Perhaps the butcher knife and the capsule is too extreme, but on the other hand, perhaps just having to issue some codes is too easy.
The situations where a nuclear counter-attack serves any moral purpose are limited enough that such thought experiment are worthwhile means or considering what level of deterrence should be in place.
I disagree. The instinct for revenge serves a very important purpose in stabilizing society. If I know you will want revenge should I kill your brother, it makes me less likely to do so, and vice versa. Revenge is also the basis of the justice system, though obviously not its total extent. For example, if you kidnap someone, we do exactly what we condemn and forcibly hold you in a facility for a number of years or life. And yet the moral implications of that are different because of the differing situation.
>You try to appear strong, you tell everyone that you will lunch retaliation strikes, but the leaders of this other country don't give a shit, they really hate you and launch a first strike.
Appearing weak doesn't prevent a first strike by our opponents either. In fact, it increases likelihood of one. So if our options are appear strong or weak, and appearing weak has grave consequences, I will appear strong.
>You really want to nuke the people of that country? You won't hit the leaders and the people didn't do anything to you. Chances are that they hate the leaders as much as you do. So why on earth would you do that?
The people are guilty of allowing a criminal regime to initiate nuclear warfare against another party. No individual or small clique (small enough to fit in a bunker) can launch a nuclear first strike without the cooperation of a large, representative sample of their nation. They are complicit. They launched a strike. They will suffer and die.
Revenge is not supposed to be the basis of any modern justice system, we don't lock people up to make them suffer, we do in order to change them, to make them not commit crimes again, to make them honor the rules of the society they live in. This necessarily involves an element of force, acting against the will of the criminal, but the motive is not revenge. We actually try to avoid revenge as much as we can, we condemn vigilantism because people act irrationally and are likely to overreact or even go after the wrong one. Revenge is not stabilizing, it is destabilizing.
Appearing weak doesn't prevent a first strike by our opponents either. In fact, it increases likelihood of one. So if our options are appear strong or weak, and appearing weak has grave consequences, I will appear strong.
If you really believe this to be true, you have to conclude that it is irresponsible for any country not to try to obtain nuclear weapons. You would have to support North Korea to obtain nuclear weapons because that will reduce the likelihood of war. Nuclear disarmament would be a stupid idea. You are suggesting that humans are egoistic greedy assholes always wanting to just conquer the entire world, to grab all the resources and the only thing that prevents them from doing this are the expected costs and causalities of the conflicts. It is a bit like suggesting that wearing sexy cloths is a bad thing because it provokes getting raped. Being strong and able to fight an attacker is not the same thing as being able and willing to nuke innocent people. The right thing to do is building missile defense capabilities, that might actually save your people. And you of course don't do that in order to gain first strike capabilities because you no longer have to fear retaliation strikes, you actually do it to have a strong defense against attackers. You don't develop or get rid of you offensive weapons to show that you really do it for defense and not for improving your first strike capabilities.
The people are guilty of allowing a criminal regime to initiate nuclear warfare against another party. No individual or small clique (small enough to fit in a bunker) can launch a nuclear first strike without the cooperation of a large, representative sample of their nation. They are complicit. They launched a strike. They will suffer and die.
So if a dictator forcefully acquires the power in a country, the people are guilty? It is immoral if they just try to survive instead of resisting and risking getting killed? The people in North Korea really enjoy their liefs and support the regime? Which by the way certainly fits into a bunker. Is a mother guilty in case her child, despite her best effort, becomes a murderer? Should we kill the mother in revenge for unleashing her child onto the world? Just throw her into jail for a decade or two?
That's patently untrue. The very notion of justice is built upon revenge. To say modern justice systems aren't based on it is to say they float in the air, founded upon nothing.
>If you really believe this to be true, you have to conclude that it is irresponsible for any country not to try to obtain nuclear weapons.
Well, yes, it is eminently sensible in many situations to obtain nuclear weapons for your country. That doesn't mean I have to support them doing so, as it is not necessarily in MY interest for them to do so, even if it is in their own interest.
> You are suggesting that humans are egoistic greedy assholes always wanting to just conquer the entire world, to grab all the resources and the only thing that prevents them from doing this are the expected costs and causalities of the conflicts.
Our domination of the planet suggests this is the case.
>It is a bit like suggesting that wearing sexy cloths is a bad thing because it provokes getting raped.
No, it's not.
>So if a dictator forcefully acquires the power in a country, the people are guilty?
A dictator cannot gain power without the support of a large segment of the population.
> It is immoral if they just try to survive instead of resisting and risking getting killed?
Yes. It is immoral not to resist evil.
>Is a mother guilty in case her child, despite her best effort, becomes a murderer?
What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?
Citation needed. »Justifications for punishment include retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation, and incapacitation.« [1] Note that retribution is not revenge and that retribution is probably the most controversial justification for legal punishment. [2] What good does it do, whom does it help?
Well, yes, it is eminently sensible in many situations to obtain nuclear weapons for your country. That doesn't mean I have to support them doing so, as it is not necessarily in MY interest for them to do so, even if it is in their own interest.
Why would it not be in your interest unless you want to attack that other country? You argued that not having nuclear weapons increases the risk of being attacked, so more nuclear weapons should reduce the likelihood of armed conflicts which in turn means a more stable world which benefits everyone (besides weapons manufacturers and the like).
Our domination of the planet suggests this is the case.
How does that follow? The dominant species on a planet can certainly be benevolent. I grant you that humanity had and probably always will have a fair share of assholes and that they are good at getting into influential positions, but without good additional arguments I wilt not grant you that it is a fundamental aspect of humans that will forever prevent us from living together in peace. We certainly still have to go a long way, but we also have already come a long way.
No, it's not.
If you don't have nuclear weapons you increase the risk of being attacked, you should really consider getting some.
If you wear sexy cloths (not wear non-sexy cloths) you increase the risk of being rapped, you should really consider getting some non-sexy cloths.
A dictator cannot gain power without the support of a large segment of the population.
A coup d'état does neither require the participation nor the support of a large fraction of the population.
Yes. It is immoral not to resist evil.
That is a bold statement. How far does that go? If I see someone pointing a gun at somebody, should I try to intervene even if it is likely that I don't stand a chance? Is it my moral obligation to travel to North Korea and try to topple regime?
What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?
You argued that the people are responsible for the actions of their leaders. It is admittedly not the best analogy but wouldn't it similarly follow that a mother is responsible for the actions of her child?
(The US has never been bombed by any other nation but it has bombed a couple dozens. In the case of nukes, it is the only nation that has used them against another country.)
At the time of their introduction, nuclear weapons were not yet understood as qualitatively different from an equally powerful amount of conventional weapons. The qualitative difference observed after Hiroshima and Nagasaki helped establish this qualitative difference in the minds of people.
Having the grit and resolution to hack someone open and being able to make a good decision about using weapons are unrelated. Why conflate them?
An alternative might be to have the person carry the suitcase with orders never to surrender it, forcing you to be prepared to shoot him or order him shot if he can't be subdued, or any number of "easier" variants.
Part of the point is forcing people to think about why it is appropriate to order the murder of millions of innocent civilians if you are unwilling to kill a single person face to face.
There may be valid answers, such as if you have reasons to worry about further, more destructive additional strikes and want to try to take out their capabilities. But there are also many digusting reasons, such as being willing to carry out mass murder on innocents out of a desire for vengeance.
Why? So that when a new intelligence emerges on this planet they'll know the value of deterrence?
Even if one can agree, which I think most of us can, this particular dilemma is specific to weapons of mass destruction, because their use inevitably (and intentionally) causes the death of many, many people who aren't the target but are in the wrong place at the wrong time.
So, the thinking goes, it makes some sense to force the president to kill someone who isn't the target to ensure that it's a worthwhile sacrifice.
Can you agree that sometimes it is morally just and legally permitted to use violence?
Can you also imagine that someone may know that it is the right thing to order this violence, but be put off by physically having to hack someone up themselves?
If so, do you now see the practical problem that the friends in the Pentagon were warning of? With the capsule in the person you are clouding the judgement of the president and making it harder for them to make a cool assessment of the right course of action, not adding some kind of clever moral check. Can't you see that?
If you want to know more about this issue, read up on the 'trolley problem'. It's a more complex moral issue than your snarky comment implies.