Rawls on Hiroshima: An Inquiry into the Morality of the Use of Atomic Weapons in August 1945

Abstract

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” 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.