¹ Compilations of historical and contemporary defenses of the just war doctrine can be found in Arthur, Holmes, ed., War and Christian Ethics (Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Book House, 1975Google Scholar), and Albert, Marrin, ed., War and the Christian Conscience: From Augustine to Martin Luther King, Jr. (Chicago: Henry Regnery Co., 1971).Google Scholar

² Dulles, John Foster, speech before the Council on Foreign Relations, Jan. 12, 1954, reprinted in The New York Times, Jan. 13, 1954Google Scholar; cited in Brodie, Bernard, Strategy in the Missile Age (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959) p.248.Google Scholar

³ United States Department of Defense, Annual Report to Congress, Fiscal Year 1984, published in Feb., 1983 (U.S. Government Printing Office), pp.52, 51.Google Scholar

⁴ These issues have been addressed infrequently by philosophers but more frequently by theological ethicists. For collections representing a range of ethical positions, see James, Finn, ed., Peace, the Churches, and the Bomb (New York: The Council on Religious and International Affairs, 1965Google Scholar); and Walter, Stein, ed., Nuclear Weapons and Christian Conscience (London: Merlin Press, 1961).Google Scholar The writings of Paul Ramsey, included in the above collections, have been perhaps the most extended and careful defenses of nuclear deterrence strategy; see also his War and the Christian Conscience (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1961), and the essays in his later collection, The Just War (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1968). Ramsey's defense of deterrence doctrine is briefly challenged by Walzer, Michael in Just and Unjust Wars (New York: Basic Books, 1977).Google Scholar Recent discussions of the issues raised by Ramsey and others can be found in Geyer, Alan, The Idea of Disarmament!: Rethinking the Unthinkable (Elgin, III.: Brethren Press, 1982Google Scholar); in Kennan, George F., The Nuclear Delusion (New York: Pantheon, 1982Google Scholar); and, in succinct form, in the pastoral letter of the United States Catholic Bishops, The Challenge of Peace: God's Promise and Our Response. An extended argument for nuclear pacifism which sets out carefully the views of others has been offered by Laarman, Edward J. in Nuclear Pacifism: A Contemporary Application of the Just War Tradition (New York: American University Studies: Theology and Religion, 1984).Google Scholar

⁵ On the requirements of the just war tradition, see the works of Ramsey and Walzer, cited above, and Johnson, James T., The Just War Tradition and the Restraint of War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981).Google Scholar

⁶ Deterrence may still pose a difficult moral dilemma on strictly deontological grounds: one may be torn between the duty to protect the lives of one's countrymen and the duty to spare the lives of innocent citizens of a hostile nation. Such a dilemma is not precisely the same as the apparent paradox of threatening grave harm for the sake of great good, even though consideration of conflicting duties may support the same action as does the argument from the consequences of deterrent threats.

⁷ Kavka, Gregory, “Some Paradoxes of Deterrence,” The Journal of Philosophy, vol. 75 (June 1978), pp.285–302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar A classic discussion of the strategic issues which provides the starting point for Kavka's discussion is Schelling, Thomas, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960).Google Scholar Kavka has returned to the theme of this article in several other writings, though the one cited above is the most succinct and, for our purposes, the most clearly relevant. But see also the article cited in the note immediately following, and his contribution to the Sterba volume cited below “Nuclear Deterrence: Some Moral Perplexities,” pp.127–138.

⁸ More precisely, Kavka assumes that the act with the highest utility ought to be performed whenever a very great deal of utility is at stake, at least if what is at stake is a great deal of negative utility and the cost of failing to perform the most useful act includes serious injustice. See Kavka, (1978), p.288. Kavka evidently regards the reference to injustice as explainable in terms of utility – a controversial assumption, but not essential for the paradoxes he proposes. In a later article, Kavka has further explored the morality of nuclear deterrence from a more thoroughly utilitarian standpoint: see “Deterrence, Utility, and Rational Choice,” Theory and Decision, vol. 12 (Mar. 1980), pp.41–60, where he articulates a principle of rational choice which, he argues, is better able to take account of the catastrophic consequences which nuclear deterrence must weigh than are most versions of utilitarianism.

⁹ Kavka, (1978), p.288.

¹⁰ It is worth noting that from a utilitarian standpoint the WIP is by no means obviously true – indeed, it would appear to be clearly false. If morality demands maximization of utility or of preference satisfaction, then the moral assessment of intentions, like that of actions, turns on their probable consequences. If intending harm leads on balance to good consequences, then it is right and proper to have such intentions, whatever the WIP may suggest to the contrary. For the evaluation of intentions, on a utilitarian view, is quite independent of the evaluation of actions, except insofar as intentions tend to produce actions. It would appear that a strict utilitarian ought to feel no compunctions about forming immoral intentions, if the formation of such intentions influences others' actions in desirable ways, but ought not to follow through in action if by doing so utility is sacrificed. David Gauthier has argued recently, however, that when the effect of intentions on the probabilities of alternative outcomes is properly considered, a strict utilitarian may have cogent reasons both to form and to carry out intentions such as those involved in deterrent threats. See “Deterrence, Maximization, and Rationality,” Ethics, vol. 94 (April 1984), pp.474–495.

¹¹ Kavka, “Some Paradoxes of Deterrence,” section II. In the more recent article, “Nuclear Deterrence: Some Moral Perplexities,” Kavka reiterates this conclusion and supports it further on the basis of a “Threat Principle” – the principle that it is wrong to threaten the lives of large numbers of innocent people. He rejects a categorical form of this principle on essentially consequentialist grounds and substitutes a weaker form which rests on a weighing of threatened harms against expected benefits (pp.130–131). Though this line of argument leads to a conclusion which I accept – that some, but not all, threats to do the immoral are justified – it fails, like the earlier analysis, to mark out clearly the distinction urged below between threats and intentions.

¹² I have explored the nature of threats and offers as means of coercion in Chapter 2, “The Nature of Coercion,” of Rights and Wrongs: Coercion, Punishment, and Social Institutions (Selinsgrove, Penn.: Susquehanna University Press, 1985). See also Nozick, Robert, “Coercion,” in Sidney, Morgenbesser, Patrick, Suppes, and Morton, White, eds., Philosophy, Science, and Method: Essays in Honor of Ernest Nagel (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1969), pp.440–445.Google Scholar

¹³ Kavka, (1978), p.287.

¹⁴ See Austin, J.L., How To Do Things With Words (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1962Google Scholar), esp. Lecture 8; cf. “Performative Utterances,” in Philosophical Papers, 2nd ed., ed. J.O., Urmson and G.J., Warnock (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), pp.233–252.Google Scholar

¹⁵ For this reason, I am doubtful that the novel position recently defended by James Sterba, which permits the possession of nuclear weapons while prohibiting the explicit threat to use them, can finally be sustained. Sterba argues that such a posture achieves the ends of deterrence while eliminating the need to intend or threaten the immoral. The effectiveness of such “deterrence without threats,” Sterba argues, results from other nations' doubts about the sincerity with which one declares that one will not use the nuclear weapons which are nevertheless maintained in one's military arsenal. I am not persuaded that the renunciation of explicit threats accomplishes anything more than the easing (on questionable grounds) of one's own moral qualms; but Sterba's argument deserves more extended consideration than I can offer in this discussion. See James Sterba, “How to Achieve Nuclear Deterrence Without Threatening Nuclear Destruction,” in Sterba, ed., The Ethics of War and Nuclear Deterrence (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Inc., 1985), pp.155–168.

¹⁶ Although I cannot take up this matter here, the question of the justification of the use even of conventional arms in self-defense is an important one, and the pacifist's argument that such armed force is immoral deserves far more serious consideration than it has received from either political leaders or ethicists. See, for example, Hume, Portia Bell and Bondurant, Joan V., “The Significance of Unasked Questions in the Study of Conflict,” Inquiry, vol. 7 (1964), pp.318–327CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which argues for theoretical attention to techniques of active, nonviolent conflict. A thorough review of the character and techniques of nonviolence is offered by Sharp, Gene in Exploring Nonviolent Alternatives (Boston: Porter Sargent Publishers, 1971).Google Scholar I have briefly explored some of the common objections to pacifism in “Reformed Pacifism,” in Peace Studies Bulletin (Bulletin of the Manchester College Peace Studies Institute), vol. 14 (1984), excerpted in “In Defense of Pacifism,” The Christian Century (forthcoming).

¹⁷ This example was suggested to me, in a panel discussion at St. Olaf College, by Edmund Santurri.

¹⁸ See the Department of Defense Annual Report to Congress, Fiscal Year 1985 (U.S. Government Printing Office, Feb. 1984), pp.29–31.Google Scholar “We must plan for flexibility in our forces and in our options for response,” the report states, “so that we might terminate the conflict on terms favorable to the forces of freedom.” (p.29)

¹⁹ Since threats may be limited to retaliation or may encompass initial use of nuclear weapons, and since the threat in either case may include the targeting of a large number of military and civilian targets or may include only a limited number of military targets, there are in effect four distinct variations of the nuclear direat: - First-strike with countervalue targeting - First-strike with counterforce targeting only - Countervalue retaliation (massive retaliation) - Counterforce retaliation The first of these is not seriously defended by any contemporary moralist or strategist – even though it is the only one among the four postures which has ever actually been carried through in action, in the case of the United States' nuclear attack on Japan in 1945. In the text, I consider the first two postures as variations on a first-strike strategy.

²⁰ See, for example, Dyson, Freeman, Weapons and Hope (Cambridge, Mass.: Harper and Row, 1984Google Scholar), esp. ch.20. Dyson's treatment of nuclear issues is one which I find very valuable even if finally unpersuasive on some issues; see my review in The Christian Century, vol. 101 (Nov. 28, 1984), pp.1131–32.

²¹ The case against limited nuclear attack has been made persuasively by the authors of The Challenge of Peace, among many others. Their rejection of limited nuclear war extends to limited retaliatory attack as well; some possible qualifications of their firm position on this issue are expressed in the following section.

²² Wohlstetter argues for the morality of limited nuclear retaliation but also contends that future advances in precise delivery of high-yield conventional explosives can diminish and ultimately replace military dependence on the nuclear threat: see “Bishops, Statesmen, and Other Strategists on the Bombing of Innocents,” Commentary, vol. 75 (June 1983), pp. 15–35.

²³ On this point, see the Wohlstetter article cited above.

²⁴ “The Challenge of Peace: God's Promise and Our Response,” the Pastoral Letter of the U.S. Bishops on War and Peace, published in full in Origins, a publication of the National Catholic News Service, 1312 Massachusetts Ave. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20005, (1983). The issue of the morality of threats and intentions seems to me to be one of the issues which is least satisfactorily dealt with in this insightful and provocative discussion.

²⁵ Bernard Brodie, Strategy in the Missile Age, p.273. Compare Secretary of State Caspar Weinberger's statement in the Annual Report to Congress, Fiscal Year 1984, p.52: “If our threatened response is perceived as inadequate or contrary to our national interest, it will be perceived as a bluff” (italics added).

²⁶ Wohlstetter, p. 15. Wohlstetter argues on this basis for modernization and refinement of both nuclear and nonnuclear weapons. His article and die exchange of letters which followed it (“Letters from Readers: Morality and Deterrence,” Commentary, vol. 76 (Dec. 1983), pp.4–22), provide a clear and vigorous statement of the case for a major redirection of U.S. defense policy toward more discriminate targeting.

²⁷ See especially the article by Bundy, McGeorge, Kennan, George F., McNamara, Robert F., and Smith, Gerard, “Nuclear Weapons and the Atlantic Alliance,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 60 (Spring 1982), pp.753–768CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and McNamara's, later article, “The Military Role of Nuclear Weapons: Perceptions and Misperceptions,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 62 (Fall 1983), pp.59–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar McNamara's contentions are vigorously disputed by Wohlstetter in the article cited above.

²⁸ The context of discussion of nuclear deterrence has been altered significantly by President Reagan's open endorsement of the goal of defensive measures against nuclear attack employing high technology nuclear and nonnuclear weapons. Such measures, referred to by the President as the “Strategic Defense Initiative” and by critics as “Star Wars”, pose formidable and, in the judgment of many experts, insurmountable technical difficulties; but they deserve careful consideration from a moral standpoint, since they are motivated at least in part by recognition of the immoral character of nuclear threats. The cautions voiced in the text about making moral decisions in the present need to be emphasized in this context as well: the dim possibility of future technologies which may provide an effective defense against nuclear attack has little relevance to the urgent task of orderly and effective disarmament which is our present responsibility.

²⁹ Kennan, George F., “Two Views of the Soviet Problem,” in The Nuclear Delusion (New York: Pantheon Books, 1982), p.158.Google Scholar

³⁰ Wohlstetter, p.22.