August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima

The bomb immediately killed 100,000 people and critically injured another 100,000, who died later—mostly civilians, including children and the elderly.

The goal was to demoralize and break the Japanese resistance in order to avoid the necessity of an Allied invasion of the main islands, which it was estimated would involve up to a million Allied casualties, and perhaps more than ten million Japanese casualties (i.e., combatants plus unintended civilian casualties).

The civilians of Hiroshima were not of any direct military significance (just as your little brothers and sisters, for example, were of no military significance during the war in Afghanistan), but their destruction was strategically used by the U.S. as an indirect way of pressuring the Japanese government to surrender, to avoid the need for a costly Allied invasion.

Part 2: Answer the two questions below, labeling your answers with “(a)” and “(b)“, devoting a separate paragraph to each question you’re answering. 

(For both of these questions: Assume for the sake of argument that an Allied land invasion would indeed have been necessary if the U.S. had not used the bomb, and that the invasion would have been as costly as predicted.)

(a) What is your own personal view on the moral status of this bombing? Was it the morally right thing to do, or was it morally wrong?

(b) Why? That is: why was it the morally right/wrong thing to do? (Here, I’m just asking you to explain your moral reasoning – to justify, via philosophical argumentation – why your view on the matter is the correct one.