Suppose you could militarily attach a country where tyranny reigned and thereby bring about democracy there.
How many people, particularly innocent civilains, would it be permissible to kill IN EXCESS of the number of people who would otherwise have died if regime change had not been brought about?
In other words, how valuable is it to bring about democracy in terms of human lives?
If the number of people killed in the attack exceeded the number of people would would otheriwse have died, would have been permissible to attack the country?
In terms of the justifiability of recent Iraq war, these questions strike me as central. However, they don't appear to have been asked in explicit form. Partisans on both sides appear to assume the merits of their case, playing up the civilian cost, or playing up the value of eventual democracy, without weighing the one against the other/
I am interested in numerical answers, not vague philosophy. If you attack a country, innocent people inevitably die. Give me a range of innocent people it would be permissible to accidentallly kill to deliberatley bring about desirable regime change. Don't wuss out if you supported the war: please specified the deaths justified numerically.
Surely, in the case of Iraq, 1,000,000 innocents deaths would have been too many (maybe not?). However, a supporter of the war would have to say that at least 1 innocent death was worth it, since more than one innocent person died (is this deniable?). So, there must be a number, or intermediate range of numbers, that could constitute a moral turning point for a war supporter. Where is it, numerically?
What do you mean by democracy? Literally it means "rule of the people", but the people don't rule here, the multinationals do; with the facade of voting for politicians to justify their hegemony. The difficulty with this body count type of argument is that there is an assumption that what the war was about was bringing democracy and freedom (whose) to Iraq; their oil, of course, had nothing to do with it...
Originally posted by DeepThoughtI agree. At the moment, Iraqi democracy is partial at best, nonexistent at worst.
What do you mean by democracy? Literally it means "rule of the people", but the people don't rule here, the multinationals do; with the facade of voting for politicians to justify their hegemony. The difficulty with this body count type of argument is that there is an assumption that what the war was about was bringing democracy and freedom (whose) to Iraq; their oil, of course, had nothing to do with it...
But let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that democracy IS the reuslt of the war against a country. What, exactly, is the acceptable body count of innocents?
Originally posted by PawnokeyholeLeaving aside te definition of democracy there is not a finite number of acceptable casualties.
Suppose you could militarily attach a country where tyranny reigned and thereby bring about democracy there.
How many people, particularly innocent civilains, would it be permissible to kill IN EXCESS of the number of people who would otherwise have died if regime change had not been brought about?
In other words, how valuable is it to bring about ...[text shortened]... bers, that could constitute a moral turning point for a war supporter. Where is it, numerically?
War should have a solid reason. An entry strategy, a predetermined definition of success and an exit strategy. If all of this can be completed with support from the government and its general population the war can be deemed a success.
By this nature I would call the first Gulf war a success, but second a failure.
Originally posted by PawnokeyholeI am afraid your assessment of utilitarianism is the one generally adopted by communitarians as an aunt sally to debunk.
Suppose you could militarily attach a country where tyranny reigned and thereby bring about democracy there.
How many people, particularly innocent civilains, would it be permissible to kill IN EXCESS of the number of people who would otherwise have died if regime change had not been brought about?
In other words, how valuable is it to bring about ...[text shortened]... bers, that could constitute a moral turning point for a war supporter. Where is it, numerically?
A utilitarian would never advocate war, it is essentially a brand of liberalism.
Check out your Bentham there son.
It's a good question. When the US tried to impose democracy on North Vietnam, I believe the body count of US troops alone was around 56,000, not to mention wounded. The civilian body count and South Vietnamese troop deaths I am sure were much higher. Korea was more of a stalemate, but the body count was high there too. There are several anti-war protests going on in the US this weekend. A good site is ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism.) They try to organized an anti war effort here and all over. It takes most police/military 3-6 months of specialized training to be able to handle their duties. Make it a year with the language barrier. But it has been alot longer than that now and they still are not close to being ready? When the body count gets high enough in Iraq, public opinion will probably force us out like it did in Vietnam in the 70s. Bush's approval rating is below 50% now and has been for some time. I think when the body count reaches around 10,000 (post war)you will see more civil disobedience in the US. One point he is selling to the public is that if we were not doing this in Iraq, the bombings would be happening here instead and we wouldn't want that. Alot of people are buying in to that.
One quote from a general during the battle for the cultural and historical ancient city of Hue, in Vietnam, was "We had to destroy the city in order to save it". Does this make sense to you?
Originally posted by PawnokeyholeYour initial question is nonspecific, so I'll assume we're talking about Iraq and Hussein.
Suppose you could militarily attach a country where tyranny reigned and thereby bring about democracy there.
How many people, particularly innocent civilains, would it be permissible to kill IN EXCESS of the number of people who would otherwise have died if regime change had not been brought about?
In other words, how valuable is it to bring about ...[text shortened]... bers, that could constitute a moral turning point for a war supporter. Where is it, numerically?
Also, you're comparing only the value of democracy vs. innocent lives lost. There are many other important issues involved. For example - the increased anger among the Arabs in the region against the U.S. and Western civilization, etc. Let's throw out all those other factors.
There is the quality of the resulting democracy to consider as well. How much of it really is the peoples' will and how much of it was due to the pressure and influence from Bush?
Would you clarify the question? Are you equating civilian deaths to innocent deaths? It's too hard to give a specific answer without knowing exactly, specifically, you're asking.
Regarding Iraq, I'd especially like you to clarify if we're assuming Bush was correct or incorrect about his WMD talk; or is that a non-issue because you're only comparing democracy vs. lives? What quality democracy are we assuming? Who is to do the invading? Or again, is that a non-issue because it's democracy vs. deaths?
Originally posted by invigorateWhat do you mean by "there is not a finite number of acceptable casualties"?
Leaving aside te definition of democracy there is not a finite number of acceptable casualties.
War should have a solid reason. An entry strategy, a predetermined definition of success and an exit strategy. If all of this can be completed with support from the government and its general population the war can be deemed a success.
By this nature I would call the first Gulf war a success, but second a failure.
That *no* number of casualties is acceptable or that *any* number might be?
Note a war can be successful but immoral: success does not guarantee morality. I want someone to stick their neck out a put a number on the acceptable innocent casualty figure for the achievement of an aim like the creation of democracy in a country.
Originally posted by demonseedThe purpose of my question was not to assess utilitarianism. I'm sorry if my use of the term in the title of the post struck you as odd.
I am afraid your assessment of utilitarianism is the one generally adopted by communitarians as an aunt sally to debunk.
A utilitarian would never advocate war, it is essentially a brand of liberalism.
Check out your Bentham there son.
In using the term in the title, merely meant to refer to the fact that, in prosecuting a war, decisions of a utilitarian nature have to made. For example, though one may in principle believe that the value of human life and the value of bringing about democracy are incommensuable (i.e., one cannot be "cashed" into the "currency" of the other) in deciding whether to prosecute a war one must weigh the two values somehow, just as a utilitarian *advocates*. I'm not advocating it: I'm just saying hard decisions have to be made in terms of the human cost of war. Decisions proponents of war, for all their sententious bluster, often don't seem eager to face head on.
I don't believe that a utilitarian would *never* advocate war. If the war produced the greatest happiness for the greatest number (or a postive outcome on a more subtle calculus) why wouldn't he or she?
Originally posted by steve645Thanks for your thoughtful reply, though I am still interested in getting specific numbers.
It's a good question. When the US tried to impose democracy on North Vietnam, I believe the body count of US troops alone was around 56,000, not to mention wounded. The civilian body count and South Vietnamese troop deaths I am sure were much higher. Korea was more of a stalemate, but the body count was high there too. There are several anti-war protes ...[text shortened]... n Vietnam, was "We had to destroy the city in order to save it". Does this make sense to you?
"We had to destroy the city in order to save it". No sense of irony there! Well, perhaps one has to destroy a city in order to realize some overriding good. But suppose the overriding good in question is democracy: how many innocent lives are worth taking in order to achieve it?
It's a sad fact, of course, that opposition to a war in the country prosecuting it depends mostly on the body count of prosecuting military force, not on the body count of the accidentally killed innocents in the foreign land.