The following text is that of a privately printed pamphlet, 1956, pp.
14. Front cover: One Shilling. Inside front cover: Dedicated
with respect, but without permission, to the others who said “Non placet.” Inside
back cover: Copyright reserved to the author. Copies can be obtained
from her at
In 1939, on the outbreak of war, the President of the
In 1945, when the Japanese enemy was known by him to have made two
attempts toward a negotiated peace* [* See Appendix.], the President of the
United States gave the order for dropping an atom bomb on a Japanese city;
three days later a second bomb, of a different type, was dropped on another
city. No ultimatum was delivered before the second bomb was dropped.
Set side by side, these events provide enough of a contrast to provoke
enquiry. Evidently development has take place; one would like to see its
course plotted. It is not, I think, difficult to give an intelligible
account:—
(1) The British Government gave President Roosevelt the required
assurance, with a reservation which meant “If the Germans do it we shall do it
too.” You don’t promise to abide by the Queensbury Rules even if your
opponent abandons them.
(2) The only condition for ending the war was announced to be
unconditional surrender. Apart from the “liberation of the subject
peoples,” the objectives were vague in character. Now the demand for
unconditional surrender was mixed up with a determination to make no peace with
Hitler’s government. In view of the character of Hitler’s regime that
attitude was very intelligible. Nevertheless some people have doubts
about it now. It is suggested that defeat of itself would have resulted
in the rapid discredit and downfall of that government. On this I can
form no strong opinion. The important question to my mind is whether the
intention of making no peace with Hitler’s government necessarily entailed the
objective of unconditional surrender. If, as may not be impossible, we
could have formulated a pretty definite objective, a rough outline of the terms
which we were willing to make with Germany, while at the same time indicating
that we would not make terms with Hitler’s government, then the question
of the wisdom of this latter demand seems to me a minor one; but if not, then
that settles it. It was the insistence on unconditional surrender that
was the root of all evil. The connection between such a demand and the
need to use the most ferocious methods of warfare will be obvious. And in
itself the proposal of an unlimited objective in war is stupid and barbarous.
(3) The Germans did a good deal of indiscriminate bombing in this
country. It is impossible for an uninformed person to know how much, in
its first beginnings, was due to indifference on the part of pilots to using
their loads only on military targets, and how much to actual policy on the part
of those who sent them. Nor do I know what we were doing at the same
time. But certainly anyone would have been stupid who had thought in 1939
that there would not be such bombing, developing into definite raids on cities.
(4) For some time before war broke out, and more intensely afterwards,
there was propaganda in this country on the subject of the “indivisibility” of
modern war. The civilian population, we were told, is really as much
combatant as the fighting forces. The military strength of a nation
includes its whole economic and social strength. Therefore the
distinction between the people engaged in prosecuting the war and the
population at large is unreal. There is no such thing as a non-participator;
you cannot buy a postage stamp or any taxed article, or grow a potato or cook a
meal, without contributing to the “war effort.” War indeed is a “ghastly
evil,” but once it has broken out no one can “contract out” of it. “Wrong”
indeed must be being done if war is waged, but you cannot help being involved
in it. There was a doctrine of “collective responsibility” with a
lugubriously elevated moral tone about it. The upshot was that it was
senseless to draw any line between legitimate and illegitimate objects of
attack.—Thus the court chaplains of democracy. I am not sure how children
and the aged fitted into this story: probably they cheered the soldiers and
munitions workers up.
(5) The Japanese attacked
(6) Then came the great change: we adopted the system of “area bombing”
as oppose to “target bombing.” This differed from even big raids on
cities, such as had previously taken place in the course of the war, by being
far more extensive and devastating and much less random; the whole of a city
area would be systematically plotted out and dotted with bombs. “Attila
was a Sissy,” as the Chicago Tribune headed an article on this subject.
(7) In 1945, at the Postdam conference in July, Stalin informed the
American and British statesmen that he had received two requests from the
Japanese to act as a mediator with a view to ending the war. He had
refused. The Allies agreed on the “general principle”—marvellous
phrase!—of using the new type of weapon that the Americans now possessed.
The Japanese were given a chance in the form of the Potsdam Declaration,
calling for unconditional surrender in face of overwhelming force soon to be
arrayed against them. The historian of the Survey of International
Affairs considers that this phrase was rendered meaningless by the statement of
a series of terms; but of these the ones incorporating the Allies’ demands were
mostly of so vague and sweeping a nature as to be rather a declaration of what
unconditional surrender would be like than to constitute conditions. It
seems to be generally agreed that the Japanese were desperate enough to have
accepted the Declaration but for their loyalty to their Emperor: the “terms”
would certainly have permitted the Allies to get rid of him if they
chose. The Japanese refused the Declaration. In consequence, the
bombs were dropped on
* *
* *
* *
For men to choose to kill the innocent as a means to their ends is always
murder, and murder is one of the worst of human actions. So the
prohibition on deliberately killing prisoners of war or the civilian population
is not like the Queensbury Rules: its force does not depend on its promulgation
as part of positive law, written down, agreed upon, and adhered to by the
parties concerned.
When I say that to choose to kill the innocent as a means to one’s ends
is murder, I am saying what would generally be accepted as correct. But I
shall be asked for my definition of “the innocent.” I will give it, but
later. Here, it is not necessary; for with
I have long been puzzled by the common cant about President Truman’s
courage in making this decision. Of course, I know that you can be
cowardly without having reason to think you are in danger. But how can
you be courageous? Light has come to me lately: the term is an
acknowledgement of the truth. Mr. Truman was brave because, and only
because, what he did was so bad. But I think the judgement unsound.
Given the right circumstances (e.g. that no one whose opinion matters
will disapprove), a quite mediocre person can do spectacularly wicked things
without thereby becoming impressive.
I determined to oppose the proposal to give Mr. Truman an honorary degree
here at
I have been accused of being “high-minded.” I must be saying “You
may not do evil that good may come,” which is a disagreeably high-minded
doctrine. The action was necessary, or at any rate it was thought by
competent, expert military opinion to be necessary; it probably saved more
lives than it sacrificed; it had a good result, it ended the war. Come
now: if you had to choose between boiling one baby and letting some frightful
disaster befall a thousand people—or a million people, if a thousand is not
enough—what would you do? Are you going to strike an attitude and say
“You may not do evil that good may come”? (People who never hear such
arguments will hardly believe they take place, and will pass this rapidly by.)
“It pretty certainly saved a huge number of lives.” Given the
conditions, I agree. That is to say, if those bombs had not been dropped
the Allies would have had to invade
I do not dispute it. Given the conditions, that was probably what
was averted by that action. But what were the conditions? The
unlimited objective, the fixation on unconditional surrender. The
disregard of the fact that the Japanese were desirous of negotiating
peace. The character of the Potsdam Declaration—their “chance.” I
will not suggest, as some would like to do, that there was an exultant itch to
use the new weapons, but it seems plausible to think that the consciousness of
the possession of such instruments had its effect on the manner in which the
Japanese were offered their “chance.”
We can now reformulate the principle of “doing evil that good may come”
Every fool can be as much of a knave as suits him.
I recommend this history to undergraduates reading Greats as throwing a
glaring light on Aristotle’s thesis that you cannot be or do any good where you
are stupid.
I informed the Senior Proctor of my intention to oppose Mr. Truman’s
degree. He consulted the Registrar to get me informed on procedure.
The Vice-Chancellor was informed; I was cautiously asked if I had got up a
party. I had not; but a fine House was whipped up to vote for the
honour. The dons at
The Censor of St. Catherine’s had an odious task. He must make a
speech which should pretend to show that a couple of massacres to a man’s
credit are not exactly a reason for not showing him honour. He had,
however, one great advantage: he did not have to persuade his audience, who
were already perfectly convinced of that proposition. But at any rate he
had to make a show.
The defence, I think, would not have been well received at
We do not approve the action; no, we think it was a mistake.
(That is how communists now talk about Stalin’s more murderous
proceedings.) Further, Mr. Truman did not make the bombs by himself, and
decide to drop them without consulting anybody; no, he was only responsible for
the decision. Hang it all, you can’t make a man responsible just because
“his is the signature at the foot of the order.” Or was he not even
responsible for the decision? It was not quite clear whether Mr. Bullock
was saying that or not; but I never heard anyone else seem to give the lie to
Mr. Truman’s boasts. Finally, an action of this sort is, after all, only
one episode: an incident, as it were, in a career. Mr. Truman has
done some good.
I know that in one way such a speech does not deserve scrutiny; after
all, it was just something to say on its occasion. And he had to say
something. One must not suppose that one can glean anything a man
actually thinks from what he says in such circumstances. Professor Stebbing
exposing the logical fallacies in politicians’ speeches is a comic
spectacle.
II.
Choosing to kill the innocent as a means to your ends is always
murder. Naturally, killing the innocent as an end in itself is murder too;
but that is no more than a possible future development for us:* [* This will
seem a preposterous assertion; but we are certainly on the way, and I can think
of no reasons for confidence that it will not happen.] in our part of the
globe it is a practice that has so far been confined to the Nazis. I
intend my formulation to be taken strictly; each term in it is necessary.
For killing the innocent, even if you know as a matter of statistical certainty
that the things you do involve it, is not necessarily murder. I mean that
if you attack a lot of military targets, such as munitions factories and naval
dockyards, as carefully as you can, you will be certain to kill a number of
innocent people; but that is not murder. On the other hand, unscrupulousness
in considering the possibilities turns it into murder. I here print as a
case in point a letter which I received lately from
We read in our paper about your opposition to Truman. I do not like
him either, but do you know that in the war the English bombed the dykes of our
province
That was to trap some fleeing German military. I think my
correspondent has something.
It may be impossible to take the thing (or people) you want to destroy as
your target; it may be possible to attack it only by taking as the object of
your attack what includes large numbers of innocent people. Then you
cannot very well say they died by accident. Here, your action is murder.
“But where will you draw the line? It is impossible to draw an
exact line.” This is a common and absurd argument against drawing any
line; it may be very difficult, and there are obviously borderline cases.
But we have fallen into the way of drawing no line and offering as justifications
what an uncaptive mind will find only a bad joke. Wherever the line is,
certain things are certainly well to one side or the other of it.
Now who are “the innocent” in war? They are all those who are not
fighting and not engaged in supply those who are with the means of
fighting. A farmer growing wheat which may be eaten by the troops is not
“supplying them with the means of fighting.” Over this, too, the line may
be difficult to draw. But that does not mean that no line should be drawn,
or that, even if one is in doubt just where to draw the line, one cannot be
crystal clear that this or that is well over the line.
“But the people fighting are probably just conscripts! In that case
they are just as innocent as anyone else.” “Innocent” here is not a term
referring to personal responsibility at all. It means rather “not
harming.” But the people fighting are “harming,” so they can be attacked;
but if they surrender they become in this sense innocent and so may not be
maltreated or killed. Nor is there round for trying them on a criminal
charge; not, indeed, because a man has no personal responsibility for fighting,
but because they were not the subjects of the state whose prisoners they are.
There is an argument which I know from experience it is necessary to
forestall at this point, though I think it is visibly captious. It is
this: on my theory, would it not follow that a soldier can only be killed when
he is actually attacking? Then, e.g., it would be impossible to
attack a sleeping camp. The answer is that “what someone is doing” can
refer to what he is doing at the moment or to his rôle in a situation. A
soldier under arms is “harming” in the latter sense even if he is asleep.
But it is true that the enemy should not be attacked more ferociously than is
necessary to put them hors de combat.
These conceptions are distinct and intelligible ones; they would formerly
have been said to belong to the Law of Nations. Anyone can see that they
are good, and we pay tribute to them by our moral indignation when our enemies
violate them. But in fact they are going, and only fragments of them are
left. General Eisenhower, for example, is reported to have spoken
slightingly once of the notion of chivalry towards prisoners—as if that were
based on respect for their virtue or for the nation form which they come, and
not on the fact that they are now defenceless.
It is characteristic of nowadays to talk with horror of killing rather
than of murder, and hence, since in war, since you have committed yourself to
killing—i.e. “accepted an evil”—not to mind whom you kill. This
seems largely to be the work of the devil; but I also suspect that it is in
part an effect of the existence of pacifism, as a doctrine which many people
respect though they would not adopt it. This effect would not exist if
people had a distinct notion of what makes pacifism a false doctrine.
It therefore seems to me important to show that for one human being
deliberately to kill another is not inevitably wrong. I may seem to be
wasting my time, as most people do reject pacifism. But it is
nevertheless important to argue the point because if one does so one sees that
there are pretty severe restrictions on legitimate killing. Of course,
people accept this within the state, but when it comes to war they have the
idea that any restrictions are something like the Queensbury Rules—instead of
making the difference between being guilty and not guilty of murder.
I will not discuss the self-defence of a private person. If he
kills the man who attacks him who someone else, it ought to be
accidental. To aim at killing, even when one is defending oneself, is
murderous. (I fear even this idea is going. A man was acquitted
recently who had successfully set a lethal booby trap to kill a thief in his
absence.)
But the state actually has the authority to order deliberate killing in
order to protect its people or to put frightful injustices right. (For
example, the plight of the Jews under Hitler would have been a reasonable cause
of war.) The reason for this is pretty simple: it stands outmost clearly
if we first consider the state’s right to order such killing within its
confines. I am not referring to the death penalty, but to what happens
when there is rioting or when violent malefactors have to be caught.
Rioters can sometimes only be restrained, or malefactors seized, by
force. Law without force is ineffectual, and human beings without laws
miserable (though we, who have too many and too changeable laws, may easily not
feel this very distinctly). So much is indeed fairly obvious, though the
more peaceful the society the less obvious it is that the force in the hands of
the servants of the law has to be force up to the point of killing. It
would become perfectly obvious any time there was rioting or gangsterism which
had to be dealt with by the servants of the law fighting.
The death penalty itself is a completely different matter. The
state is not fighting the criminal who is condemned to death. That is why
the death penalty is not indispensable. People keep on discussing whether
the point of it is deterrence or vengeance; it is neither. Not
deterrence, because nobody has proved anything about that, and people think
what they think in accordance with their prejudices. And not vengeance,
because that’s nobody’s business. Confusion arises on this subject
because the state is said, and correctly said, to punish the criminal,
and “punishment” suggests “vengeance.” Therefore many humane people
dislike the idea and prefer such notions as “correction” and
“rehabilitation.” But the action of the state in depriving a man of his
rights, up to his very life, ahs to be considered from two sides. First,
from that of the man himself. If he could say “Why have you done this to
me? I have not deserved it,” then the state would be acting with
injustice. Therefore he must be proved guilty, and only as punishment has
the state the right to inflict anything on him. The concept of punishment
is our one safeguard against being done “good” to, in ways involving a
deprivation of rights, by impudent powerful people. Second, from the side
of the state, divine retributive justice is not its affair: it only has to
protect its people and restrain malefactors. The ground of its right to
deprive of liberty and even life is only that the malefactor is a nuisance,
like a like a gangrenous limb. Therefore it can cut him off entirely, if
his crime is so bad that he could not justly protest “I have not deserved this.”
But when I say that the sole ground of state’s right to kill him is that he is
a nuisance, I only mean that he is a nuisance qua malefactor. The
lives of the innocent are the actual point of society, so the fact that in some
other way they may be a nuisance (troublesome to look after, for example) does
not justify the state in getting rid of them. Though that is another
thing we may yet come to. But the blood of the innocent cries to heaven
for vengeance.
Thus the malefactor who has been found guilty is the only defenceless
person whom the state may put to death. It need not; it can choose more
merciful laws. (I have no prejudice in favour of the death
penalty.) Any other defenceless person is as such innocent, in the sense
“not harming.” And so the state can only order to kill others of its
subjects besides convicted criminals if they are rioting or doing something
that has to be stopped, and can only be stopped by the servants of the law
fighting them.
Now, this is also the ground of the state’s right to order people to
fight external enemies who are unjustly attacking them or something of
theirs. The right to order to fight for the sake of other people’s
wrongs, to put right something affecting people who are not actually under the
protection of the sate, is a rather more dubious thing obviously, but it exists
because of the common sympathy of human beings whereby one feels for one’s
neighbour if he is attacked. So in an attenuated sense it can be said
that something that belongs to, or concerns, one is attacked if anybody is
unjustly attacked or maltreated.
Pacifism, then, is a false doctrine. Now, no doubt, it is bad just
for that reason, because it is always bad to have a false conscience. In
this way the doctrine that it is a bad act to lay a bet is bad: it is all right
to bet what it is all right to risk or drop in the sea. But I want to
maintain that pacifism is a harmful doctrine in a far stronger sense than
this. Even the prevalence of the idea that it was wrong to bet would have
no particularly bad consequences; a false doctrine which merely forbids what is
not actually bad need not encourage people in anything bad. But with
pacifism it is quite otherwise. It is a factor in the loss of the
conception of murder which is my chief interest in this pamphlet.
I have very often heard people say something like this: “It is all very
well to say ‘Don’t do evil that good may come.’ But war is evil.
We all know that. Now, of course, it is possible to be an Absolute
Pacifist. I can respect that, but I can’t be one myself, and most other
people won’t be either. So we have to accept the evil. It is not
that we do not see the evil. And once you are in for it, you have to go
the whole hog.”
This is much as if I were defrauding someone, and when someone tried to
stop me I said: “Absolute honesty! I respect that. But of course absolute
honesty really means having no property at all . . .” Having offered the
sacrifice of a few sighs and tears to absolute honesty, I go on as before.
The correct answer to the statement that “war is evil” is that it is bad—i.e.,
a misfortune—to be at war. And no doubt if two nations are at war at
least one is unjust. But that does not show that it is wrong to fight or
that if one does fight one can also commit murder.
Naturally my claim that pacifism is a very harmful doctrine is contingent
on its being a false one. If it were a true doctrine, its encouragement
of this nonsensical “hypocrisy of the ideal standard” would not count against
it. but given that it is false, I am inclined to think it is also very
bad, unusually so for an idea which seems as it were to err on the noble side.
When I consider the history of the events from 1939 to 1945, I am not
surprised that Mr. Truman is made the recipient of honours. But when I
consider his actions by themselves, I am surprised again.
Some people actually praise the bombings and commend the stockpiling of
atomic weapons on the ground that they are so horrible that nation as will be
afraid ever again to make war. “We have made a covenant with death, and with
hell we are at an agreement.” There does not seem to be good ground for
such a hope for any long period of time.
Pacifists have for long made it a point in their propaganda that men must
grow more murderous as their techniques of destruction improve, and those who
defend murder eagerly seize on this point, so that I imagine by now it is
pretty well accepted by the whole world. Of course, it is not true.
In Napoleon’s time, for example, the means of destruction had much improved
since the time of Henry V; but Henry, not Napoleon, was a great massacrer of
civilians, saying when he did particularly atrocious things that the French
were a sinful nation and that he had a mission from God to punish them.
And, of course, really large scale massacre up to now has belonged to times with
completely primitive methods of killing. Weapons are now manufactured
whose sole point is to be used in massacre of cities. But the people
responsible are not murderous because they have these weapons; they have them
because they are murderous. Deprived of atomic bombs, they would commit
massacres by means of other bombs.
Protests by people who have not power are a waste of time. I was
not seizing an opportunity to make a “gesture of protest” at atomic bombs; I
vehemently object to our action in offering Mr. Truman honours, because
one can share in the guilt of a bad action by praise and flattery, as also by
defending it. When I puzzle myself over the attitude of the
Vice-Chancellor and the Hebdomadal Council, I look round to see if any explanation
is available why so many
I get some small light on the subject when I consider the productions of
It is possible still to withdraw from this shameful business in some
slight degree; it is possible not to go to Encaenia; if it should be
embarrassing to someone who would normally go to plead other business, he could
take to his bed. I, indeed should fear to go, in case God’s patience
suddenly ends.
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