Thomas Nagel Thomas

The concept that during war "our contravention with the soldier is not with his existence as a merciful being" may be extended, Nagel states, to prohibit cruel weapons, starvation, and some other tactics beca white plague such weapons attack the men, not the soldiers (71).

Nagel's absolutist horizon is in contrast with the utilitarian personate. He states that utilitarianism gives primacy to concerns with what will hap while absolutism gives primacy to a concern with what one is doing. The utilitarianism position holds that one should attempt to maximize good and minimize shame, and if a situation exists where a greater evil (prolonged war) arsehole be prevented by producing a lesser evil (killing of noncombatants to shorten a war), then the lesser evil should be chosen.

The proponents of utilitarianism might engage a policy of attacking a civilian existence to bring about the surrender of an enemy (such as the precept for the use of napalm in Vietnam or dropping the blood cell give out on Hiroshima and Nagasaki). If the stakes are high enough, the means can justify the end. Utilitarians inevitably place themselves as the final arbiters of what is moral. basin Stuart Mill observed that a utilitarian will be apt to make his own personaicular case an riddance or moral rules and would protrude a utility in the breac

In contrast, the Kantian scan, standardized the utilitarian, would take into account the causal and other natural dealings that determine how its principles are best applied (Rawls 299). In upholding the Kantian form of constructivism and justice, Rawls rejects the Absolutism of Nagel and Abscombe. In his essay "Fifty age After Hiroshima," Rawls contends that the bombing of Hiroshima was a great wrong and does not fall into the category of a just war since in that location was no extreme crisis, and that without the crisis exemption, the bombing was a "great evil" (571). It may be assumed that if an extreme crisis existed, dropping the atom bomb on Hiroshima might have been permissible if no other alternative was available. This moral distinction sets Rawls apart from Nagel and Abscombe.

Anscombe, G.E.M. Ethics, faith and Politics.

Oxford: Basil Blackwell Publishers, 1981.

Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1983.

In the Kantian view, the fall in States believing and feeling that dropping the bomb would save many a(prenominal) lives, both American and Japanese, is not ground on thinking(prenominal) reasoning. Human action, according to Kant, is a means to an end, and is based on practical reasoning or free will. The Kantian view holds that the first, though not the highest, of man's duties to himself is to preserve himself, and therefore the decision of the U.S. to use a weapon of mass destruction may be viewed as based in the preservation of self. For Kant, morality is based upon the dictates of reasoning which informs us of our duty. The Kantian view might see the decision to use the atom bomb on the part of the United States as not grounded in reason. Kant distinguished amid the part feeling and reason play in decisions to act. In discussing practical laws of reason, moral feeling should not be interpreted into account since it is only subjective. Kant also held that the principles of right can be jeopardized by war, or preparations for war and that peaceful relations must(prenominal) be established
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