USSR) is a
union, of fairly recent origin; and that a State of the Union message could
consider the dissolution of the union.
47.
Thus for example, Kahn, where such a "solution" is quickly dismissed as,
impractical,
etc.
Hardly necessary to say the Way Up has won most favour
with the legal fraternity, and from more authoritarian organisations.
48.
See further Routley and
especially Griffin.
49.
Schell does not make it clear whether he is thinking of the Way Up or the
Way Down, but some of the names he drops suggest the Way Up. So can some of
what he says, e.g.
’Thus the peril of extinction is the price that the
world pays not for "safety" or "survival" but for its [sic!] insistence on
continuing to divide Itself up into sovereign nations’ (p.76, III), as if
the natural or original state were an undivided one?
Routley
and
Australian,
material
referred
February
to
12-
therein,
13
and
Page 41
APPENDIX 1; Remarks on J. Schell’s THE FATE OF THE EARTH.
Schell’s book is an important and influential document, which is
significant
having
a
and
urgently
needed effect in shifting attitudes towards nuclear.
It is especially
valuable
for
aftermath
example
defects.
is
Some
exhibits,
also
it
just
nothing else that we undertake together can make any
sense
...’
the
of
both
for
rubbish,
a world-wide program of action for preserving the [human]
’without ...
species ...
moral
scenarios
horrifying
Unfortunately
severe
philosophically and factually,
and
vivid
attack.
nuclear
of
its
(p.104,
Humans
rearranged).
however like rabbits in
are
Australia, virtually beyond human power to extirpate.
or
practical
The claim presupposes two
of the major defective assumptions of the book:
51.
That nuclear war will eliminate life, human life, at least, on earth
total extermination assumption);
(the
and
52.
That very many notions, not only those of morality and value, but those of
time
and
space,
make
no sense in the absence of humans, or, to put it into a
more sympathetic philosophical form, in the absence of an actual
context
human
(the anthropocentric assumption).
The frequent applications of S2, which
philosophical
depth
and
induce
give
the
book
some
of
its
apparent
suitable puzzlement through their paradoxical
without total extermination
aspects, depend essentially on SI;
there
will
be
humans, about to make past and future, good and evil, go on making sense!
Now although the factual assumption SI is
possibility,
unlikely.
example,
it
appears
in
Schell’s argument
on
an
unjustified
no
means
ruled
out
as
a
light of present (inadequate) knowledge most
the
to
by
SI
is
extremely
extrapolation
from
Hemisphere, but for the most part it does that very
flimsy.
It
depends,
for
the Northern to the Southern
North
American
thing,
of
Page 42
the
contracting
North
to
world
(All that matters, all worthwhile
America.
civilization, is in USA, or at least, to be more charitable,
and
Europe,
also be wiped out, i.e.
will
which
eliminated in the nuclear holocaust).
the
example
out of date.
America
North
its human population will be
Some of the data Schell relies upon,
for
of nuclear explosions on the ozone layer, is significantly
Other effects than ozone destruction transfer even less well
South.
to
North
effect
in
from
A factually superior study of nuclear disaster that Schell’s,
Preddy and others, indicates that parts of the Southern Hemisphere, New
Zealand
and Southern Africa and America could escape relatively unscathed even from most
massive northern exchanges.
The penetration of human chauvinism as in S2 is not something
Schell
but
product
a
is
of
truths
necessary
mathematics
of
and
in Wittgenstein ’s philosophy, where even the
are a product of human conventions and would
In Schell human chauvinism is dished up in a particularly
vanish with humans!).
powerful
obnoxious
Kantian
Thoughts
form.
tenses, values and morality, all depend in the
and
propositions, time and
presence
life-giving
of
human
- past or future or merely potential humans are not enough, persons that
beings
are not humans are certainly not enough.
’...
e.g.):
Thus according to
(II,
Schell
p.74,
the thought "Humanity is not extinct" is an impossible one for a
rational person, because as soon as it is, we are not.
In imagining
any
other
we look ahead to a moment that is still within the stream of human time,
event,
...’.
right
to
philosophy especially, which is still
European
unfortunately alive and well (e.g.
peculiar
The thought is however perfectly possible for humans;
now.
Though
we
(p.74)l.
’...
outside
can
have
it
no doubt have it falsely a later rational creature may
well be able to have it truly.
"later"
we
the
Schell erroneously denies
human
tenses
of
past,
that:
there
is
no
present, and future ...’
Human extinction eliminates ’the creature that divides time into past,
Page 43
present
future’:
and
so annihilation cannot ’come to pass’ (p.77).
simply false that the tenses are human:
the
tenses
depend
on
But it is
time
local
a
(perceptible to many creatures other than humans, but not depending at
ordering
all on perceptibility for its viability) relating other times to the present, to
now
(also
a
human-independent location, evident to other creatures, and borne
witness to by such sequences as the passing seasons).
too
easily
come
And annihilation may also
to pass, for many humans in the North at least, as it came to
pass in recent geological times that humans began to exist upon
that there was a time before there were any human beings.
earth.
Before
Here as elsewhere the
human chauvinism is mixed with other distorting metaphysical assumptions of
Western
our
heritage, verlficationism and Implicit ontic assumptions (to the effect
that there are severe difficulties in talking about what does not exist).
Thus,
for example, Schell takes over dubious metaphysics from Freud, according to whom
"it is indeed impossible to imagine our own death;
do
so,
we
(p.77/4?).
In
can
perceive
that
we
are
in
attempt
and whenever we
fact still present as spectators"
The second clause goes a good distance towards refuting
first.
the
fact there is no great problem in describing counterfactual situations which
undermine both Freud’s claims.
chauvinism
into
one
of
The same goes for Schell’s extensions
human
of
its main traditional strongholds, value theory:
the simple and basic fact [sic!] that before there can be good or evil,
or
to
service
harm, lamenting or rejoicing there must be life’, human life (p.103).
are no facts, but entrenched philosophical assumptions which have
been
’...
These
exposed
2
and criticised elsewhere .
Another obnoxious theme, which Schell repeatedly infiltrates, is
the
Pogo
theme, which
S3.
Distributes responsibility for
the
present
really) onto everyone, every human in the world.
nuclear
situation
(fiasco,
An especially blatant example
3
Page 44
the world’s political
runs as follows:
menace
leaders
...
though
the earth with nuclear weapons, do so only with our permission, and even
at our bidding.
theme
At least, this is true
elsewhere
elaborated
is
’...
for
democracies’
pay
4
we are the authors of the destruction .
while for the peoples of the non-nuclear-armed world it
sense
to
an
argument
of
all
The moral cost of
only
true
in
the
sensitivity
nuclear
of
representative
And again ’...
we
is
it
armaments
that
of us underwriters of the slaughter of hundreds of millions - ’.
And again ’[as] perpetrators ...
is not sacred but is worthless;
be killed’ (p.88).
vote
the
against
of the populace they allegedly govern.
many
are potential mass—killers.
makes
is
that they fail to try to do anything about the danger)’ (p.87).
But this is more of
government
since
extinction and support the governments that pose the threat of it,
for
negative
The
III).
(p.106,
(For the populations of the superpowers this is true in a positive sense,
we
now
they
we convey the steady messsage ...
it ...
that ...
Little of this is true.
that
life
is acceptable for everyone to
Those who campaign against nuclear,
against nuclear-committed parties so far as is possible, and the like, are
certainly not the authors of potential destruction, and responsibility
nuclear situation does not simply distribute onto them.
- or the unlikely opinions as
to
worth
Schell
everyone - fall on those who have done less.
for
the
Nor does responsibility
illegitimately
attributes
to
Responsibility for decisions taken
in "liberal democracies" even by representatives (in the unlikely event of
this
happening in the case of anything as important as defence) cannot be traced back
to those represented, since among many other things, a
representative
of
a
party
is
only
which offers a complex and often ill-characterised
package of policies, and a voter may vote for zero
package.
representative
or
more
policies
of
this
Only in the (unlikely) event of a clear single issue referendum, which
is adopted, can responsibility, still of a qualified sort, be sheeted
home,
to
Page 45
those who voted for it, not every one in the community.
When however the Pogo assumption is disentangled from the
following
theme
what results is decidedly along the right lines:
The controllers [not to be confused, in Schell’s fashion, with all of
S4.
have failed to change our pre-nuclear institutions.
The sovereign system is out
HI)
(p.51,
of step with nuclear age, the one-earth system, etc.
earth
us]
(the
whole
Unfortunately Schell often loses sight of this important theme.
theme).
S4 forms part of Schell’s critique of the state which is, by an large, scattered
and
fragmentary.
As
we saw, in §7, Schell arrives at the conclusion that the
nation-state has outlasted its usefulness, and that new
institutions
political
more ’consonant the global reality’ are required as a matter of urgency.
evades what he admits is the major task, making
viable
out
But he
alternatives.
most he makes some passing suggestions, some of which point to the Way Up.
he remains clear about are the serious defects of the state and
the
At
What
frequently
immoral purposes for which the state is used.
At one stage he contrasts what he calls Socratic-Christian ethics with that
of
state,
where ’the end [state] justifies the means . .., the raison d’etre of
government, is the basis on which
themselves
to
commit
crimes
of
governments,
every
in
sort’.
anything whatever in the name of [their] survival’.
that
all
So
times,
licensed
’states may do virtually
Schell then argues however,
extinction nullifies end-means justification by destroying every end;
that argument is far from sound, and depends again on extreme
(S2)
have
combined with ontic assumptions.
under system SI) ends could remain, e.g.
human
but
chauvinism
Even if all humans were extinguished (as
for nonhumans (actual or not).
Page 46
As to the part of the state and (state) sovereignty in war,
in
us
Schell
leaves
A sovereign state is virtually defined as one that enjoys the
no doubt.
right and power to go to war in defence or pursuit of its interests (III, p.51).
War
from how things are:
arises
jealous nation states (p.51).
and
sovereignty
from the arrangement of political affairs via
Indeed there is a two-way linkage between
On the one side, sovereignty is, Schell
capacity to wage war.
contends, necessary for people to organise for war.
is impossible to preserve sovereignty.
it
war
transparently clear as they stand.
having
On the other side,
without
Neither of these contentions is
Now that the state system in entrenched,
it
however easy for conservatives (in particular) to argue from the "realities"
is
of international life, which include self-interest,
is
It
on
basis
this
that
peace
arrangements
aggression,
readily
are
hatred.
fear,
dismissed
as
unrealistic, utopian, even (amusingly) as extremist.
Schell’s further theme that nuclear "war" is not war threatens to undermine
his
case
erroneous
an
sovereign
characterisation
nation to achieve an end’ (III,
sufficient
for
p.52):
war as ’a violent means employed by a
of
but
neither
considerations
but not all wars or games are won).
It
they
fail
(even
on one side being defeated
on
a
But in nuclear "war" this doesn’t happen, ’no one’s strength
But what these sorts
contribute to showing is not that nuclear wars are not wars,
but that they are not wars of certain sorts, e.g., not just wars
because
nor
LN
falls until both sides have been annihilated* (III, p.52).
of
necessary
if
is also claimed that war depends on weakness;
by arms.
is
But nuclear attacks can certainly have ends
cannot be won in the older sense:
decision
this
It is then claimed that war requires an end which nuclear
war.
"war" does not have.
wars
state based, for example, on its nuclear war
But the not-war theme needs much qualification, and starts out
making capacity.
from
the
against
on
such
criteria
as
reasonable
when
LN
wars
prospect of success and
Page 47
improvement, not rational wars (in a good sense), and so on.
wars
nuclear weapons have also ruined "conventional" wars, and
that
demise
the
war
of
not
just
on
his
connected
the
mistaken
has
removed
been
proposition
The
(p.52).
concerning
the
conventional war and the mistaken proposition that war of some sort
the
theme
has left no means to finally settle disputes between
nations, for the final court of appeal
depends
conventional
nuclear times does damage to Schell’s argument that
into
persisted
have
That
theme
demise
has
to
of
be
"court of appeal" between nations (for, as observed, there are other
final
types of contests that could serve, and there is also the
cooperative
behaviour,
e.g.
joint referenda);
possibility
of
more
it also imports the assumption
of Clausowicz (criticised earlier) that war has to proceed to the
technological
limit - as if war and violence were thoroughly natural activities independent of
recognised social settings (for winning, surrender, etc.) and ruleless.
wars
contrary,
are
parasitic
on
On
the
social organisations such as states and are
They are a social
governed by a range of understandings, conventions and rules.
phenomenon, with a rule structure if not a logic.
Much capital has been made from what is called "the
and
the
"logic
logic
of
deterrence"
The message that is usually
of nuclear (strategic) planning".
supposed to come through is that the massive nuclear arraangements the world
now
entangled
in
are perfectly logical, sound, reasonable, rational.
this represents little more than a cheap semantical
the
justifies
reasonable.
can
be
present
arrangements,
or
trick.
anything
in strategic planning;
values
no
in
way
in Jeffrey)
which
but is does not yield specific results
without desirability measures being assigned to alternative
without
However
like them, or renders them
There is a logic of decision (as presented e.g.
applied
Logic
is
being pumped in, extralogically .
outcomes,
that
is
There are varaious ways these
value assignments may be determined, to meet moral requirements or not;
but
in
Page 48
nuclear
planning
strategic
(Selecting the usual
expediency.
automatically;
is
have invariably been settled on the basis of
game
theory
setting
based
something
cover
strategy of’.
term
almost
Thus too the presumption in Walzer, p.277, that the logic of
on eye-for-eye and tooth-for-tooth assumptions.)
’logic of’ tends to be used very generously, as a word of general
to
this
to
sees
for it is then assumed that each player plays to maximize his or
her own advantage.
deterrence
they
like
In fact
commendation,
’rational considerations entering into the policy or
In these terms, Schell, who like others enjoys playing
with
the
’logic of’, should write of ’the illoglc of deterrence’, for he emphasizes
(III, p.80) the disparity between the supposed rationality of threatening use of
nuclear
weapons and the irrationality (even from a national interest viewpoint)
of actually using them should the threat fail:
doctrine
depends
irrational use.
deterrence
(e.g.
on
credibility
of
the
yet the
threat
of
of
success
this
deterrence
unjustifiable and
Indeed Schell wants to go further and locate a contradiction in
HI,
pp.67-8):
but the argument depends on an interesting
confusion of contradiction with cancellation, which deterrence
is
supposed
to
(etc.)
is
involve.
FOOTNOTES
1.
The appalling theme that humans create past, present and
repeated, e.g. p.104 top.
2.
See e.g.
’Human chauvinism and environmental ethics’ in Environmental
Philosophy (editor Mannison and others), Research School of Social Sciences,
Australian National University, 1980.
3.
Another example of spreading the responsibility runs as follows (Schell
p.46, III): we plan to exterminate species in certain circumstance, though
we don’t quite admit this to ourselves, as sane or sensible (or rational?).
Further (p.55 III),
’the world ...
chose the course of attempting to
refashion the system of sovereignty to accommodate nuclear weapons’:
the
world?
Connected with this is the argument from defence of fundamentals
[ideology] - e.g. for liberty, the (USA) nation, and against socialism. In
the course of this yet another fallacious assumption is rolled out:
’The
means to the end are not limited, for the end itself sets the limits in each
future
Page 49
case’
[?]
4.
There is also, mixed in, a weaker more plausible claim that gives lie to the
stronger one, namely that we have some responsibility (the Nazi situation is
compared).
5.
There is however a simple solution to Schell’s problem of the missing
motive, namely an ideological one: remove the rival ideology from future
dominance.
Page 50
APPENDIX 2: Strategies and the Matter of Collective and
Individual Responsibility
What one does depends, naturally, on where one lives
and what sort of power it is.
responsibility
work
to
entirely
to
an
In present circumstances states have
and
states,
there
ends:
responsibilities
these
no individual, or (smaller scale)
is
collective responsibility to work out a policy or
people
on
stance
matters
such
as
While such a non-responsibility
nuclear and still less to act on such a stance.
(or opt-out) theme no doubt suits many
evident
There are however some persuasive
out their policies.
arguments that this is where the responsibility
accrue
one
means
what
as what strategy a state should adopt depends on where it is located
much
has,
and
—
many
for
some,
themselves,
especially more authoritarian power-holders, for others - it does involve opting
out of moral responsibilities, responsibilities acquired by virtue
of
being
a
person within the framework of certain social arrangments.
Now there is no doubt that individuals and a group can
out.
They can neglect their moral responsibilities;
in doing so.
being
this,
do
can
opt
but they are not justified
Against this claim, which is based ultimately upon
each
person’s
caught in a web of responsibility-inducing social relations, whether they
like it or not, there are some neat arguments which appear to permit opting out.
One goes as follows:
1.
The (ordinary) individual,
difference to what happens.
2.
Such
difference.
3.
individuals,
or
or
group,
has
no
possibility
of
making
a
make
a
Therefore
groups,
have
no
obligation
to
try
to
Hence
Such individuals, or groups, are not morally responsible, for instance when
things go wrong.
Page 51
There are two main assumptions
resisted;
this
in
argument,
both
which
of
be
firstly, a variant of the ought implies can theme , and secondly, the
assumption that individuals can’t make a difference.
cannot
individuals
competitive
highly
that
true
What an
individuals
do.
full of hopeful free-riders, a person may
communities,
encouter a familiar impasse:
is
on their own, together they can.
much
accomplish
it
While
individual can achieve depends on what sufficiently many other
In
should
that he or she acts M-ly (e.g.
against
morally,
nuclear arrangements, present destruction) at considerable personal cost with no
Such an impasse no
guarantee that others will also act M-ly.
longer
faces
so
many in the West at least as regards initial steps against nuclear arrangements.
The individual can cooperate with others in ways that do make a difference.
An
individual is not exonerated from responsibility by the argument.
While individuals can respond by joining organisations whose activities are
at
directed
difference, many individuals also have the option of
some
making
more individualistic action in such
disobedience.
important
An
forms
as
or
deployment)
Evidently,
various
or
parts
redirection
however,
work more effectively
go
slows,
political
form of individual resistance, already adopted in
Canada and north-western USA is refusal to pay
defence
boycotts,
thereof
of
such
(e.g.
taxes,
income
taxes
nuclear
for
directed
weapons
Instance
towards
production
to
peace
and
funds.
all these more individualistic forms of political activity
if
individuals
integrate
their
activities
since
the
impacts aggregate (and appear after a certain stage to exponentiate).
There are arguments of some weight that individuals are under some sort
moral
obligation
to take political action to disaffiliate themselves from what
contributes to the prospects of nuclear
depends
on
the
of
sort
of
state
war.
What
type
of
action
this
is
one resides in, e.g., whether it is a nuclear
Page 52
power, whether it provides nuclear
issues
complicating
as
or
bases
facilities,
and
such
on
kind of preventive action the state is likely to
what
One argument - it is one of a type
take in return.
etc.,
be
can
that
varied
from
making nuclear weapons to, for example, providing facilities for them - proceeds
from the wrongness of nuclear war to the position that it is
making
weapons
the
such
for
The
war.
argument
here
not
applies
principles (like that of §5), for instance that the manufacture
of such weapoons increases the risk of such war.
right
and
to
connecting
deployment
But if it is not morally right
to be making such weapons then those who live in a state that is doing so
to
disaffiliate
themselves
from
such
substantive
without
The argument is
but
the
assumptions
opt-outers
and
do-nothingers
assumption,
ought
defence production, and disaffiliation
2
includes not paying for such production through defence taxes .
not
be
morally
appear
reasonable and defensible.
Such arguments not only
insofar
as
they
put
to
contribute
national
for
those
3
take action, even limited action such as redirection of taxes .
in some fashion to moral obligations;
political obligations.
And
political
limited, by moral constraints.
are
already
answer
for then moral obligations override
obligations
are
already
significantly
The nuclear situation does not so much bring out
new limits on political obligation, as emphasize the
obligations
who
There is
however no dilemma under any theory which takes political obligations to
back
spot
the
objectives, they also raise serious
questions and perhaps dilemmas as regards political obligations
would
on
limited,
and
respects
in
which
those
introduce further moral considerations
against sponsorship of national defence arrangements.
Page 53
An obligation to try
war
does not commit one to more than this:
for
an
to an obligation, for example,
work
to
But
alternative national defence policy which avoids nuclear elements.
no doubt this would be a good thing to try to contribute to.
one
nuclear
spending part of one’s working life contributing indirectly to it,
not
by
to disaffiliate oneself from preparation for
attempts
depends
commitments, and
on
forth.
so
where
lives,
one
For
not
only
the
level
are
Once
of
again,
one’s pacificist
types
different
what
policy
of
appropriate for different nations and regions, but there are more
reorientation
superficial and deeper reorientations that can be worked out and promoted,
schemes
that
"conventional"
leave
e.g.
warfare apparatus more or less Intact, and
deeper (ecological) schemes that change that.
The US Bishops, for example, present a shallower set of goals for
such
power
as
the
USA,
which
includes
such
as preventing the
objectives
working
development and deployment of destabilizing nuclear weapons systems and
for
better
of already operational systems (see PL, p.317).
control
super
a
For those
whose very limited political Influence is exerted in considerably lesser
even
the
shallow goals may look quite different:
there are no weapons (except
perhaps those of another power planted on local territory)
better
control.
The
view
from
the
very
minor
to
in
or
redeploy
to
powers in the Antipodes is
furthermore different from that of the medium powers in Europe.
prospect
powers
is
There
some
the Antipodes of avoiding the more immediate effects of an LN war,
while there is little such prospect in Europe (cf.
Preddy and
others).
There
is accordingly some obligation - an obligation little considered and not grasped
by the power holders - on those in the Antipodes to make some effort to preserve
there
elements
of
what is valuable in world civilization.
Local and regional
self-interest would also suggest steps towards self-preservation that
been initiated.
have
not
Page 54
What is broadly required in the Andipodes is a
work
out
once
removal of American bases
alliance, which is in any case of questionable merit;
and
withdrawal
of
American
rightss for nuclear-carrying equipment to
access
ports, air bases and other facilities, so as to remove
pursuit
of
more
a
evenhanded
policy
targets;
nuclear
is
That much
easy,
in
principle.
difficult to ensure is that economic and cultural collapse does not follow
an LN war in the North.
independence
Secondly then the building of Increased
in the Antipodes is required.
sustainable
of
life
its
exercise unless combined with
and
Preddey
it
others
is
own.
’the region must also
other
desirable
objectives:
unlikely - the structural readjustment
aims
of
moving
for
example,
in
estimated that 25 per cent of GDP would have to be
included Australia the costs would be less.
desirable
have
For a small region that looks a very costly
diverted to build up New Zealand’s economic independence.
which
socio-economic
It is not enough to make the region
a nuclear-free zone not worth targeting militarily:
a
local
of nonalignment (something quite small
powers elsewhere have managed to achieve).
More
to
Firstly, withdrawal from the American
goals are glimpsed.
the
matter
straightforward
the
were
For a
larger
region
If, furthermore - what seems
combined
with
the
independently
whole region towards a multicultural conserver
society and diverting "defence" spending to connected self-management and
civil
be considerably lessened.
They only appear great in the
setting of an on-going consumer-defence socleity.
In any case where life itself
defence
goals,
would
is concerned, the costs do not appear excessive.
FOOTNOTES
1.
Any satisfactory deontic theory which takes moral dilemmas with due
seriousness is bound to reject this theme. There are also independent
grounds for jettisoning this Kantian theme:
see Routley and Plumwood.
Page 55
Seatie
2.
An argument of this type was deployed by Bishop
support of his refusal to pay defence taxes.
3.
This dilemma and option is now removed for most wage earners by Pay As You
Earn taxation schemes, schemes apparently introduced to give the state
interest on gross earnings, but obviously very effective in removing
taxation power from most workers, and so from individuals to the state.
4.
Given the power of institutions and the state one may be able to do little
more than try, without giving up one’s work and therby one’s ability to
contribute to other deserving causes. For example, it may be virtually
impossible for one to avoid contributing to a superannuation fund which is
investing in projects which one opposes and/or ought to oppose.
Hunthaassen
of
in
Page 56
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Citation
Richard Sylvan, “Box 97, Item 6: Working draft of On the ethics of large-scale nuclear war and war-deterrence and the political fall-out,” Antipodean Antinuclearism, accessed April 26, 2024, https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/show/114.