Politirant Political Forum

Every so often I see some nitwit draw a moral equivalence between Auschwitz, for example, and the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan. The moron who inspired this will remain nameless but he's a logical positivist who didn't get the memo that logical positivism was utterly discredited as an epistemological theory before I was born. Anyway, what do you think and why?

What do I think of comparing the two events or what do I think of logical positivism.

As for the former, I don't see any way to reason a moral equivalence. They were both horrible events to be sure but the circumstances were so different. Granted as an American it is difficult to look at either objectively.

The former.

Nor do I. I'm curious to see if anyone does.

I think the temporal distance is one factor in making this sort of thing seem reasonable to some people.

Both events were humans doing unthinkable things to other humans.

But then, the Nazis took their unthinkable actions before a world war while the allies took their action after a 6 year World War. 

However, you could argue that one of those heinous acts was undertaken in an effort to save more lives. To me that ends any moral argument right there.

Agreed. I don't buy the argument that Japan was about to surrender. The bombs were dropped to save lives in the long run and American lives in particular.

The Japs had no ability to project military force.  We didn't need to invade their home Islands- unless we were going to take it for ourselves.  And we never attempted that. 

We used the Bomb because the first nation to do so would be the world power.  And we wanted to be that.

Japan could project very little in the way of military force even before Iwo Jima and Okinawa but the war dragged on because Japan would not surrender. Besides, the Japanese home islands, which were under blockade and whose cities were being systematically leveled, would not have been spared regardless. All told, the death toll could conceivably have been even higher had the US sat on its hands hoping the "peace party" would win out. Disease, starvation, and conventional bombing would all have continued to take their toll both in Japan and in her garrisons.