THE PHILOSOPHICAL FORUM

Volume XXXIV, No. 1, Spring 2003

RAWLS ON HIROSHIMA:
AN INQUIRY INTO THE MORALITY OF THE USE OF
ATOMIC WEAPONS IN AUGUST 1945

CHARLES LANDESMAN

An atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. A second bomb

was dropped on Nagasaki three days later. At least eight nations now have the
capacity to deliver atomic bombs, and the threat of proliferation is recognized as
a major problem facing the community of nations. Although after the end of
World War II, the further use of atomic weapons came to be considered morally
problematic, nevertheless, in the interest of deterrence and national defense, the
Soviet Union and the United States manufactured a large number and variety of
them. Their immense destructive power raises ethical questions about their use
in just wars that are not raised about other types of weapons. The bombing of the
two Japanese cities not only brought the war against Japan to an end, but it has
also produced a debate about its morality that still continues. In 1995, John Rawls,
already well known for his Theory of Justice, published in Dissent “Fifty Years
after Hiroshima”1 in which he concluded that “both the fire-bombing of Japanese
cities beginning in the Spring of 1945 and the later atomic bombing of Hiroshima
on August 6 were very great wrongs” (CP, 565). In the remarks that follow, I
intend to show that this conclusion remains as doubtful today as it did in August
1945 even after the disclosure of numerous new documents and materials and the
publication of many books and articles questioning Truman’s decision to drop the
bomb.

1
The paper originally appeared in Dissent (Summer 1995), pp. 323–327. It was reprinted in Rawls’
Collected Papers, ed. Samuel Freeman (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999), pp.
565–572. References to this paper appear in parentheses and will note the pages in the Collected
Papers (CP).

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 CHARLES LANDESMAN

Why was the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima? What were the aims and
motives of Truman and those of his advisors who supported this decision?
On various occasions, Truman said that his reason was to end the war as quickly
as possible and thus to save many lives. For example, in a radio broadcast on
August 9, he explained: “We have used it in order to shorten the agony of war,
in order to save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans.”2 Call
this “the official rationale.”
Rawls does not disagree with Truman’s account of his reasons, although he
suggests that other reasons may have been involved:

The bomb was dropped to hasten the end of the war. It is clear that Truman and most other
allied leaders thought it would do that. Another reason was that it would save lives where the
lives counted are the lives of American soldiers. The lives of Japanese, military and civilian,
presumably counted for less. Here the calculations of least time and most lives saved were mutu-
ally supporting. Moreover, dropping the bomb would give the Emperor and the Japanese leaders
a way to save face, an important matter given the Japanese samurai culture. Indeed, at the end a
few top Japanese leaders wanted to make a last sacrificial stand but were overruled by others
supported by the Emperor, who ordered the surrender on August 12, having received word from
Washington that the Emperor could stay provided it was understood that he had to comply with
the orders of the American military commander. The last reason I mention is that the bomb was
dropped to impress the Russians with American power and make them more agreeable with our
demands. This reason is highly disputed but is urged by some critics and scholars as important.
(CP, 569–570)

According to the official rationale, the primary reason was to end the war and
save lives. What makes a reason a primary reason for an action is that it is a suf-
ficient reason for the action to be chosen even in the absence of any other reasons.
Secondary reasons are neither necessary nor sufficient; they may strengthen
support for the action, but the action would be chosen anyhow in their absence.
There may be several primary reasons, each one being sufficient; in that case, the
decision is over-determined. It is not completely clear from what Rawls says
whether he agrees with the official rationale that ending the war and saving lives
was the primary reason.
The Allies demanded that the Japanese surrender unconditionally, although at
the very end, they agreed to keep the Emperor to facilitate the surrender of
millions of Japanese soldiers scattered throughout Asia and the Pacific and to
facilitate the occupation. Prior to the surrender, there were a variety of conflict-
ing conceptions about how to bring it about. The official plan was to invade

2
Quoted in David McCullough, Truman (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992), p. 459.

22
 RAWLS ON HIROSHIMA

the Japanese islands themselves, the first stage being landing on Kyushu in
November 1945. It was understood that if the Japanese fought the way they did
in defending Okinawa and other islands, refusing to surrender, fighting to the
death, and utilizing suicide bombers against allied forces, the casualties would be
enormous.
Truman was particularly concerned about the projected casualties of American
soldiers. At a meeting on June 18 with most of his military and civilian advisers
at which he was supposed to obtain a casualty estimate for the invasion, accord-
ing to Richard B. Frank, “Truman never got an unambiguous or unanimous
answer to his fundamental question about casualties . . .”3 Most likely, no definite
answer could be provided, given the uncertainty of events in the chaos of war.
The best that could be done was to extrapolate casualties incurred elsewhere such
as on Okinawa, and that gave no grounds for optimism. “Admiral Leahy recalled
that troops in Okinawa had suffered about 35 percent casualties, and that this was
a reasonable estimate for Kyushu. With 767,000 men scheduled to participate
in the campaign, this would mean about 268,000 dead and wounded.”4 At that
meeting, there was unanimous support for the invasion plan, although later that
unanimity disappeared when the extent of the Japanese preparations to meet the
invasion was discovered.5
Alternatives to an invasion had been considered such as a naval blockade that
would starve the Japanese into submission, intense bombing of military and rail-
road facilities, or a combination thereof.6 These options were rejected because, as
Rawls asserts, there was a strong interest in ending the war quickly and these
plans could have delayed surrender for many months or even years. Haste was
important not only to save the lives that would be lost in the interim, but also
because there was pressure from the home front to bring the troops home, and
American soldiers in Europe who had just finished fighting the Germans objected
to being transferred to the Pacific to fight and perhaps die in another series of
battles. The Japanese were hoping for a decline in the morale of the Allies to
induce a negotiated peace that would avoid occupation and allow them to keep
some of their conquests.7 Moreover, through intercepted messages, the American
military knew of Japanese plans to fight to the bitter end—I suppose this is what

3
Richard B. Frank, Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire (New York: Random House,
1999), p. 144.
4
Ronald H. Spector, Eagle against the Sun: The American War with Japan (New York: Free Press,
1985), p. 543.
5
Frank, pp. 340, 356–357.
6
Spector, pp. 541–542.
7
Japanese naval strategists “estimated that 30 to 50 percent of the American invasion fleet could be
put out of action prior to the landing” by the use of kamikaze attacks. Spector, p. 543. See also
Robert H. Butow, Japan’s Decision to Surrender (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1959), p. 95.

23
 CHARLES LANDESMAN

Rawls means by the samurai culture—and the steadfastness of the Japanese mil-
itary would probably not be undermined by the slow decline that a blockade or
conventional bombing would produce. Moreover, the political leaders of Japan,
including the Emperor, did not object to the plan of throwing everything they had
into the fight against an invasion; in fact, they supported it until after the atomic
bomb was dropped.
Rawls mentions as another possible reason for the use of atomic weapons a
desire on the part of Truman and his advisers to impress the Soviet Union and
make Stalin more agreeable to the interests of the Allies. Roosevelt and Truman
had urged the Soviet Union to enter the war against Japan. It was hoped that the
anticipation of Russian soldiers invading the home islands would help to persuade
the Japanese to surrender, and, in any case, the projected Russian invasion of
China would tie up the Japanese troops there. At Yalta, Stalin promised to enter
the war three months after the end of the European conflict and he kept his
promise (August 8). However, in the early months of 1945, it became clear that
Stalin was trying to impose Communist regimes on the eastern European coun-
tries liberated by Russian soldiers, and the problem of Poland loomed particu-
larly large. The Cold War was already beginning before the hot one had ended.
In the light of Soviet behavior in Europe, Truman and his advisers became less
enthusiastic about the possibility of Soviet occupation of regions of China, Japan,
and Korea.8 While Truman was discussing these matters with Churchill and Stalin
at the Potsdam conference in July, he learned of the success of the atomic test in
New Mexico. His ardor to have the Russians enter the Pacific war cooled. The
availability of the bomb made Soviet entry into the war less crucial in obtaining
unconditional surrender.
Rawls mentions that it is highly disputed among historians whether containing
the Soviets was an actual reason for dropping the bomb. The official rationale as
exemplified in Truman’s own explanations for the decision does not mention this
as a reason at all. Truman’s critics—call them revisionists—promote Soviet con-
tainment to the position of the or at least a primary reason, and demote ending
the war quickly to the position of no reason at all or, at best, a secondary reason.9

8
Yet even on August 9, after two atomic bombs had been dropped without a surrender, Truman was
not ready to give up on the Russians. In a message to Senator Richard Russell, Truman wrote: “It
is my opinion that after the Russians enter into the war the Japanese will very shortly fold up”
(McCullough, p. 458).
9
A full statement of the revisionist position is contained in Gar Alperovitz, The Decision to Use
the Atomic Bomb (New York: Random House, 1995). Substantial defenses of the official rationale
are included in Robert P. Newman, Truman and the Hiroshima Cult (East Lansing, Michigan:
Michigan State University Press, 1995), Richard B. Frank, Downfall: The End of the Japanese
Empire (New York: Random House, 1999), and Thomas B. Allen and Norman Polmar, Code-Name
Downfall (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995).

24
 RAWLS ON HIROSHIMA

After examining the arguments for and against the official rationale, I have con-
cluded that ending the war quickly to avoid further death and destruction was the
primary reason. Certainly, containing the Soviets was on Truman’s mind as well
as on the mind of his new Secretary of State, James Byrnes. They would have
liked the war to end without Soviet intervention, but, in my opinion, the atomic
bombs would have been dropped even if Stalin had no intention at all of enter-
ing the war against Japan. Impressing the Russians was at most a secondary
reason, whereas ending the war quickly with a minimum of casualties was the
primary reason. Truman’s preoccupation and concern with avoiding American
casualties confirm this way of understanding his motives. Such a concern would
be expected of any American president. I interpret Rawls’ account quoted above
as compatible with this formulation.
Many of those who accept the official rationale believe that it justified drop-
ping the bomb, whereas the revisionists mostly claim that it was unjustified, an
immoral act for which Truman and his advisers were morally culpable. What is
interesting about Rawls’ position is that his acceptance of Truman’s explanation
of his motives does not lead him to think that he was justified in using atomic
weapons. Let us turn to his arguments.

II

Rawls offers several principles and assumptions that, taken together, are
intended to justify his moral verdict. The first is: “The aim of a just war waged
by a decent democratic society is a just and lasting peace between peoples, espe-
cially with its present enemy” (CP, 565). Rawls also claims (in his second assump-
tion) that the war was being waged against a nondemocratic society that has
“expansionist aims [that] threatened the security and free institutions of demo-
cratic regimes and caused the war” (CP, 566).10
However, I do not think that the direct and immediate aim of the entry of the
United States into the Pacific war was or could have been “a just and lasting peace

10
Not everyone agrees that Japan caused the war. Robert P. Sinnett, for example, in Day of of Deceit:
The Truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001), claims that the
Roosevelt administration deliberately provoked Japan to attack the United States. For additional
evidence that the administration’s policies were provocative, see Thomas Fleming, The New
Dealers’ War: FDR and the War within World War II (New York: Basic Books, 2001). Fleming
says that “the charge that Roosevelt wanted the Japanese to attack the Pacific fleet in Pearl Harbor
remains unproven” (p. 42). It is true that the economic sanctions imposed on Japan were provoca-
tive, but their intent may have been simply to deter and reduce Japanese aggression rather than to
incite an attack. War was a risk that the administration was willing to take. I shall assume with
Rawls that the primary cause of the war in the Pacific was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and
that the Japanese were thus responsible for initiating war.

25
 CHARLES LANDESMAN

between peoples, especially with its present enemy.” At first, the aim was simply
to defend ourselves, to save ourselves from defeat and our institutions from
destruction. After it became clear a year or so later that Japan could not win the
war, the aim became one of defeating the enemy and defeating him in such a way
as to make it unlikely that Japan as well as Germany would ever be in a position
to threaten us again. That was what lay behind the policy of unconditional
surrender.
As interpreted in the Potsdam Declaration (or Proclamation) of July 26, 1945,
unconditional surrender as applied to Japan meant the following conditions: Japan
was to submit to occupation, the power of the militarists was to be eliminated, a
peaceful government was to be established, the armed forces were to surrender,
and the conquered territories were to be relinquished. Truman promised that the
disarmed soldiers would be permitted to return home, that the new government
would permit freedom of speech and religion, that nonmilitary industry and trade
would be permitted, and that the occupation would be ended after a peaceful gov-
ernment was established.11 These terms of surrender aimed not only to assure that
a militaristic and expansionist Japan would not rise again, but also to allow a
peaceful Japan to take its place in the world. In that way, the war aims came to
include conditions for a “just and lasting peace,” but this understanding of the
meaning of unconditional surrender evolved over time after many discussions
among allied leaders, and it was settled only when it became clear that Japan was
nearing defeat, and it was motivated to encourage Japan to surrender. The con-
ditions for peace were not clearly formulated until the war approached its end,
and it could not have been otherwise, for the first thoughts after Pearl Harbor
were how to survive and how to revive; military conditions and plans inevitably
dominated the thinking of Allied leaders. The identification of the conditions for
a just and lasting peace were the outcome of prolonged discussion and contro-
versy within the Roosevelt and Truman administrations over the course of many
months. War aims evolve over time as the situation of the contending parties
changes.
Among the controversies within the administration leading up to the Potsdam
Declaration was the question of the status of the Japanese Emperor. A number of
advisers believed that the Japanese would never surrender unless the Emperor
was retained. Some of these even thought that retention would be sufficient to
persuade Japan to surrender. Yet the Potsdam Declaration fails to mention the
Emperor in its clarification of unconditional surrender. Why not?
Some revisionists suggest that at the time of the Potsdam Declaration, Truman
did not want Japan to surrender except in response to the atomic bomb. If Japan

11
This summary is taken from Newman, pp. 69–70.

26
 RAWLS ON HIROSHIMA

surrendered prior to atomic destruction, the primary aim of containing and

impressing the Soviet Union would not have been served. Therefore, retention was
deliberately omitted to delay surrender until the bomb was ready. One assumption
behind this interpretation is that the administration knew, or at least believed, that
the use of the atomic bomb was not necessary to induce surrender without an inva-
sion; announcing retention of the Emperor or the Soviet entry into the war or their
conjunction would have been sufficient. Thus, the official rationale is undermined12
and the stage is set for a moral condemnation of Truman and his advisers.
However, there are better reasons for accepting the official rationale than the
revisionist narrative. Given, as Rawls declares, that Truman wished to end the
war as quickly as possible to minimize casualties, he had no reason to believe
that either announcing that the Emperor would be retained or waiting for the
Soviet Union to gain victory over the Japanese troops in China would bring sur-
render in a reasonable time. He certainly could not know whether Japan would
surrender in time to avoid the planned invasion. Moreover, intercepted Japanese
diplomatic messages indicated that even in early August, the Japanese were still
unwilling to surrender and were still hoping to achieve a negotiated peace that
would leave their military capacity intact. Japan openly rejected the conditions
laid down in the Potsdam Declaration. Intercepted messages from July 22
revealed that even if the Emperor was to be retained, Japan would not surrender.13
Intercepted messages showed that the Japanese military leaders, who controlled
the political situation through threats of violence and assassination as well as by
constitutional means, had no intention of surrendering, but were readying all their
forces to meet the anticipated invasion. In the Emperor’s own account of the end
of the war, there is no indication that he was eager to surrender or that surrender
terms had even been formulated.14 Frank concludes: “In the face of this evidence,
it is fantasy, not history, to believe that the end of the war was at hand before the
use of the atomic bomb.”15
The question of why the status of the Emperor was left out of the Potsdam
Declaration is still of historical interest. The policy of unconditional surrender as

12
See, for example, Alperovitz, p. 317.
13
Frank, p. 239.
14
Frank, pp. 239, 345.
15
Frank, p. 239. See also J. Samuel Walker, Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and the Use of
Atomic Bombs against Japan (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997), pp. 88–89.
Butow offers a slightly different understanding of the role of the atomic bomb: “The atomic
bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Soviet Union’s declaration of war did not produce
Japan’s decision to surrender, for that decision—in embryo—had long been taking shape. What
these events did do was to create the unusual atmosphere in which the theretofore static factor of
the Emperor could be made active in such an extraordinary way as to work what was virtually a
political miracle” (p. 231).

27
 CHARLES LANDESMAN

applied to both Germany and Japan met with a great deal of criticism and oppo-
sition after Roosevelt announced it at a news conference at the end of the
Casablanca conference with Churchill in 1943. Some military leaders thought that
it would cause the Germans to fight to the last man. After the war, Eisenhower
was quoted as saying: “If you were given two choices, one to mount a scaffold,
and the other to charge twenty bayonets, you might as well charge twenty bayo-
nets.”16 However, such predictions were not borne out by the actual course of
events. It is true that Hitler would have fought to the last German, but not because
of the policy of unconditional surrender. Soon after he committed suicide, the
German army capitulated without fighting to the last man.
There was an ethical rationale for the policy of unconditional surrender.17
The Allies did not think that they were fighting a conventional war against an
ordinary enemy. They believed that they were in a war to root out an extreme
peril to the human race as well as to democratic institutions and civilization. Only
by occupying the homelands of the enemy would it be possible to prevent
Germany and Japan from reviving as militaristic and aggressive powers. This was
taken to be one of the lessons of the First World War. One reason that the Emperor
was not mentioned in the Potsdam Declaration was that Truman, as well as most
Americans, thought of him as a war criminal on a par with Hitler. Because the
enemy was about to be defeated, no compromise with evil was thought to be nec-
essary, at least at that time. Secretary of War Stimson, in his diary made avail-
able years after the war was over, claimed that Truman and Byrnes withheld
the retention of the Emperor from the Declaration because they assumed that
there would be some negotiations to bring about surrender and that retention
could be proffered at that time.18 Failure to mention retention might have been
part of a strategy of not mentioning your final offer before it was absolutely neces-
sary to do so. In addition, the policy of unconditional surrender was extremely

16
Fleming, p. 175. See the entire Chapter Seven for various criticisms of the unconditional surren-
der policy.
17
Michael Walzer claims that demand for unconditional surrender was morally problematic. “The
Japanese case is sufficiently different from the German so that unconditional surrender should never
have been asked. Japan’s rulers were engaged in a more ordinary sort of military expansion, and
all that was morally required was that they be defeated, not that they be conquered and totally
overthrown.” Just and Unjust Wars (New York: Basic Books, Third Edition, 2000), pp. 267–268.
My remarks below suggest that Japan was closer to Germany than Walzer thinks. Also doubtful is
his implied claim that military occupation of Japan was unnecessary to destroy its militaristic
culture. In any case, the occupation of Japan was a great success for which the whole world should
be grateful.
18
See Frank, p. 410. Even though Truman decided on August 10 that the Emperor could be retained,
the official reply to the Japanese surrender offer indicated that the Emperor would be “subject to
the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers.” The Emperor was kept as a figurehead, and this
was close to unconditional surrender.

28
 RAWLS ON HIROSHIMA

popular with the American people.19 Also, some advisers worried that watering
down the demand for unconditional surrender would strengthen the hand of the
militarists among the Japanese leaders.20 Finally, although the Potsdam Declara-
tion did not explicitly include retention of the Emperor, a careful reading of one
passage would make it clear that retention was up to the Japanese people: “The
occupying forces of the Allies shall be withdrawn from Japan as soon as . . . there
has been established in accordance with the freely expressed will of the Japan-
ese people a peacefully inclined and responsible government” (Article 12). Thus,
retaining the Emperor within a nonmilitaristic constitutional structure was clearly
left open as an option. If the Japanese had approached the Truman administration
directly in late July or early August rather than trying to use the Soviet Union
as a mediator, surrender could have been arranged without the use of atomic
weapons.
Rawls asks why the Allies did “not try to enter into negotiations with the Japa-
nese before any drastic steps such as the fire-bombing of cities or the bombing
of Hiroshima were taken. A conscientious attempt to do so was morally neces-
sary” (CP, 571). However, the Allies did formulate their war aims at various times
and made them public. The Potsdam Declaration was clear about what was
required. Negotiations have a public aspect as well as an aspect that involves
diplomatic discussions conducted in privacy. The Japanese rejected the Potsdam
Declaration and refused to place any alternative on the table.

III

With respect to Rawls’ first principle, the question remains as to how the use
of the atomic bomb was supposed to conflict with the pursuit of “a just and lasting
peace.” Another principle suggests his answer:

Just peoples by their actions and proclamations are to foreshadow during the war the kind of peace
they aim for and the kind of relations they seek between nations. . . . The way a war is fought and
the actions ending it endure in the historical memory of peoples and may set the stage for future
war. (CP, 567)

The inference that Rawls intimates is that the use of atomic weapons threatened
“a just and lasting peace” and “set the stage for future war.” If this is what he had
in mind, then he was simply mistaken. After more than fifty years, the peace
between Japan and the United States is just and lasting. In contrast to the case of
Germany after the First World War, the way the war ended did not create mem-

19
Spector, pp. 545–546.
20
Walker, p. 45.

29
 CHARLES LANDESMAN

ories sufficient to disrupt peaceful and friendly relations. In fact, it is likely that
the shock of two atomic bombings cured the Japanese of a desire for military
adventures and of the need for an empire. Postwar experience demonstrated that
to gain prosperity and assure access to raw materials, an empire is unnecessary
under the present international system. Truman could not have predicted all of
these results, and so we cannot assign him credit for them, but they tend to support
the view that the decision to use atomic weapons to force the Japanese to sur-
render as soon as possible was correct.

IV

The only persuasive part of Rawls’ case against the use of the atomic bomb
lies in his fourth principle according to which “civilians . . . can never be attacked
directly except in times of extreme crisis” (CP, 566–567). Civilians and soldiers
have “rights as human persons” (CP, 566). This principle can be understood as
a special case of the general moral prohibition against killing and harming the
innocent. According to Rawls, however, it is permitted to attack soldiers directly
because “a democratic people cannot defend itself in any other way, and defend
itself it must do. About this there is no choice” (CP, 566).
Because many soldiers are innocent of any moral wrongdoing, and because
many do not directly participate in combat, one wonders how the right to attack
soldiers squares with their human rights, with the prohibition against killing the
innocent. Rawls suggests a way to resolve the apparent conflict of moral values
when he asserts: “There are no absolute moral rights—rights that must be
respected in all circumstances” (CP, 568). Thus, when one right conflicts with
another in a particular situation, one must conform to the one with the higher pri-
ority. Rawls clearly places the right of self-defense of democratic societies ahead
of the prohibition against killing the innocent in the circumstances of World War
II, so that the prohibition does not apply to soldiers although it continues to apply
to civilians. From what he implies, the reason for this order of priority is based
on the high value he places on democratic societies and institutions, together with
the fact that World War II was a just war from the moral point of view.
Another reason that Rawls offers for not attacking the civilian population of
the enemy is that most civilians bear no responsibility for the war:

Since the state fought against is not democratic, the civilian members of the society cannot be
those who organized and brought on the war. This was done by its leaders and officials assisted
by other elites who control and staff the state apparatus. They are responsible, they willed the war,
they are criminals. But civilians, often kept in ignorance and swayed by state propaganda, are not.
And this is so even if some civilians knew better and were enthusiastic for the war. In a nation’s
conduct of war such marginal cases may exist but they are irrelevant. (CP, 566)

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 RAWLS ON HIROSHIMA

Not everyone agrees. Attempts were made to justify obliteration bombing by

blurring the distinction between leaders and soldiers on the one hand and ordi-
nary, noncombatant civilians on the other. For example, in his memoirs, General
Curtis LeMay argues that the firebomb raids against Japanese cities starting in
March 1945 were justified because the Japanese dispersed manufacturing capac-
ity among civilian dwellings.21 His justification is military necessity. On the other
hand, Elizabeth Anscombe claimed that the obliteration bombing of civilian
centers was murder and is prohibited absolutely.22 She does not think that any
other moral claims have priority over the prohibition against killing the innocent.
Trade-offs between absolute rights and other values are not permitted. Moreover,
even if some civilians engaged in war manufacturing in or near their homes, not
all did so.23 Therefore, John Ford concludes that “it is impossible to adopt this
strategy without the direct intent of violating the rights of innocent civilians. This
intent, of course, is gravely immoral.”24 Thus, according to Ford, it would be a
mistake to use the principle of double effect to justify attacking civilians.
One reason for the increased bombing of civilians during the war in both
Europe and Japan was the failure of precision bombing. Not only did bombs
miss their targets quite frequently, but precision bombing had to occur during
daylight and this led to substantial loss of planes and lives. LeMay thought
that if you were going to use bombing to destroy the enemy’s war making
capacity and if you were going to use means that had a chance of being suc-
cessful, many civilians were going to be killed. On the other hand, some of the
bombings of German and Japanese cities had as their main purpose the creation
of terror and the destruction of morale rather than the destruction of industrial
capacity. It is doubtful that such terror bombings can be morally justified,
although some uncertainty remains if they actually contribute to hastening the
end of war.25
How shall we look at this moral issue? Max Weber contrasts an ethic of ulti-
mate ends with an ethic of responsibility. For Weber, when you enter politics, you
must realize that “the decisive means for politics is violence.”26 With regard to

21
Quoted in Allen and Polmar, p. 86. See also Spector, pp. 503–506.
22
Elizabeth Anscombe, “War and Murder,” reprinted in War and Morality, ed. Richard A.
Wasserstrom (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1970). Walzer asserts: “There is no right to commit
crimes to shorten the war” (Walzer, p. 210).
23
“Even in modern war there remains necessarily a vast field of civilian work and activity which is
remote from the armed prosecution of the war.” John C. Ford, S. J., “The Morality of Obliteration
Bombing,” in Wasserstrom, p. 21.
24
Ford, p. 32.
25
See Fleming, pp. 530–531.
26
Max Weber, “Politics as a Vocation,” in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, ed. Hans Gerth
and C. Wright Mills (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958), p. 121.

31
 CHARLES LANDESMAN

one version of the ethic of ultimate ends, Weber comments: “For if it is said, in
line with the . . . ethic of love, ‘Resist not him that is evil with force,’ for the
politician the reverse proposition holds, ‘thou shalt resist evil by force,’ or else
you are responsible for the evil winning out.” To the question whether a good end
can justify violent means, Weber answers: “From no ethics in the world can it be
concluded when and to what extent the ethically good purpose ‘justifies’ the
ethically dangerous means and ramifications.”27 Adopting means that cause evil
results may be the only way of combating a greater evil effectively. The political
leader responsible for the fate of his nation can never achieve ethical purity. He
must accept the fate of doing evil in order to prevent a greater evil. Anscombe
and Ford can find it easy to insist upon moral purity for they occupied no posi-
tions of responsibility. An ethic of ultimate ends denies that it is ever permitted
to violate an ultimate end. Yet if there are a plurality of ends or of rights, to assign
one of them priority over all others no matter what the circumstances is to create
the possibility of the triumph of evil.28

Both Anscombe and Ford reject obliteration and terror bombing uncondition-
ally. No exceptions. Rawls does allow what he calls the extreme crisis exemp-
tion.29 Here is how he applies it to the bombing of German cities:

Were there times during the war when Britain could properly have bombed Hamburg and Berlin?
Yes, when Britain was alone and desperately facing Germany’s superior might; moreover, this
period would extend until Russia had clearly beat off the first German assault in the summer and
fall of 1941, and would be able to fight Germany until the end. Here the cutoff point might be
placed differently, say the summer of 1942, and certainly by Stalingrad. (CP, 568)

What was the nature of the extreme crisis that allowed the bombing of cities?

The crucial matter is that under no conditions could Germany be allowed to win the war, and this
for two basic reasons; first, the nature and history of constitutional democracy and its place in
European culture; and second the peculiar evil of Nazism and the enormous and incalculable moral
and political evil it represented for civilized society. (CP, 568–569)

27
Weber, pp. 119–120, 121.
28
“We customarily admire a certain ruthlessness in the makers of war—a willingness to do what is
necessary, a recognition that moral purity is ultimately impossible in a fallen world, an under-
standing that ends sometimes really do justify means.” Henrik Hertzberg, “Comment,” New Yorker,
Oct. 28, 2002, p. 42.
29
Rawls here may have been influenced by Walzer’s discussion of “supreme” emergency” in Chapter
16.

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 RAWLS ON HIROSHIMA

Here, Rawls appeals to military necessity to justify killing civilians even though
he imposes severe time limitations upon the practice. Therefore, we have another
case in which rights are prioritized; in this case, the survival of British constitu-
tional democracy and the moral necessity of defeating extreme evil take prece-
dence over avoiding killing German civilians. Yet by insisting that the emergency
was over in 1942, Rawls (as well as Walzer) neglects the fact that the Nazis
continued to murder millions of civilians in death camps until the very end of
the war—a serious oversight.
Rawls claims that the exemption was never applicable to Japan. “Yet it is
clear that while the extreme crisis exemption held for Britain in the early
stages of the war, it never held at any time for the United States in its war with
Japan” (CP, 569). Perhaps he thinks that the ideology and conduct of Japan
failed to exemplify the “peculiar evil” of Nazism. Although the Japanese did
not have the genocidal ambitions of the Nazis, they showered death and destruc-
tion upon all the peoples under their power, including prisoners of war, forced
laborers, those unlucky enough to become the subjects of fatal medical and bio-
logical experiments, and victims of germ warfare.30 Moreover, their military
leaders had no consideration for their own soldiers, forbidding them from sur-
rendering and employing and planning to employ many thousands on suicide
missions.
Perhaps Rawls thinks that the existence of constitutional democracy was never
in danger after Pearl Harbor. What if Germany and Japan had succeeded in pro-
ducing an atomic bomb? Their leaders would have shown no hesitation in using
it. Although the German atomic bomb project never got off the ground, the Allies
did not become sure of this until near the end of the war.31 One of the buildings
destroyed in the incendiary raid on Tokyo on April 13, 1945, was the Rikon
Laboratory, one of the major sites of Japanese atomic bomb research.32 Should
the Allies have assumed such risks by abandoning one of the major techniques
for grinding the enemy down and causing him to surrender as soon as possible?
Rawls’ denial of an extreme crisis in Europe after Stalingrad and in the Pacific
from the very beginning assumes that the Allies knew more than they did about
the failure of their enemies’ atomic bomb projects. Moreover, they believed that

30
For the details, see Newman, Chapter Six. Gregg Easterbrook reports: “During World War II,
Japanese army researchers bred fleas infected with bubonic plague, which were dropped in clouds
over Chinese cities and dumped into Chinese water wells. This biological attack, directed against
an impoverished population with almost no modern health care, is thought to have killed several
thousand Chinese civilians; it was halted when the Japanese realized that plague-infected drinking
water was killing their own soldiers in China.” The New Republic, Oct. 7, 2002, p. 24.
31
For details, see Thomas Powers, Heisenberg’s War: The Secret History of the German Bomb
(Da Capo Press, 2000).
32
Allen and Polmar, p. 87.

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 CHARLES LANDESMAN

the bombing of cities would hasten the end of the war. Should they instead have
increased the expected risk to the lives of their own soldiers to save the lives of
enemy civilians? Even so, it is difficult to justify on moral grounds bombing
merely for the purpose of inducing terror, when the death and destruction created
were out of proportion to the military benefits. Not even an ethic of responsibil-
ity can justify wholesale and systematic terror bombing against civilian targets
unless the military benefits could be expected to be substantial; there is no valid
extreme crisis exemption that applies in this case, not even in the first months of
the war against Great Britain.
In fact, there is never any good reason to exempt people from moral con-
straints. There was an extreme crisis for a much longer period than Rawls thinks,
and that should influence our moral understanding. But at no time is morality as
such suspended.

VI

In Rawls’ account of the reason for employing atomic weapons against Japan,
he claims that in the minds of Truman and his advisers, the lives of Japanese
counted for less than the lives of American soldiers. This is probably correct.33
Later, I shall make some remarks about this inequality of consideration. But what-
ever Truman’s intentions, it is quite likely that the dropping of the atomic bombs
saved many more Japanese lives than were lost in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. An
invasion would have decimated the armies of Japan. A blockade would have
destroyed countless lives through starvation and disease.34
In addition, the use of atomic weapons saved countless lives of those living in
territories occupied by Japan. Robert P. Newman makes a conservative estimate
of the number of deaths attributable to the Japanese Empire from 1931 to 1945
as 17,222,500; he points out that the death rate was increasing toward the end of
the war. “The last months were in many ways the worst; starvation and disease
aggravated the usual beatings, beheadings and battle deaths. It is plausible to hold
that upwards of 250,000 people, mostly Asian but some Westerners, would have

33
Yet the lives of the Japanese counted for something. In his letter to Russell, Truman writes:
“For myself I certainly regret the necessity of wiping out whole populations because of the ‘pig-
headedness’ of the leaders of a nation, and, for your information, I am not going to do it unless it
is absolutely necessary” (McCullough p. 458).
34
Allen and Polmar conclude: “Had the invasion occurred, there could be no doubt that it would
have launched the bloodiest battles of the war. Thousands of young American men and perhaps
millions of Japanese would have died. Terror weapons—poison gas, possibly germ warfare, and
perhaps crop-destroying chemicals—could have scarred the land and made the end of the war an
Armageddon even worse than the devastation caused by two atomic bombs” (p. 293).

34
 RAWLS ON HIROSHIMA

died each month that the Japanese Empire struggled in its death throes beyond
July 1945.”35
What might Rawls say in response to such estimates? For if, as is quite likely,
the use of atomic weapons saved many more lives than it destroyed, how could
he judge that it was a very great wrong? Although the saving of many more lives
than were lost was a clear benefit, Rawls does not unqualifiedly accept such cal-
culations. Considerations of cost and benefit must “always be framed within and
strictly limited” by principles that determine justice in the conduct of war (CP,
568–569). We have already seen that certain of his principles have no bearing on
the question of the use of atomic weapons. Moreover, the extreme crisis idea did
apply, contrary to Rawls’ claim, in the case of Japan because the potential loss
of the lives of millions of innocent people if the bomb had not been used itself
constitutes an extreme crisis, just as the loss of lives of those murdered in the
Nazi death camps constitutes an extreme crisis. What can be a greater crisis than
a situation in which if one refuses to take the lives of, say, 200,000 people, one
would be in a position in which several million people would have likely lost
their lives? For Truman to have tried to maintain his ethical purity by refusing to
act in accordance with such calculations of consequences would have been irre-
sponsible. No leader in such a situation could have afforded not to use atomic
weapons to end the war as quickly as possible.

VII

When Americans heard about the dropping of the atomic bomb on the Japa-
nese, many thought the enemy got what they deserved. Retributive sentiments
were not unusual during the war. For example, in 1941, Churchill said: “We will
mete out to the Germans the measure and more than the measure they have meted
out to us.”36 After the war, Einstein remarked:

‘It should not be forgotten that the atomic bomb was made in this country as a preventive measure;
it was to head off its use by the Germans, if they discovered it. The bombing of civilian centers
was initiated by the Germans and adopted by the Japanese. To it the allies responded in kind—as
it turned out, with greater effectiveness—and they were morally justified in doing so.’37

Einstein characterizes this as “the justification of reprisal and retaliation,”

although two paragraphs later he says: “We have emerged from a war in which

35
Newman, p. 139. The calculations of the deaths attributable to the Japanese Empire are provided
on p. 138.
36
Quoted in Ford, pp. 33–4n.
37
Albert Einstein, Out of My Later Years (New York: Philosophical Library, 1950), pp. 192–193.

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 CHARLES LANDESMAN

we had to accept the degradingly low ethical standards of the enemy.”38 In essence,
he thinks that retribution was justified but not admirable. Rawls, on the other
hand, denies the moral legitimacy of “the passions of revenge and retaliation
against the enemy” (CP, 568).
Perhaps, then, Rawls is questioning whether there is such a thing as retributive
justice that consists in meting out what is deserved.39 A different account would
show greater respect for such basic sentiments in human nature. Most people,
when confronted with an example of injustice, will usually feel indignation and
anger. This disposition, deeply embedded in human nature, is not merely the
preference that the injustice will not be repeated, although that hope usually
accompanies indignation. It consists rather of a sympathy for the victim com-
bined with the belief that the offender deserves punishment and the desire to see
him punished. The reason why the sentiment is so deeply embedded is that people
who do not retaliate are less likely to survive or escape harm. This is reason to
think that it is instinctive, a product of natural selection. The fact that almost
everyone is willing to retaliate against perceived wrongs tends to deter offenders
and thus to diminish the occurrence of injustice and harm to innocents.
Thus, indignation is a backward-looking sentiment aiming to punish offenders
and a forward-looking one in discouraging offenses in the future. In the moral
sensibility founded upon this and related sentiments, the justification for punish-
ing offenders is founded on the fact that they deserve it. In the modern criminal
law, the severity of the punishment is determined in part by the principle of
proportionality—the suffering of the offender should match the severity of the
harm he has caused. In opposition to the philosophers of the utilitarian tradition,
the preventive function of punishment depends upon its retaliatory function: no
punishment without deserving it.
In the criminal law, the principle of “just deserts” is applied to the individual
offender. Other considerations also enter into the determination of punishment
such as deterrence, rehabilitation, prior criminal activity, and so forth. Modern
war presents special difficulty in applying the principle. Ideally, it should be
applied only to guilty individuals and only in proportion to their actual offenses.
That is what the war crimes trials after the war attempted to do. However, World
War II began, for the United States, with the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, an
attack perceived both by the elites and the common people as totally unwarranted.
Under these circumstances, the retaliatory sentiments of the American people
tended to be directed not just at those who had initiated and planned the attack,
but at Japan and its people taken collectively. But of course, the Japanese people

38
Einstein, p. 193.
39
It is interesting that in Chapter Five of Utilitarianism, John Stuart Mill cites retribution as “the
clearest and most emphatic form in which the idea of justice is conceived in the general mind.”

36
 RAWLS ON HIROSHIMA

consisted of millions who were entirely innocent of the attack and who knew
nothing about it ahead of time. Because the bombing of civilian centers punished
the innocent and guilty alike and killed more of the innocent than the guilty, oblit-
eration bombing cannot be justified by means of the principle of just deserts.
Rawls is correct here.

VIII

The position I have reached so far is that the use of the atomic bomb was jus-
tified as a means of ending the war as quickly as possible so as to save lives.40
The basic support of this justification is the judgment that by ending the war in
August 1945, the use of the bomb saved many more lives than would otherwise
had been lost had other plans been implemented. If one objects that this judg-
ment is just a speculation that cannot justify such a drastic action, the reply is
that all choice involves speculation; every decision to do this rather than that spec-
ulates that if that were done rather than this, things would be worse.41 Moreover,
Truman’s speculation was not groundless; he and his advisers knew about the
situation in Japan by reading intercepted Japanese military and diplomatic mes-
sages; they knew that the Japanese military and civilian leaders were not on the
verge of surrendering; they knew how many lives had already been lost in the
conquest of the islands held by Japan. It was not a shot in the dark. The official
rationale survives as the best way to understand what happened.
Thus, I reject Rawls’ major claim that the atomic bombings of Japan “were
very great wrongs.” Another way of making this point is to admit that even if
they were very great wrongs, they prevented even greater wrongs and were
thereby justified. Perhaps this last way of understanding them is better because it
expresses the tragedy and moral conflict inherent in Truman’s decision. Some
might object that one is not entitled to do evil to prevent a greater evil.42 But this
principle that allows many innocent to die so that some may live seems to me to
give greater priority to moral purity and avoiding dirty hands than is warranted.

40
Emperor Hirohito came to believe that surrendering would save lives. In his August 14, 1945,
speech to the Japanese announcing his decision to surrender, he says: “Moreover, the enemy has
begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is indeed incal-
culable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should We continue to fight, it would result not
only in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the
total extinction of human civilization.” The full statement is quoted in Marius B. Jansen, The
Making of Modern Japan (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000), pp. 660–661.
41
Historians have speculated about the course of events that would have occurred if atomic weapons
had not been used. See Newman, Chapter Eight, and Richard B. Frank, “No Bomb: No End,” in
What If 2, ed. Robert Cowley (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2001), pp. 366–381.
42
Douglas Lackey made this point in a private communication.

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 CHARLES LANDESMAN

A person in a position of great responsibility whose actions or inactions may

affect the lives of millions cannot justifiably be preoccupied with sustaining his
own innocence.
One last point remains. Rawls claims that Truman believed that dropping the
bombs would save lives “where the lives counted are the lives of American sol-
diers. The lives of Japanese, military or civilian, presumably counted for less.”
There is a suggestion here of a criticism, namely, that the lives of the Japanese
were of equal worth with American lives and thus should have been considered
equally. Therefore, there is no justification for killing Japanese civilians to save
the lives of American soldiers. Now, I agree that in the morality that lies behind
this discussion, all lives fall under the principles of human rights, and, in that
sense, all lives are equal and are worthy of equal consideration. But in the situ-
ation in which Truman found himself, whatever decision he arrived at would cost
lives. Therefore, the abstract principle of the human right of the innocent not to
be killed does not tell him what to do.
In the light of this morality, the Allied leaders were quite correct in preferring
the lives of their own soldiers to the lives of the enemy, soldiers and civilians
alike. They were fighting a just war. As leaders of nations, their first duty was to
preserve the lives and well-being of their own citizens. This is an essential con-
stituent of their job description. Even if all persons are morally equal from an
abstract standpoint, or in the eyes of God, those whose role it is to protect the
lives and welfare of others cannot consider all persons equally. A parent has
special responsibility to his children, a doctor to his patients, a lawyer to his
clients, a teacher to his students. As applied to the political realm, the principle
of special responsibility says that a leader of a nation has a duty to his own people
that has priority over his duties to others. That does not mean that in war any-
thing goes or that terror bombing is justified. But it does imply that the leaders
of nations fighting a just war against evil and implacable regimes have a greater
responsibility to look out for the welfare of those defending their country than
the welfare of the citizens of the enemy states. In that sense, the lives of the
Japanese counted for less. And that was a legitimate consideration in the decision
to drop the bomb.

Baruch College, New York

38