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Here the cutoff point might be placed differently, say the summer of , and certainly by Stalingrad. CP, 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, — 27 Weber, pp. 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 , 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.

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. 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. Moreover, they believed that 30 For the details, see Newman, Chapter Six. 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.

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. This is probably correct. An invasion would have decimated the armies of Japan.

A blockade would have destroyed countless lives through starvation and disease. Newman makes a conservative estimate of the number of deaths attributable to the Japanese Empire from to as 17,,; he points out that the death rate was increasing toward the end of the war.

It is plausible to hold that upwards of , people, mostly Asian but some Westerners, would have 33 Yet the lives of the Japanese counted for something. Thousands of young American men and perhaps millions of Japanese would have died. 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. We have already seen that certain of his principles have no bearing on the question of the use of atomic weapons.

What can be a greater crisis than a situation in which if one refuses to take the lives of, say, , 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. 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.

The calculations of the deaths attributable to the Japanese Empire are provided on p. Perhaps, then, Rawls is questioning whether there is such a thing as retributive justice that consists in meting out what is deserved. 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. 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. 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.

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. But that makes no difference to Singer.

B o b has invested most o f his r e t i r e m e n t savings in an expensive an- tique car; o n e day he parks it n e a r the railroad tracks a n d goes for a walk. H e sees a runaway train c o m i n g that will kill a small child w h o is playing on the tracks.

A switch is nearby to divert the train away f r o m the child, b u t if he pulls the switch, it will smash into his car. H e refuses to pull the switch a n d the child is killed. N o w consider this example. What B o b did was n o t gravely wrong, at least a c c o r d i n g to his lights. Jesus' g o o d Samaritan parable may e n c o u r a g e p e o p l e to be kind to strangers in distress, b u t the parable does n o t direct us to d o anything that goes b e y o n d what o u r existing morality also finds desirable.

Even if we are sufficiently impressed by the circumstances to think that B o b should have pulled the switch, we w o u l d n ' t think that there is an obligation for such a sacrifice to b e c o m e part o f Bob's daily r e g i m e n as Singer suggests.

N e i t h e r Singer's appeal to an abstract moral principle n o r his use o f a clever e x a m p l e defeats Posner's claim o f the futility o f a c a d e m i c moralism. But o n e must be careful a b o u t c o n d e m n i n g past decisions in a retrospective j u d g m e n t m a d e u n d e r entirely different circumstances.

This tragic war against vicious tyrants f o u g h t u n d e r great peril requiring the mobilization o f the entire nation was c o m i n g at last to an end. Rawls m e n t i o n s several principles that he thinks lend s u p p o r t to his conclu- sions. After all, they are n o t h i n g b u t their author's preferences.

If you, d e a r reader, also share these preferences, y o u may find Rawls's a r g u m e n t cogent. But certainly this principle forms no part o f a reason why the atomic b o m b should n o t have b e e n d r o p p e d.

O n the contrary, it set the stage for peaceful relations a m o n g the principals. In fact, it is impossible to identify any general relationship b e t w e e n h o w a war is f o u g h t a n d the nature o f the relations a m o n g the adversaries that follow.

Ravels does n o t think that the civilians "often kept in i g n o r a n c e a n d swayed by state p r o p a g a n d a " b o r e any responsi- bility for the war. H e neglects to m e n t i o n that actions by civilians a n d others might have s h o r t e n e d the war note the almost success- ful a t t e m p t to assassinate Hitler. A corollary o f this third principle is that civilians "can never be attacked directly e x c e p t in times o f e x t r e m e crisis" Why not?

Rawls thinks "the peculiar evil o f Nazism" implied that "un- d e r n o conditions c o u l d G e r m a n y b e allowed to win the war" Tell that to the millions u p o n millions o f p e o p l e whose countries were o c c u p i e d by the Japa- nese until they were liberated by the a r m e d forces o f the allies. In addition Rawls thinks that by the middle of , "an invasion was u n n e c e s s a r y at that date, as the war was effectively over" In any case, Rawls does n o t believe that the "calculus o f lives" outweighs the principles he advocates.

But what he dismisses as the calculus o f lives consisted in the m i d d l e o f of the h o p e o f millions of Americans o f their loved o n e s r e t u r n i n g alive. Why should those c o n c e r n s be o u t w e i g h e d by the abstract principles o f j u s t war theory that he prefers? Principles are p u t forward as if they were univer- sal truths b u t which are merely the p r e f e r e n c e s o f their a u t h o r a n d o t h e r s in his circle o f like thinkers.

While matters o f empirical fact are c o n s i d e r e d , they are dealt with cavalierly; Rawls seems to feel quite certain a b o u t issues that historians are still debating. A retrospective j u d g m e n t is p u t forward as if it were plausible at the time of decision. We have seen that universalism, the idea that there is a core morality c o m m o n to all or almost all societies, may be correct even if moral realism is not.

H e thinks m a n y issues in law a n d everyday life may b e resolved by the empirical m e t h o d s o f cost-benefit analysis: "The only s o u n d basis for a legal rule is its social advantage, which requires an e c o n o m i c j u d g m e n t , bal- ancing benefits against costs" Cost-benefit analysis fails to eliminate indeter- minacy, a l t h o u g h it may r e d u c e it in s o m e instances.

O n the o n e hand, he denies that the j u d g e has a duty to b e b o u n d by p r e c e d e n t a n d established rules: The past is valued [for the pragmatic judge] not in itself but only in relation to the present and the future.

That relation may be a very important one. In many cases the best the judge can do for the present and the future is to insist that breaks with the past be duly considered. By using our site, you agree to our collection of information through the use of cookies. To learn more, view our Privacy Policy. To browse Academia. Log in with Facebook Log in with Google. Remember me on this computer. Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

Need an account? Click here to sign up. Download Free PDF. Reason and Arithmetic The Philosophical Forum, Charles Landesman. A short summary of this paper. Download Download PDF. Translate PDF. Naturalism is more an aspiration than a solidly achieved result; efforts to defend it come up against a variety of diffi- cult and even intractable problems: The relation of the mind to the body, the nature of the objects of mathematical knowledge, and the nature of the objects of ethical knowledge are prime examples.

Since the Enlightenment, most secular intellectuals would prefer to be natu- ralists. Since Darwin, it is plausible to think of the mind as a product of natural selection, an instrument for adapting the human organism to the exigencies of life lived amidst physical challenges and pressures. In that light, empiricism appears to be the best account of how we gain access to the world. But then how shall minds, numbers, and values be understood? Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss, vol.

Cambridge: Harvard UP, 5. He takes issue with both empiricism and nominalism by defending a realist ontology. There are abstract objects—numbers, sets, proposi- tions, proofs, sentence types, meanings—which, by definition , lack spa- tiotemporal location. Reason, operating independently of sense-perception, is the vehicle for gaining knowledge of them. His method is to assume, for the sake of argument, that there are abstract objects and to defend that assumption against the claim that knowledge of abstract objects is impossible 2—4.

With respect to mathematics in particular, Katz claims that numbers are abstract objects inaccessible to sense-perception, that they are causally inert, that they have no spatiotemporal location, that they have unchangeable intrinsic properties e. It says that the number 12 is the value of the function for the arguments 7 and 5. If numbers are causally inert abstract objects incapable of occupying space and time, then there cannot be any causal interaction between them and the human cognitive apparatus.

Human beings have no causal contact with numbers. Thus, there can be no knowledge of them based upon acquaintance, perceptual or otherwise. So we cannot have any knowledge of them.

But we do have knowledge of them—a contradiction. He admits that there is no causal transaction between minds and numbers: 2 Jerrold J. Katz, Realistic Rationalism. Cambridge: MIT Press, Page citations will be given in parentheses in the text. Nothing outside reason can provide grounds for mathematical, logical, or linguistic knowledge. Since abstract objects are outside the nexus of causes and effects and thus perceptually inaccessible, they cannot be known through their causal effects on us.

For Katz, the reason why perceptual acquaintance provides knowledge of phys- ical matters of fact is that it tells us which possibility is realized in the actual world. But because mathematical truths are necessary and, hence, true in all pos- sible worlds, acquaintance with abstract objects, even if there were such a thing, would fail to capture the necessity of their intrinsic properties. How, then, can beliefs about numbers be grounded? Where then is the basis of ascribing to Meinonga tendency within his theory of objects to subscribe to an absurd and overblown ontology?

This passage suggests two such bases. However, Meinong himself rejected the view that all subjects of predicates have being. Under the title of the principle of the independence of Sosein from Sein he affirms that things which have no being at all may yet have properties. What then is it? Well, we know this much about it, that all objects have it, whether they exist or subsist or have no being at all. What then is true of all or any object independently of its ontological status?

Or at least, what does Meinong think is true of them? The answer is, 1 think, that whatever their status, the mind can grasp them or apprehend them or form judgments about them.

Now, to grasp or to apprehend an object is nothing more than to think of it or to refer to it in a symbolic act. I suggest then that the ascription of Aussersein to an object is just a technical way of asserting that the object is something that can be thought about or referred to. Aussersein is not an explanatory concept; for something to possess Aussersein just means that it can be thought of or referred to.

For if it were an explanatory concept, if its possession was intended to make sense of something which otherwise would be inexplicable, and if, at the same time, it is not a mode of being, then I for one would have no idea what it is. This is a distinction between forms of being.

This question raises the further issue of what exactly a form of being is. Every ontology is a theory of categories; an ontology is irresponsible not if it has categories but if it has too many, more than are needed for the purposes at hand. On the other hand, there is a way of interpreting the notion of a form of being so that it is not merely an ontological category. Suppose that the forms of being have a certain analogy to colors: color in general is a determinable property with certain determinate forms or cases such as red and green and blue; analogously we might interpret being in general as a determinable property with existence and subsistence as two of its determinate forms; to say that something exists simply means that it possesses one such determinate form of being, namely existence, and to say that a thing subsists means that it possesses the other determinate form, subsistence.

Does he think that the forms of being are just determinate cases of the general characteristic of being? I am not positive that he would reject it, but he has no reason to accept it. After all, he characterizes the differences between existent and subsistent entities in various ways without introducing determinate forms of being. These are some of the distinctions that Meinong either asserts or implies. To introduce determinate forms of being or grades of being on top of these would be superfluous.

The distinction between what Meinong calls existence and subsistence can be explained without introducing a multiplicity of forms of being. Meinong, of course, thinks that there are subsistents; this is part of his ontology. Let me pull these remarks together in a series of comments. I take this principle to be true, and 1 shall say some words in its defense in a moment. In the second place, there is a certain consequence of this principle which can be stated as follows. Suppose it is true that a certain object, say x, has a property F, and suppose that x is one of those objects that do not exist.

It follows from the fact that x is F that there is something that has F. Consequently, if we accept the independence principle together with an intuitively plausible pattern of inference, it follows that there is a non- existential type of objectual quantification. Perhaps that sounds like a contradiction because on some accounts objectual quantification is existential by definition. It resembles objectual quantification in being referential; it is different in that the values of the variables which make the quantified formulae come out true need not exist.

In the third place, the independence principle together with the noncommittal form of quantification that I have just sketched have no unacceptable ontological implications whatever. Ontology is the theory of the categories of existence. An ontological claim is that a certain type or category of entity exists or does not exist.