War and Massacre, by Thomas Nagel

881 Words2 Pages

In “War and Massacre” by Thomas Nagel, Nagel argues that there are limits on what can be done to an enemy even its for the sake of overall good. He believes that such an idea is grounded on the principles of Absolutism, where morality is determined by the action itself (deontology). This is contrary to the view of Utilitarianism, which relies on the premise that Morality is determined by its consequences (Consequentialism). Although could one in fact generate such a moral structure around war? Do the ends justify the means in War? Through identifying with a real-life example, I will look to expand on Nagel’s account where an action taken by a country in war would be prohibited even if it were for the overall good.
In mid-November of last year amidst rising tensions in the Middle East, Israel launched a major offensive against Palestinian militants in Gaza on Wednesday, killing the military commander, Ahmed Al-Jabari of Hamas in an air strike. This strike on a car carrying the commander stemmed the beginning to what is known by the Israeli’s as operation “Pillar of Defense”. Following this “surgical” assassination, the Israeli air force struck over 20 underground rocket launch sites belonging to Hamas (governing terrorist organization in Gaza) and the Islamic Jihad. According to Palestinian sources these strikes killed an additional six Palestinians.
However, this attack on the commander and launch sites came as an immediate response to heavy Palestinian rocket fire over the previous weeks and prevention of other “Palestinian factions from building up their arsenals further. In a statement made by the Israeli Defense Force spokesman, he justifies the assassination of Ahmed Jabari stating “The first aim of this operation is to br...

... middle of paper ...

...future threats from Hamas, a hostile terrorist organization.
In my opinion, Nagel's opinion regarding moral structure in war is a little too narrow-minded. When relating actions in war to absolutist restrictions expressed by Nagel, it is easy to identify many controversies within our moral paradigm. Such positions would not hold ground in issues like the middle-eastern conflict because, with constant attacks from both sides, it is very difficult to assess the right and the wrong by simply evaluating one particular action that country has taken in war. In this particular case, I believe that an assassination and air strike are clear actions for the overall good, however by absolutist terms, Nagel would have a difficult time seeing this counterattack as morally justifiable.

Works Cited

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/hamas-militant-chief-killed-in-israeli-airstrikes/

Show More
Related

  • The Name Of War, Jill Lepore

    869 Words  | 2 Pages

    Our history books continue to present our country's story in conventional patriotic terms. America being settled by courageous, white colonists who tamed a wilderness and the savages in it. With very few exceptions our society depicts these people who actually first discovered America and without whose help the colonists would not have survived, as immoral, despicable savages who needed to be removed by killing and shipping out of the country into slavery. In her book, The Name of War: King Philip's War and the Origins of American Identity, Jill Lepore tells us there was another side to the story of King Philip’s War. She goes beyond the actual effects of the war to discuss how language, literacy, and privilege have had lasting effects on the legacy that followed it.

    Read More

  • Stud Terkel’s The Good War

    614 Words  | 2 Pages

    Fussell believes that the soldier of world war two, "suffers so deeply from contempt and damage to his selfhood, from absurdity and boredom and chickenshit, that some anodyne is necessary", and that the anodyne of choice was alcohol. I would argue that Fussell is correct, especially regarding the connection between the absurdity of the war and the associated damage to soldiers image of themselves as good and patriotic, and the use of alcohol to block out the reality of the war. I think this connection is evident in the interviews presented in Terkel’s "The Good War", especially those of John Garcia and Eddie Costello.

    Read More

  • "Beyond the Front Lines" by Philip Seib

    721 Words  | 2 Pages

    Being a veteran journalist focusing on politics and social issues in the print and television arena, Philip Seib, authored Beyond the Front Lines. He wrote several other books including Headline Diplomacy: How News Coverage Affects Foreign Policy, and The Moral Journalist: Covering the Post-Cold War World. His accolades consist of multiple awards recognizing his newspaper columns and television reporting skills worldwide. Although Seib is a Princeton University and Southern Methodist University graduate, he is now a journalism professor at Marquette University and his curriculum explores international news coverage, media ethics, and new technologies that impact print and television journalist.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Just War Theory And The US Counterterror War

    1003 Words  | 3 Pages

    The analysis over Crawford’s definition for Just War Theory can reinforces the statement above. Crawford’s argument talks about the prevention of greater harm as long as “moral judgments about right action [are] rooted” toward each particular component of the definition. However, it was noted that Crawford’s conclusion about terrorist wasn’t completely true and excluding them from the Just War Theory was more complicated. Byford uses different arguments to explain the difficulty of excluding terrorists as states. Within his comparison there are different war times when states acted as radical as terrorist but we never labeled them as

    Read More

  • The Just War Theory

    1705 Words  | 4 Pages

    “Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.” As depicted in the quote by Ernest Hemingway war is a difficult situation in which the traditional boundaries of moral ethics are tested. History is filled with unjust wars and for centuries war was not though in terms of morality. Saint Augustine, however, offered a theory detailing when war is morally permissible. The theory offers moral justifications for war as expressed in jus ad bellum (conditions for going to war) and in jus in bello (conditions within warfare).The theory places restrictions on the causes of war as well as the actions permitted throughout. Within early Christianity, the theory was used to validate crusades as morally permissible avoiding conflict with religious views. Based on the qualifications of the Just War Theory few wars have been deemed as morally acceptable, but none have notably met all the requirements. Throughout the paper I will apply Just War Theory in terms of World War II as well as other wars that depict the ideals presented by Saint Augustine.

    Read More

  • Fallen Angels Character Analysis

    867 Words  | 2 Pages

    This is the immoral act of killing other innocent soldiers, even if it is to protect yourself and those you love. Therefore, sending soldiers to kill the ‘enemy’ in the hopes of achieving a short lived peace is a faulty idea that Perry and his fellow soldiers, as well as anyone involved with the war, struggles to believe.

    Read More

  • Just War Theory Essay

    1077 Words  | 3 Pages

    Morality is hard to define, and nearly impossible to agree upon; however, when it comes to war, there is a single “widely accepted moral theory” that reaches beyond borders . Just war theory, a doctrine originally attributed to the Christian theologian Saint Augustine , postulates that certain circumstances can lead to the justification of war, particularly if war is used to prevent even greater atrocities from occurring in the future. In its fundamental charter, the United Nations even articulates that every state has the right to go to war in its charter. In its broadest definition, just war theory declares that war may be justifiable if the states involved have both jus ad bellum, or just cause, and jus in bello, or just conduct in war;

    Read More

  • Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee

    1378 Words  | 3 Pages

    In J.M. Coetzee’s novel Waiting for the Barbarians, the Magistrate comes to discover the humanity of the barbarian through his interactions with the blind girl, which eventually leads him to learn about the nature of his own humanity. Although the Magistrate is more lenient on the Barbarians than Colonel Joll, he still unknowingly objectifies them, while placing himself above them. It is only when he is imprisoned that he comes to realize the fragility of his own humanity. Ultimately Coetzee uses the magistrate’s journey from empirical leader to broken and fearful prisoner to express that peace and stability between people can only be obtained when all humanity is valued.

    Read More

  • Overview and Result of the Munich Massacre

    3242 Words  | 7 Pages

    Sanchmo, . "The Israeli Response to the 1972 Munich Olympic Massacre.” Response to terrorism. FreeRepublic, LLC, 10 Febuary 2001. Web. 5 Apr. 2014. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/537799/posts.

    Read More

  • Argumentative Essay: The Case Of War Is Not Justified

    1002 Words  | 3 Pages

    My first question in the case is what gives a person the need to justify war in the first place? There are a lot of reasons to need to justify the mass murder of thousands of people. One possibility could be that with the knowledge and

    Read More

  • Timothy Findley's The Wars

    1719 Words  | 4 Pages

    War has been a constant part of human history. It has greatly affected the lives of people around the world. These effects, however, are extremely detrimental. Soldiers must shoulder extreme stress on the battlefield. Those that cannot mentally overcome these challenges may develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Sadly, some resort to suicide to escape their insecurities. Soldiers, however, are not the only ones affected by wars; family members also experience mental hardships when their loved ones are sent to war. Timothy Findley accurately portrays the detrimental effects wars have on individuals in his masterpiece The Wars.

    Read More

  • A Critical Analysis Of Thomas Nagel's War And Massacre

    1542 Words  | 4 Pages

    Relations between countries are similar to interpersonal relations. When the conflicts between countries escalates to some extent, any resolutions become unrealistic except violence, and wars then occur. Although wars already include death and pain, moralists suggest that there should still be some moral restrictions on them, including the target toward whom the attack in a war should be performed, and the manner in which it is to be done. A philosopher named Thomas Nagel presents his opinion and develops his argument on such topic in the article “War and Massacre”. In this essay, I will describe and explain his main argument, try to propose my own objection to it, and then discuss how he would respond to my objection.

    Read More

  • Paradise Now, directed by Hany Abu-Assad

    750 Words  | 2 Pages

    In 2005, the Palestinian director and writer, Hany Abu-Assad, released his award winning motion picture, “Paradise Now.” The film follows two Palestinian friends, over a period of two days, who are chosen by an extremist terrorist group to carry out a suicide mission in Tel-Aviv during the 2004 Intifada. The mission: to detonate a bomb strapped to their stomachs in the city. Because the film industry seldom portrays terrorists as people capable of having any sort of humanity, you would think the director of “Paradise Now” would also depict the two main characters as heartless fiends. Instead he makes an attempt to humanize the protagonists, Khaled and Said, by providing us with a glimpse into their psyches from the time they discover they’ve been recruited for a suicide bombing operation to the very last moments before Said executes the mission. The film explores how resistance, to the Israeli occupation, has taken on an identity characterized by violence, bloodshed, and revenge in Palestinian territories. Khaled and Said buy into the widely taught belief that acts of brutality against the Israeli people is the only tactic left that Palestinians have to combat the occupation. In an effort to expose the falsity of this belief, Hany Abu-Assad introduces a westernized character named Suha who plays the voice of reason and opposition. As a pacifist, she suggests a more peaceful alternative to using violence as a means to an end. Through the film “Paradise Now,” Abu-Assad not only puts a face on suicide bombers but also shows how the struggle for justice and equality must be nonviolent in order to make any significant headway in ending the cycle of oppression between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

    Read More

  • The Battle Of Ismailia

    1111 Words  | 3 Pages

    On October 18, the Israeli paratroopers started their journey northward towards the city of Ismailia. Ariel Sharon, commander of the 143rd Armored division decided to order an attack towards the north even though he did not have permission to do so. As the Israelis approach the city of Ismailia, they soon started receiving fire and thereafter had to retrieve because the Egyptian defense seemed a little too strong for them. The Egyptians were ordered to retreat but couldn’t because they we...

    Read More

  • Religious Wars

    1121 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Israel Jews and Arabs have been in conflict for hundreds of years because they both share religious grounds in Israel. Since the founding of Israel in 1948 there has been continuous conflict between Israel and Arab states. This conflict has been marked by six bloody wars. On both sides, religion has again and again brought the peace process to the brink of annihilation. The first spark between the two sides started in Hebron, the site of the tombs of patriarchs, building sacred to both Jews and Arabs. Early in 1994 Baruch Goldstein, a religious Jew, opened fire and killed thirty nine Arabs while at prayer. In response to the Hebron killings, two Arab suicide bombers blew up Jewish buses in northern and central Israel. Fifteen died and seventy were injured (Peres 1995 p.177-178). There are still wars going on today, Israel against Palestine

    Read More

More about War and Massacre, by Thomas Nagel

Open Document