What I don't understand about this situation, is the fact that if he read the Bhagavad Vita, and caused the death of in Hiroshima, as estimates range from 90,000 to 166,000 deaths, while in Nagasaki, estimates range from 60,000 to 80,000, then did this weigh heavy on his conscience about the negative karma he earned by his statement about Shiva? Was he aware that such negative karma results in a very long life of struggle and torment by your reincarnation cycle? Whatever the case may be, I am just wondering about a guy also causing potentially rockets with atomic bombs, which were actually created also potentially assuring the death of many other people. — Shawn

He wasn't Hindu, so I doubt he thought of karma in this way. He also wasn't responsible for how nukes were to be used, as demonstrated by the scene with Truman. I think the film shows the balanced perspective of him being focused on the science while also struggling with how to navigate a world he knows less about. He's naive in all cases regarding politics and war and this naivety later became his strength as he argued against the use of nukes in a way that politically was viewed as naive.

I think Oppenheimer is someone who demonstrates perfectly what hindsight bias is about. That while living in the moment of something, people generally have no clue how to process anything. And it's only in hindsight that people ask "why'd you do it?" "Why did you think like that?"

It's one of the behaviors of people that I dislike the most as it's a projection of false intellectualism and introspection. Like when everyone says they would not have been a Nazi in 1930s Germany, when in all likelihood they would have been, statistically speaking. In the same way that people today struggle with knowing where to stand in current ongoing issues of the world, but will eventually end up in hindsight bias whenever reality reveals itself to them (often by the true intellectuals).

May I ask, what are your views on the matter of causing death through something destructive, and how according to any ethically bounded theory, what this actually results in? — Shawn

In ethics, I don't think any such level of destruction works. Neither Kantian or utilitarian works. Maybe utilitarianism works if we view the deaths of 100 000 as a mean to save the entire species, but it's still problematic.

But then again, we can think of wild fires. Such a destructive event has been somewhat hard coded into biology to rid an ecosystem that has become broken. Many forests thrive after a wild fire because of the eradication of built up bacteria, fungus and many invasive species. Life didn't end with the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs.

These highly destructive events throughout earth's history have over the course of longer time spans been beneficial to nature. They reset and in the long run help restore. It's both beneficial for evolution to continue improving biology to stand against the extremes of nature, while making sure no entity wipes out nature as a whole. We might not have had earth so filled with organic life if it weren't for all destruction that helped shape it. Scientists speculate that one of the reasons life began at all was through the fact of repeating large scale events that changed a static environment over and over.

Life forming out of, and finding stability, in finding an equilibrium with the ever changing environment.

So, destruction, just like Shiva's role, is both an end and a beginning. Shiva both destroys and creates.

Is there an ethical thought through this? Could a man-made destructive event also be beneficial, even ethical?

If a war is on-going, without any change, with soldiers that keeps dying and if continued will keep dying in numbers that far exceeds that of a one time destructive event. Would it be ethical to do it? Like a wild fire that cleanse an area from sickness and a slowly dying ecosystem, it cleanses the psychological lock that forms out of the hate that fuels the ongoing conflict.

How many highly destructive events in history ended up forming a long lasting peaceful society afterwards?

I think the shock of destruction is what fixes it. It may be that the destructive event is a wild fire of the mind. When an ongoing unstable condition exist in society, it's primarily due to cognitive bias between two groups who cannot get out of that condition. The day to day atrocities, pain and suffering caused by a psychological condition in which neither part can get out of it. And that a highly destructive event might shake people to the core so much that a better world forms out of it, destroying the never ending conflict once and for all.

That the end to something bad in the world isn't necessarily due to a "successful" highly destructive act, but that this act wrecks havoc on the minds of people involved in this conflict, forcing them out of their biases.

Like how WWII was so traumatic for the world that most of the peace we had since then is a direct result of people being shaken to the core so much they abandoned their previously held ideas to shape new ones for a better world.

And it's why people now fear that when the last of the witnesses of that event in history dies, we will see a rise in new atrocities and conflicts because people's minds again start to build up an unhealthy ecosystem of thought.

That people need to be shaken to the core in order to find ethical footing again. Just like works of art asks moral questions, humans need to test their moral grounds intellectually and emotionally in order to become truly moral. That we cannot just form a theory and act morally, it needs an emotional grounding in the real world... and when we stumble as a society, we actually need something massively destructive to shake us back into self-reflection and true understanding of morals once again.

May I ask, what are your views on the matter of causing death through something destructive, and how according to any ethically bounded theory, what this actually results in? — Shawn

In my view, there are no results or consequences other than the deaths (and suffering) you facilitated. Of course, there is the possibility that you might receive some kind of prize.

He also wasn't responsible for how nukes were to be used, as demonstrated by the scene with Truman. — Christoffer

Quite so. Truman's decision is not standing up well to the scrutiny of history. But he was balancing the destruction of dropping the bomb (and no-one really knew what would happen) with the destruction of fighting through to Japan the hard way. (Just as you describe.) No doubt he had a bias in favour of saving American lives. I don't say he was right. But I'm not at all sure he was wrong. It's all much easier from an arm-chair and with hindsight.

So, destruction, just like Shiva's role, is both an end and a beginning. Shiva both destroys and creates. — Christoffer

That's true. But can we ever calculate that the creation balances the destuction, morally speaking? If only there were a way of ensuring that no-one will use that thought to justify some total horror in the future. I wouldn't trust any human being with that decision. If it has to happen, let it happen without, or in spite of, human agency.

And it's why people now fear that when the last of the witnesses of that event in history dies, we will see a rise in new atrocities and conflicts because people's minds again start to build up an unhealthy ecosystem of thought. — Christoffer

The fear of atomic warfare has never prevented small wars in the years since then. But it seems that people are beginning to think that it is OK to threaten it. I suspect that complacency is a factor, but miscalculation is all too easy, so I'm not at all secure about it.

The fear of atomic warfare has never prevented small wars in the years since then. — Ludwig V

One might argue that firearm laws don't prevent firearm deaths entirely. Of course not. No more than requiring a license exam to ensure a person can safely operate a motor vehicle hasn't prevented unsafe operations of motor vehicles from licensees. No more than the fact that people wearing life jackets have in fact drowned. But how can one really say they have no purpose as far as that function goes. Just a shot in the dark, no?

I don't say he was right. But I'm not at all sure he was wrong. It's all much easier from an arm-chair and with hindsight. — Ludwig V

Exactly. What if he didn't drop the bomb and Japan surrendered after a year more of fighting? And would that have ended the imperial ideals? Both Germany and Japan basically became more peaceful than any other nation involved in WWII.

The moral issue here is that I'm not, and I don't think anyone is, arguing for massive destruction as a solution to anything. But I'm observing what happens to the collective psychology of society when something does happen.

That people tend to be shaken out of past thinking and advocate for better morality for real, with actual applied philosophy to the new ethics.

It's like the world tries to operate on moral discussion, theories and philosophy on an intellectual level, but it's only when something dramatic happens that the world actually progress forward.

Maybe because the ones opposing better morals, conservatives in moral thinking and politics become so unpopular that the debate, over night, shifts in favor of the progressive morals that it essentially becomes law.

However, in some cases no one knows what the morals of a new paradigm is. No one really understood the morality that came out of the the nuclear bomb. It was a totally new way of thinking about morality in world politics.

I would argue that we're in the same kind of state right now. With the extreme rightwing populism and demagogs eroding democracies I think we need to see something like Trump trying to install an actual dictatorship in the US in order for western democracies to install new frameworks for how to block such people from ever gaining power through democratic means.

Or how climate change will need a massive event of mass deaths before the world start to wake up for real to change society in order to mitigate the problems.

Climate change is really the most obvious one here. I also think that a massive destructive event in climate change would not only change how we mitigate climate change, but also the morality of how we deal with global industry. That we might even start to force nations to stop certain destructive energy politics out of moral reasons in ways previously considered unthinkable. That industry and politicians won't be able to argue for "the economy" or such things when speaking of destructive industries.

We would essentially need a massive catastrophe due to climate change before we can build a world that is ecologically sound and rational. The world seems to not be able to do this on its own.

That's true. But can we ever calculate that the creation balances the destuction, morally speaking? If only there were a way of ensuring that no-one will use that thought to justify some total horror in the future. I wouldn't trust any human being with that decision. If it has to happen, let it happen without, or in spite of, human agency. — Ludwig V

No, it's not moral to make it an intentional act. It's not an act that can be forced upon the world because that would obscure the moral lessons that come out of such an event.

If you intentionally do something with the intention of "teaching a lesson", you become the center of the immorality. The destructive event needs to be something that rises up from the thinking of all people so that all people start to question the status quo.

Like:
- The allowance to let climate change continue until a catastrophic event.
- The perpetual increase in firepower during a world war (nuclear bomb)
- The lack of scientific scrutiny in areas like eugenics, popularizing thinking that leads to the holocaust.

These three all show a society stuck in a perpetual thinking, debating, discussing something that is unable to move out of bad morals into actual moral understanding. Only the events that rised up or will rise up from this will teach an actual lesson about the topic.

- If the world sees a climate catastrophe that kills millions, we will start to change the world into better ecological balance immediately, silencing those who try to oppose it.
- If the constant increase in the military power reach a bomb that is so powerful it could destroy the world, we understand the concept of MAD and start to work against war in ways not seen before (like the UN).
- If the lack of scrutiny in science leads to the holocaust, we will start changing the ethics of science to not allow such nonsense as eugenics to dividing people.

If, however, someone tries to do something as an act of teaching morality through massive violence, that will only end up with the same effect as terrorism. Did 9/11 make the world think morally about the conditions of people in the middle east and help them to a better life? No, it enraged the world like a stupid mob to start slaughter them instead, forming new factions of terrorists in IS.

You cannot intentionally create a catastrophe, because then you become the center of the destruction, not the thinking of all.

The fear of atomic warfare has never prevented small wars in the years since then. But it seems that people are beginning to think that it is OK to threaten it. I suspect that complacency is a factor, but miscalculation is all too easy, so I'm not at all secure about it. — Ludwig V

But without the thinking about the bomb after WWII, we would probably have had a WWIII between Russia and the US. The cold war relied on the morality that MAD created. It became such an existential threat that even the most stupid politicians weren't stupid enough.

However, the lessons learned will erode further and further as memories of history fade away... when new generations that don't actually understand the horror of the nuke start to form world politics, we might see them used again...

...but that will probably form a new paradigm of MAD morality, and the cycle continues. Just like wild fires.

What if he didn't drop the bomb and Japan surrendered after a year more of fighting? — Christoffer

That indeed is the alternative - except that it might have been more than a year, more than two - nobody knows.
I have to admit, though, that I would not have been surprised if there had been some bias on Truman's part in thinking it more important to save American lives that Japanese. It is more or less unthinkable that he would even contemplate no bomb and a higher American than Japanese body count, just in order to keep the overall numbers down.
Remember also the shock and fury at Pearl Harbour. Revenge is a disreputable motivation, but real, nonetheless.

We would essentially need a massive catastrophe due to climate change before we can build a world that is ecologically sound and rational. The world seems to not be able to do this on its own. — Christoffer

I think we need more than that. I think we need everyone, everywhere, to fear the effects of climate change on themselves and/or their families. Altruism won't carry normal people through the enormous adjustments (many of them reductions) in living standards that will be necessary. At the moment, there's an illusion that life can carry on as normal with a few technical adjustments to energy policy. People will do it for themselves, but not for people who are thousands of miles away.
Sounder and more rational is possible. Sound and rational, for me, is pie in the sky.

To put things in perspective, it’s estimated at 50 million people were killed in World War II. Just prior to the bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the allies bombed Tokyo using conventional explosives. It is estimated that 100,000 people died there. During the rape of Nanking in 1938, it is estimated that 200,000 civilians were killed.

I don’t think Nagasaki and Hiroshima are anything out of the ordinary during what is called total war. I think the atomic bomb had much bigger implications for the future. I don’t think it makes any sense to wring our hands about one incident like this. It’s not the morality of Hiroshima that matters. It’s the morality of war.

Everybody dies, but what's the rush?

In my view, there are no results or consequences other than the deaths (and suffering) you facilitated. Of course, there is the possibility that you might receive some kind of prize. — Tom Storm

Pretty much my view on the matter also. I don't know if some nirvana or whatever the prize may have been awarded for creating such a weapon of mass destruction.

Even the test of the the atomic bomb, which Oppenheimer named "Trinity", is estimated to have killed tens of thousands (from radiation exposure). They didn't tell people to evacuate, to keep the secrecy.

have killed tens of thousands (from radiation exposure — Down The Rabbit Hole

I thought this claim was ridiculous, but then I looked it up and it turns out you were right.

Imagine the harm from the Castle Bravo test. Not spoken about yet. Then there's the problem of atomic nuclei from the absurd amount of atmospheric tests conducted.

Warning. Some atomic playboyism about to be displayed.

Imagine the harm from the Castle Bravo test. Not spoken about yet. Then there's the problem of atomic nuclei from the absurd amount of atmospheric tests conducted. — Shawn

Acknowledging the harm done, I’m not sure that changes my first response to your OP.

I don’t think it makes any sense to wring our hands about one incident like this. — T Clark

You know how callous that sounds? In fact there were two incidents altogether. Look the externalities of the atomic bomb along with the internalities of why at all they should be built have been criticized for as long as they've been around.

Interesting question on the side: Has the advent of the atomic then thermonuclear bomb, made a safer world?

You know how callous that sounds? — Shawn

As I noted - 50 million people, mostly civilians, died in World War 2.

I don't understand. Are you diminishing or downplaying the death of people? I mean, yes, during wars people die; but, the Japanese have been very stoic about it, regarding their loss of civilians. Please keep in mind that these were civilians who were bombed.

the Japanese have been very stoic about it, regarding their loss of civilians. — Shawn

About 1 million Japanese civilians died during World War II. About 10 million Chinese civilians died at the hands of the Japanese.

Is there any logic to this? I never heard of Americans defending the lives of Chinese civilians. Let me lay out the screwy logic for the bombings of Japanese civilians. The death of Japanese civilians were meant to prevent the death of American soldiers. Given that no laws were in place to prevent this from happening, then what rationale can be presented to justify the death of innocent civilians in Japan during WWII with the atomic bombs?

what rationale can be presented to justify the death of innocent civilians in Japan during WWII with the atomic bombs? — Shawn

So the death of 1 million Japanese civilians is terrible, but the death of 10 million Chinese civilians doesn't matter to you.

We’re done here I think.

Oppenheimer didn't discover fission or invent the Atomic bomb. As I understand it, he was responsible for organizing the laboratory at Los Alamos, and over-seeing its function. While Oppenheimer was one of the relatively small number of people who were able to have a "big picture view" of the Manhattan Project, the military (led by General Leslie Groves) were in charge of the Manhattan Project from the getgo.

Many people, physicists, chemists, explosive experts, metallurgists, etc. were in charge of discrete critical pieces. For the sake of secrecy, everything was on a "need to know" basis, and usually you didn't need to know anything except what you were assigned to do. So, few were in a position to know what the actual goal was -- including many of the scientists at Los Alamos, Clinton Engineer Works in Tennessee, Hanford in Washington state, and so on.

Nagasaki and Hiroshima had been selected by the military for atomic bombing well before the first two bombs had been built. These two cities had not been bombed for the express purpose of providing a "pristine" target -- not one that had already been burn over or bombed out.

"Atomic Bomb" seems to be something specially awful, but is it, really?

Atomic bombs explode. The produce a huge blast of heat, radiation, and shock waves. Conventional bombs don't emit radiation, but if you are reasonably close to a large exploding ordinary bomb, you will still be burnt and blasted apart. Incendiary bombs + explosives were used to torch Hamburg, Dresden, and Tokyo. It was a bad bad very bad experience, not radically different than Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- save for the enduring radiation harms.

One thing to bear in mind: the original target of atomic weapons development wasn't Japan, it was Germany.

Another thing to think about: The atomic bomb was invented only once, and the US did it. Other countries could eventually have worked out the physics and chemistry, but that was an expensive proposition. As I understand it, the USSR stole our secrets; the British may have given the secrets to France. China likely got some of its secrets from the USSR. Other countries later found sources.

So the death of 1 million Japanese civilians is terrible, but the death of 10 million Chinese civilians doesn't matter to you. — T Clark

Your conclusion simply does not follow because I was only addressing Japanese deaths regarding the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

We’re done here I think. — T Clark

Sure.

I never heard of Americans defending the lives of Chinese civilians. — Shawn

The US didn't land troops in China before or during WWII, but China and the European allies were both aided by the US before and during WWII.

The Communist victory ended the Chinese Civil War in 1949, which had been going on since what ... 1927, I think.

what rationale can be presented to justify the death of innocent civilians in Japan during WWII — Shawn

You might ask what rationale can be presented to justify the deaths of civilians during any war.

The fact is that war changed in the 20th Century, first during WWI and then more so during WWII. Swept away was the concept of restricting one's forces to shooting enemy forces. The new understanding was that civilians, rather than being innocent were essential to the conduct of war, in as much as civilians produce the matériel required by the armed forces, from bread to bullets to bombs. Civilians took care of business and also produce future soldiers.

So, leaving many millions of highly productive civilians to just carry on with war production doesn't make sense. Hitler called it "total war". There are no innocents and everybody is a potential target.

Another feature of the 20th century's two big wars is that they were "world" wars, not some limited French-German war fought within a small geographic range. Previous wars were plenty ghastly involving all sorts of horrible, awful things happening to people. Even in the American Revolution, which is taught in high schools as a relatively decent war, ghastly things happened. The American Civil War was a blood bath.

To paraphrase Chairman Mao, "war is not a tea party". Carrying out war against enemies who either are or are presumed to be existential threats involves the cold-bloody use of cruel weapons against soldiers and civilians.

Morality seems to be a lost cause on the battle fronts of war. Yes, bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki was gruesome. But so was Germany's invasion of the USSR and the Japanese invasion of SE Asia. You will be hard-pressed to find a war policy anywhere that is not appalling, no matter on what continent you look or in what time period.

Swept away was the concept of restricting one's forces to shooting enemy forces. The new understanding was that civilians, rather than being innocent were essential to the conduct of war, in as much as civilians produce the matériel required by the armed forces, from bread to bullets to bombs. Civilians took care of business and also produce future soldiers. — BC

I'm not sure if this makes any sense with regards to atomic bombs. Their destructive force would merit destroying ships or tanks with them. Surely not vaporizing civilians with shadows etched on concrete. Given that you seem also to imply that these civilians are somehow justified by the rationale of war at the time along with even going as far as denying any aspect of innocence towards them because of their participation in war efforts of Japan is truly a cruel argument.

I thought this claim was ridiculous, but then I looked it up and it turns out you were right. — T Clark

I was a bit disappointed that this wasn't incorporated into the Oppenheimer film, but the film is supposed to centre around Oppenheimer, and if it wasn't something that played on his mind...

Please forgive me, but it seems to me you have overreacted to something you haven't quite understood.

I believe BC's point is that you cannot run this argument to an end. It ends with the points he's put forward. These are the facts of the matter: x happened in y circumstances. No policy is going to justify the killing of civilians without first accepting some war theory, as he's explained. This is not his belief.

It may be worth remembering that philosophy is often a matter of picking at stitches and getting under skin to test our intuitions. It is not a game of who's belief is better.

Hey, I'm just describing what changed in the conduct of war in the 20th Century. Coupled with mechanization, more powerful explosives, and new machines (tanks, airplanes, etc.) war became several magnitudes worse for everyone concerned, including civilians, and the morality of warfare that much less justifiable.

Maybe we would all be better off IF the discovery of fission in 1938 by Otto Hahn, Fritz Strassmann, Lise Meitner, and Otto Frisch at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry in Berlin had never happened there, or anywhere else. But it did. And if not there by them, then somewhere else by some other physicists. Fission wasn't invented -- it was discovered.

Within 4 years Germany and the Allies were figuring out how to make use of this discovery.

True enough, the power of 1 atomic bomb is appalling. Even though the infrastructure required to make a nuclear bomb is huge, the ratio of bomb-to-death-and-destruction is terrible / horrifying / ghastly.

The morality involved in destroying a city and killing 100,000 people by dropping thousands of "conventional" incendiary and explosives bombs doesn't seem different than destroying a city and killing 100,000 people by dropping one nuclear bomb. Depending on one's moral standards, the two strategies are equally immoral or moral.

Israel has killed 60,000 +/- people (mostly civilians) in Gaza with conventional bombs over many months. That's roughly the initial death toll in Nagasaki from 1 bomb. Which case is less moral?

People usually come up with solid rationales for killing people in large numbers. A solid rationale isn't the same as a moral justification.

I can't say that war is, by its nature always immoral, but I certainly would not claim that it is often moral. but fairly soon in any war actions will be taken for expedience that are immoral. And in any war, the morality of self defense will be undermined by excess--like fire-bombing Hamburg and Dresden, for instance. (I'm citing instances of questionable Allied morality; citing Nazi immorality is too easy.).