Some Japanese still want an apology for the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, while others complained about the absence of President Obama.
Corrections is confused at their desire for an apology. It would appear to any student of coetaneous documentation that nuclear bombing was a Pareto-improving (if unilateral) decision. Surrender was not an immediate option. Waiting for surrender would have caused more continuous Chinese civilian deaths in Manchuria. Waiting would also have given the Soviet Union the opportunity to invade; it is worth noting that the mass rapes of East Germans in the aftermath of invasion (approximately 240,000 East German women died in connection with Soviet rapes, of a population of around 19 million, let alone massive German deportations to the Gulag and tens of thousands of deaths in Speziallager as the war ended). A planned invasion, Operation Downfall, composed of two separate invasions, Operation Olympic and Operation Coronet, would have caused anywhere from 500,000 and 1,000,000 Japanese deaths, also causing between 109,000 and 800,000 Allied deaths. Comparably, the bombings killed between 8-13 Allied deaths (POW's held in Nagasaki) and between 150,000 and 246,000 Japanese deaths. We forego discussions of other paths of history (for example, the singular bombing of Hiroshima, or a "display" bombing for Japanese observers), suggesting merely that examination of wartime documents offer similar analyses.
The decisions are graphically represented below (click to enlarge). It is difficult to view without opening in a larger window, due to the scope of differences in deaths. The x-axis represents Allied deaths, while the y-axis represents Japanese deaths. The grey-blue area are the maximum and minimum estimates of Secretary of War Henry Stimson. The green bars represent the Joint Chief's estimate earlier in the year. The red bars represent the actual deaths because of the nuclear bombings. Finally, note that the 8-13 Allied deaths are not displayed in the red because they do not render in a manner discernible from zero.
As we can see from the diagram, the nuclear bombings were clearly the favorable outcome for almost any weighting of Japanese and Allied deaths. This analysis foregoes discussion of casualties, rather than fatalities, which only strengthen the point. Indeed, as an interesting side fact, 500,000 Purple Hearts were produced in anticipation of the invasions--these have instead been used for all Purple Hearts given out in the Korean War, Vietnam War, Operations Desert Shield/Storm, Operation Enduring Freedom, and Operation Iraqi Freedom/New Dawn. There are still approximately 100,000 Purple Hearts left over from this anticipatory production run.
It would appear to Corrections an apology by the United States for the use of nuclear weapons does not appear appropriate, given the Pareto-improving nature of the decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Rather, from our analysis it appears that the Japanese should offer an expression of gratitude for the bombings, which saved hundreds of thousands of Japanese lives.
To the extent that in retrospect the Japanense agree they were on the wrong side of that war, to the extent that we are happy with the world the way it is now compared to what it might have been, it is hard to say who's even responsible for bombings, particularly the second one. When you employ a trigger strategy and the other player knowingly sets it off, who is responsible? If you are always stealing my candy and I say to you, "Okay, I'm going to put this candy in a lockbox that delivers an electric shock to anyone who tries to break in" and you go and get yourself shocked, it would seem to be your fault. And if I remove that illusion of separation and simply say I'm going to punch you in the arm if you try to steal my candy, and you try, and I do, then what's the difference?
ReplyDeleteIn practice, we might want to assign blame in relation to whether we think the activity is good or bad. If it's you stealing my candy, then you're to blame for getting shocked, but if it's you trying to get back your jewelry then maybe I am to blame. So if we think the Japanese should have been stopped, then we might say they're the ones that carry the ex post blame here for failing to surrender.
You may notice a little "wishy-washiness" in my analysis. That's because this entire "seeking apologies" business reeks of ex post. Countries are always expressing their shame and remorse for horrible things they've done in the past. But no one should really feel guilty for doing what seemed best to them ex ante since ex ante is the only criterion by which the rationality of a behavior can be legitimately judged.
By the way, this is one of religion's biggest problems, its general insistence on judging people according to ex post standards. It would pretend that by announcing the 10 commandments, it makes them an ex ante part of people's decision process. But since we don't actually know if any given religion is correct, the actual rules are not common knowledge at all. To bridge the considerable gap we give ignorance a new coat of paint and call it faith.
I would make for a much more benevolent god than any of the ones that supposedly exist. They dress up their spite as anger that is justified "since they told people the rules." But it is not actually within their power to communicate truth unambiguously (which is a far more damning critique of omnipotence than the heavy rock paradox, the latter of which is easily resolved by rejecting naive set theory and recognizing God as being omnipotent over himself as a meaningless statement). Any truly benevolent god would understand this obvious point of logic and judge accordingly.
-wheninrome15
Corrections enjoyed your points.
ReplyDeleteHowever, it's unclear whether or not the criticism was over the war and a "grim trigger" strategy of total war, or the bombing as an isolated decision. It would appear to be the bombing as an isolated decision, for which our analysis holds. Corrections imagines the Japanese criticism is some fuzzy/ill-defined combination of both of our lines of thought.
One argument they might pose, weighted heavily to your strain, could go something like: the United States was partially at fault for an avoidable war and therefore bears the blame for the conditionally correct decision to drop the bomb. That is, while dropping the bomb is the correct decision given the state of the world (as Corrections asserts), the United States was responsible for that state. The line of reasoning is not likely to be as clear as this, but it is one possibility.
We utterly agreed concerning your point on ex ante/ex post judgements. Your application/criticism of religious justice was of particular interest, as it was quite incisive, or to-the-point. However, it would appear that at least some religious philosophers have recognized the conundrum of justice you pose and have attempted to remedy it.
Specifically, the concept of "faith" as distinct from "confidence" is rather important. Faith appears to be a substitute for confidence in decision-making while not being generated empirically (being orthogonal to the concept). Like a prior belief but non-statistical (or at least not continuous, but binary) in nature.
Take Søren Kierkegaard's understanding, in which individuals take a (binary) leap to faith (from the state of no faith). Their decision on faith is unrelated to probabilities. In the presence of faith, they are able to make decisions as if there were certainty, though probabilities are ill-defined (or even "overcoming" analysis of probabilities). It is this binary leap to having "faith" in god (while not being concerned with "certainty" or "knowing" that god exists) that is at center stage for religious judgement.
Under your line of reasoning, the proper test of religion is one of willpower. One knows with certainty that god exists and the struggle is to overcome dynamic inconsistency (an understanding copacetic with previous worldview discussions from your comment on July 29th). Under this alternative line of reasoning, the test of religion is one of faith. One does not know with any certainty that god exists--one instead sublimates from questions of probability to a state of like-certainty for one's decision making, forgoing analysis of probabilities.
It is worth noting, of course, that religions clearly differ on the importance of faith in the sense we have defined it. Mormonism, for instance, has two states, in the understanding of Corrections: the kingdom of glory and the outer darkness. Within the kingdom of glory, to which the vast majority of individuals are assigned on Judgement Day, there are three tiers for the faithful through the faithless.
The outer darkness is the only truly "bad" place. It is reserved for individuals who specifically know with certainty that god exists, be invited to heaven or to god's grace, and reject it. Examples of such individuals might be John Milton's Lucifer, or Judas Iscariot.
The mormon test seems more in line with your understanding than a Kierkgaardian analysis of faith.
If it isn't apparent, Corrections finds "faith" a concept orthogonal to an economic/rational view of the world, and outside our set of basis vectors (not a color on our "palette", if you prefer). Any gaps in our ability to describe faith is derivative from this lack of dimensionality. Our attempt is merely to describe a possible response.
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ReplyDeleteHowever, to jump back to an economic line of reasoning, there would appear to be an additional economic response to a test of "faith." Taking a step back from faith, we might analyze religion in a public policy and political economy framework.
Ex ante, we are in a world in which god might test our willpower or our faith. In the first test, religious people will not be manipulated very easily by individuals desirous of power, because they already know what is required of them. In the second, a power structure is created.
Most religions appear to be in the second world. A bayesian update from our ex ante understanding would be that god is less likely to exist. The second world can be created by both humans and god, while the first can only be created by god. Given that we are in a state that can be created by both, we might expect god to be less likely.
Another way of putting this might be that we are in a state in which power-seeking humans could gain, and waters down the probability god created this test, rather than a test of will.
Indeed, the concern over a focus on faith and its manipulatability lead Kierkegaard to oppose state-lead religion for the very reasoning outlined here.
Either way, Corrections certainly sees your analysis of divine justice as the proper economic/statistical one.
The human brain has characteristics of being a "difference engine". If you steadily decrease the luminance of a light in a darkened room just below a certain threshold - the light will be invisible. But if you move that very same "invisible" light it becomes visible. If you continue to decreased the luminance, you must reduce the signal from the moving lamp to about a tenth of the luminance of the stationary light before it becomes invisible. The change in signal enhances signal detection. It is the same with sound - a sound that varies (think of the trilling of the operatic voice) can be heard at a far greater distance than the same peak loudness of a constant signal. The point is that people naturally focus on the unusual and impart to it a far greater significance than its real world impact. Hence the phenomenon that nobody writes stories about dogs biting men unless it is quite spectacular while a man biting a dog would get wide coverage. The use of nuclear weapons was militarily unspectacular in the sense that the same consequences in terms of dead Germans or Japanese were obtained with the firebombings of Dresden or Tokyo - but mass bombings were initiated by the Germans and in any event were common so they attracted little attention or concern for morality. In contrast the very rarity of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings garnered unusual attention.
ReplyDeleteOn another note, the absurd request for an apology by the Japanese likely reflects the fact that the Japanese educational system has provided very little education to their people to understand the role of the Japanese in initiating what became WWII, the fact that the US initiated the war with the US, and the fact that the Japanese government had turned down all approaches seeking surrender. The person asking for the apology is probably too young to understand the fact and instead was acting based on false assumptions. The reality is the WWII was a total war - a war fought by both sides with all means available and a war that took the lives of circa 100M people. The United States did not want to enter the war but it was forced on the US by the Japanese attack and the Declarations of war against the US by Hitler and Mussolini. The US correctly understood that loss of the war would mean loss of the American nation, our civilization, our rights and property. The US played to win and used all the tools available to do so. Together with the other allies - particularly Great Britain and the USSR (both of whom also understood that this was a war to the death - especially the USSR) - the US fought to win. This included massive American casualties, military casualties inflicted on our enemies and massive collateral damage on their societies. We were right to do so. And we won the war. This was perhaps the last war in modern history we fought to win. Since then we have been so conflicted, so tied to nuance, so restrained that we have then settled for a series of prolonged deadly draining wars. All in all, the US leadership got it right in WWII and since WWII our obsession with collateral damage and the characterizations by revisionist historians has not served us well.
The human brain has characteristics of being a "difference engine". If you steadily decrease the luminance of a light in a darkened room just below a certain threshold - the light will be invisible. But if you move that very same "invisible" light it becomes visible. If you continue to decreased the luminance, you must reduce the signal from the moving lamp to about a tenth of the luminance of the stationary light before it becomes invisible. The change in signal enhances signal detection. It is the same with sound - a sound that varies (think of the trilling of the operatic voice) can be heard at a far greater distance than the same peak loudness of a constant signal. The point is that people naturally focus on the unusual and impart to it a far greater significance than its real world impact. Hence the phenomenon that nobody writes stories about dogs biting men unless it is quite spectacular while a man biting a dog would get wide coverage. The use of nuclear weapons was militarily unspectacular in the sense that the same consequences in terms of dead Germans or Japanese were obtained with the firebombings of Dresden or Tokyo - but mass bombings were initiated by the Germans and in any event were common so they attracted little attention or concern for morality. In contrast the very rarity of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings garnered unusual attention.
ReplyDelete