I think there’s a myopia of minimisation that this piece fails to take into account.
The continued existence of brutal regimes such as Hamas or ISIS will lead to more death and suffering in the long run. If it is a just cause to topple them, why are 5000 dead civilians now more important than 10,000 over ten years?
In general a more aggressive attitude can shorten a war and reduce the overall amount of casualties. It’s even more myopic to judge the myopia of heroism solely on the basis of the short term consequences.
[!!!Trigger Warning: I sincerely recommend you not read the following if you are understandably not interested to engaging in perspective-taking presently]
Forgive me for speaking out of turn, but couldn't Hamas apply this proposed "myopia of minimisation" logic to justify their horrific attack on Israel? (Obviously: they shouldn't)
I think it is important to think through how this argument may be leveraged by others with different perspectives or understandings of the situation.
If you'd allow me for just a moment--and this is understandably difficult and taboo to suggest and maybe even condemnable to entertain--but maybe we can think through a militant Gazan's perspective for just a passing moment to illustrate why this "aggressive attitude" might be problematic in military action:
1) The citizens of Gaza, international human rights groups, and Gaza's de-facto governing body, Hamas, consider themselves to be living in a "open-air prison" since the Israeli blockade was enforced in 2007. The following comes from the Norwegian Refugee Council (2018): "A 2012 UN report predicted the Palestinian enclave would be 'unliveable' by 2020 if nothing was done to ease the blockade, but in June 2017 a UN report on living conditions in Gaza stated that all the indicators are going in the wrong direction and that deadline is actually approaching even faster than earlier predicted."
2) By your logic, Hamas may argue it's justifiable to sacrifice 1400 Israeli citizens (and countless of its own citizens in Israel's inevitable response) if it has the potential to draw the attention of the international community back to the perceived tremendous suffering of its citizens under the Israeli blockade. I recognize what follows is rightfully blasphemous: To steel-man this argument, the failures of the largely nonviolent civil disobedience efforts in the Great March of Return in 2018 & 2019 (see sources below) may leave one perceiving no other options to get international attention on the struggling enclave. A Gazan militant who applies an "aggressive attitude" may say: "Maybe a violent outburst in the short term will generate the conditions to save more of us in the long term"
3) Obviously, this is a terrible conclusion to draw and the actions on Oct 7th were abominable, disgusting, and immoral.
Therefore: It is perhaps not wise sacrifice masses of human life (e.g., ~1240-5000 Palestinian civilians as of 10/29/23*) in the short term for the hypothetical possibility of less deaths in the long term.
I'm sorry, on the issue of killing civilians, I am deontological.
Disclosure: In no way, shape, or form am I arguing for Hamas, condemning you, blaming Israel, or relativising the brutal events of October 7th. And I do not claim to be an expert on any of the context I listed above. I recognize I am making a cheap appeal to authority (i.e., the UN, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Norwegian Refugee Council).
I implore others to correct my sources and evidence if I made any factual or logical errors here.
All I hope to achieve in this is to note out how your logic may facilitate outcomes approximating the horrors of October 7th in Gaza.
I pray for you and your family in these difficult times.
[Explicit condemnation: I think the acts that occurred on October 7th are disgusting, horrific, immoral, and wrong.]
*10/29: AP News estimates 8000 deaths. We present a low and high estimate. In the low estimate, I accept Joe Biden's assertion to not trust the numbers and cut it in half. I also assume half of the deaths were collatoral damage by Hamas. I then apply a civilian death rate of 62%, in line with UN News proportions of women and children dead as of 10/23/23 (This estimate assumes literally every man above the age of 18 in the entire Gaza Strip is a Hamas militant). In high estimates, we use the full 8,000 deaths reported and apply a 62% civilian death rate, in line with UN News proportions of women and children dead as of 10/23/23 (This model still assumes literally every man above the age of 18 in the entire Gaza Strip is a Hamas militant).
Well I would breakdown this counter argument as there are several problems floating above:
1. Firstly, the sheer fact that people might have differing judgements about a matter does entail factual relativism. A says B is the baddy, while B says the opposite does not entail that there is no fact of the matter as to who is the baddy.
As trivial as this point is, as no one is rationally guided to act according to what *they* consider to be evil, it still seems to daunt the ability of very clever people to make moral judgments.
2. I’m not sure you can frame any argument about numbers qua numbers as guided by deontological reasoning. In fact I think it is inherently utilitarian which make it inevitably flawed. From a deontological perspective when a war is a jus as bellum, the number of fatalities in itself is not something that can render it wrong. Destroying Nazi Germany would have been actually just even if half a million more German civilians would have died. Proportionality (if it’s even a coherent doctrine in war, and we can leave this issue aside) might mandate that some means are wrong, not that the war in itself is bad. And even that would be under the severe epistemic limit in calculating the proportions
3. I’ll add some (but not all) factual problems here:
A/ there is absolutely no reason to take any figures released by Hamas at face value.
B/ as a matter of historical fact every time the Palestinian National movement opted for violence against civilians it actually took them five steps backwards. It was true during the rebellion of 1936-39, it was true for their refusal to accept the partition plan, it was true when the PLO were hijacking planes and killing athletes, and it was true when they start suicide bombings in buses and pizza shops.
Any advance they did have over the past 100 years was through diplomacy.
If 7/10 was meant to bring global attention to their plight and block an Israeli-Saudi deal than its a high toll to pay as the Israeli response would calamitous for them. That’s contra to diplomatic moves they could have done like accepting the authority of the PA and pressuring Israel to return to negotiation table. Now their faith is sealed as any post-war arrangement would be decided above their heads.
C/ this is the fifth time in fifteen years that Hamas brought an inferno on the people of Gaza. Each time it got them some global attention but zero gain as Israel is determined not to reward Hamas for violence. There is simply no amount of global pressure that will change this fact. Whether Israel is right about its contempt for the international community is besides the point, that’s just a fact, hence no amount of violence would change that.
D/ Moreover, as an Israeli intelligence community veteran I think the western charitable reading of Hamas’ actions is truly misguided. The line of reasoning you suggest is simply not one someone from Hamas or PIJ would take.
Thank you for engaging with my comment, Nevo. I appreciate the dialogue. I believe this is an important conversation to have for someone like myself who is not as versed in the history of the conflict. I am trying my best to educate myself with diverse, reputable evidence, so I would love to read the sources for the historiographical account you have suggested are readily available.
To clarify my position and my understanding of your position, it seems we do not agree on the issue of the internationally recognized doctrine of “Proportionality” or how much stock to put into the international community. Please set me straight if I’m misunderstanding what you are are suggesting. I do not want to take you out of context.
I would love to hear more about your thoughts Proportionality and the International Community given you suggest Proportionality may not be a “coherent doctrine” and that "whether Israel is right about its contempt for the international community is besides the point".
In regards to moral relativism, I admit that I may have watched one too many Adam Curtis documentaries, such as Bitter Lake (2015) which argues against Western politicians’ representation of the geopolitical development of militant Islamic groups in the context of the war in Afghanistan. Because of this perspective, I have a hard time perceiving geopolitical conflicts in terms of what Curtis calls “goodies” and “baddies”. I think this is particularly apparent in our disagreement on the justifiability of the hypothetical death of “half a million more German civilians” in World War II. Again, I may just be reading too much Kurt Vonnegut (see Slaughterhouse Five for a differing perspective in regards to the bombing of Dresden, especially chapter 1). As Vonnegut tries to demonstrate, the baddies in the case of WWII are objective and obvious (i.e., not relative), but the methodology for achieving justice against the baddies seems nonetheless ethically dubious (i.e., firebombing an entire city).
As a broader point of consideration, I’m particularly concerned about the possible effect active war zones could have on individual perceptions of what is “good” and “bad”. Consider one IDF First Sergeant’s testimonial on Operation Protective Edge (2014):
“[…] after three weeks in Gaza, during which you’re shooting at anything that moves - and also at what isn’t moving, crazy amounts – you aren’t anymore really… The good and the bad get a bit mixed up, and your morals get a bit lost and you sort of lose it, and it also becomes a bit like a computer game, totally cool and real.” (1)
Points of clarification and requests for clarification on disputed facts:
A/ For the purposes of my previous argument, I accepted your assertion to take the casualty figures released by sources in Gaza with a grain of salt. AP news reported 8000 deaths as of 10/29/23 (2). I cut these figures in half twice to account for 1) potential inflation of overall numbers and 2) potential for collateral damage. I then applied a 62% civilian death rate in line with the UN News report of 62% proportion of women and children accounted for in these deaths (3). This model assumes every man above the age of 18 can be treated as a combatants. Controlling for these caveats, we are still well over 1,200 civilian deaths in Gaza.
I note that the names, sex, age, and ID card numbers of over 6,500 Gazans reported to have died in initial Israeli aerial bombardments been released as of 10/26/23. Over 250 reported bodies have not yet been identified (4).
These reports of +8,000 dead seem intuitively a bit more believable in the context of the specific losses I’ve heard. The UNRWA reports over 35 of its staff in Gaza has now died (3), and Al Jazeera journalist, Wael Dahdouh, seems to have lost most of his family in this conflict (5).
From the sources I’ve been consuming (i.e., admittedly, primarily left-leaning news sources), my sources indicate that international organizations have largely corroborated the estimates presented by the health ministry in Gaza for previous military operations (e.g., Operation Cast Lead; Operation Protective Edge). I note that I have no firm source to verify this presently. However, I would also note that in general death rates are often low-balled, especially when bodies may be trapped under rubble.
B/ I agree that any historical advances need to be achieved through diplomacy. This was precisely the point I was trying to achieve in my argument against disproportionate military responses from Israel.
In regards to the historiography you present, I am no expert on the history of this conflict, so I would love to read your sources.
I do want to flag for any readers just a few UN Resolutions regarding Israeli actions: Resolution 2253 (1967), Resolution 2546 (1969), Resolution 2792 (1971), Resolution 2851 (1971), Resolution 3414 (1975), Resolution 31/6-E (1976), Resolution 31/20 (1976), Resolution 31/61 (1976), Resolution 32/5 (1977), Resolution 32/91 (1977), Resolution 33/183-D (1979). Skipping forward a bit: Resolution 66/225 (2012) Resolution ES-10/19 (2017), Resolution ES-10/20 (2018), Resolution ES-10/21 (2023).
Some noteworthy UN Security Council resolutions which the US could have block with it’s veto power: Resolution 106 (1955), Resolution 111 (1956), Resolution 162 (1961), Resolution 228 (1962), Resolution 237 (1967), Resolution 242 (1967), Resolution 248 (1968), Resolution 256 (1968), Resolution 258 (1968), Resolution 259 (1968), Resolution 262 (1968), Resolution 265 (1968), Resolution 270 (1968). Skipping forward again, Resolution 799 (1992), Resolution 904 (1994), Resolution 1435 (2002), Resolution 2334 (2016). (6)
C/ To my ears, arguing that “this is the fifth time in fifteen years” in which “an inferno” has been brought on the people of Gaza and noting Israel’s “contempt for the international community” might not support your argument the way you think it is. Kinda hits my ears in an odd way. I’d also love more context for this “contempt for the international community” which you posit.
Again, I must admit, a lot of my perspective is being shaped by the statements of the international community like the recent statement of the UN Secretary-General (7), director of WHO (8), human rights organization (9; 10; 11), Jewish-American scholars (12), Civil Rights Activists (13; 14), South African leaders (15), and Holocaust survivors (16). Again, I recognize this are simple appeals to authority, so I’d love to be corrected or for these voices to .
D/ I respect and appreciate your service to the Israeli intelligence community and appreciate the insight of a veteran. On a personal note, Many of my perceptions of this situation have been shaped by conversation I've had with a dear friend, a marine, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan. I remember watching “Generation Kill” (2008) with him and talking about his experiences of the wars in the middle east. I actually consulted with him when I considered joining the American military and was moved by his recommendation of “Terminal Lance: The White Donkey” by Maximilian Uriarte.
War is a truly terrible thing for all parties involved.
On a practical level, if I can speak as a citizen of America, a close ally of the Israeli state, I believe it is important to stress caution in prosecuting wars on terror. You may have a different perspective on the outcome of our wars, but from my vantage, it didn’t seem to work out exceptionally well. (17)
I think we are tangling several very distinctive issues together, as well as descriptive claims I made and somewhat normative claims. I will try to regiment them and answer them as best as I can considering the format:
1/ Your original reply was that perhaps we can apply the Myopia of Minimisation (MoM) reversely. To be clear, we can. In fact, I wasn’t espousing for MoM personally, I simply raised it against the Myopia of Heroism, showing it to be somewhat problematic from roughly the same set of premises MoH comes out from. But I will get to that again later.
My counterargument to you was threefold:
1.1/Firstly, the mere fact that MoM can be reversed does not trouble me. As I said I think that for one to be troubled by the mere fact that arguments can work both ways is simply to be troubled by a ghost of crude relativism.
Now as I think 7/10 was not instigated on grounds of something like MoM, i.e., the 7/10 attack was not devised as an instrumental act to reduce future harm by calling global attention to the plight of Gazans, this is all perhaps a moot point.
1.2/ Secondly, I view both MoM and MoH as generally uninteresting as they have an underlying utilitarian rationale. That was my argument about “numbers qua numbers”.
You mentioned you are a strict deontologist about intentional harm and then turned to some numeric considerations. I retorted that a proper deontological position on war starts with the question of jus ad bellum. If a war is just, as toppling Nazi Germany was, the numbers of collateral deaths are in themselves normatively inert to render it unjust. That was the point. As I think that 7/10 created a just cause to topple the Hamas regime, the numbers in themselves do not bother me, as long as civilians are not targeted maliciously. Knowing the IDF I know that it is not the case, though I can admit that our response is much more heavy-handed than usual. So firebombing a city like Dresden – bad, sorry Butcher Harris; but a naval blockade like WW1 that brought mass hunger in Germany – legitimate.
I will add that I think that the leap from deontological case studies of individual morality (and moral psychology for that matter), to the political sphere with collective actors fails. I think it fails philosophically, that moral principles of individual morality simply have no normative force in mass collective processes. And I think it fails pragmatically, as the real-world large-scale examples are so messy, factually and historically, that it is incalculable as to how to move from the individual to political collectives. Ergo, a theory of political morality must have a different philosophical foundation that is not classic normative ethics.
You raised further questions about proportionality. I will answer briefly, as this in itself is worthy of an entire book.
I can definitely see how proportionality can play a role in individual morality. If someone steals my pencil it would be quite insane if I shoot him in retaliation. However, notice the setting: we both share cultural norms, polity, and generally play the same “language games”. I can also see some benefits of applying proportionality in legal settings where one has to weigh legal rights. Again we assume some shared normative paradigm here – a shared legal system.
I cannot see how to apply proportionality considerations in war. On 7/10 Hamas killed 1400 civilians. Would the proportional response be a 1:1 ratio? Or maybe children are worth 20% more/less to adults? As Hamas raped X amount of women does that mean the IDF must now rape equally the same amount in order to be proportional? These perplexities are actually absurdities as it is simply incoherent to weigh lives in warlike scenarios. That’s a replication of the failed leap from individual to political settings.
Moreover, war is frequently asymmetrical nowadays. If the stronger more organized side is constrained by proportionality norms (that do not bind the smaller aggressor mind you), you simply incentivize organizations like Hamas to burrow in civilian settings. They want to win their war, they know they have the lower hand in technology, so they immerse themselves in civilian infrastructure. That’s a pretty standard move for this type of organization. That makes fighting them inherently asymmetrical in proportions as you naturally can’t fight them without hurting civilians. Hence, a strict proportionality requirement incentivizes terrorists to dig deeper between civilians.
(And one can add that in real life scenario you rarely have control or knowledge about the number of civilians in a given area.)
Lastly, I will add that for any norm to be valid it must be practicable. If I legislate that people must not breath I failed to create a norm as people can’t obey that norm. Proportionality popped up in international humanitarian law after WW2 and to be frank I don’t know of a single war since to meet these standards. In fact, I don’t know of a single war to be waged according to the strict demands of IHL, ever. I think this is indicative that perhaps the noble project of IHL is a failure precisely as it requires states to act according to impossible standards in real-world scenarios and it is completely unfit to regulate asymmetrical wars. And I can attest personally, war is hell.
1.3/ Lastly I pointed out that even if one wants to apply MoM reversely it simply fails factually.
If the aim was to minimize future damage by focusing global attention then it will fail. The damage wrought on Gaza by the actions of Hamas in 7/10 is far greater than they would have suffered otherwise for decades. My historical point was that it is a recurring feature of the Palestinian national movement. Violence never minimized their suffering. And I’m not denying they suffered a great deal (though far less than other nations who sadly do not enjoy the PR status the Palestinians have).
The second point was about instrumental rationality. Global attention should be a goal only if it somehow advances the Palestinian national cause. My factual claim was that it does not, as no amount of global attention or outrage would move Israel, as Israel is determined never to reward Hamas for violence. This is not a normative claim but rather a descriptive one. Global attention could advance the Palestinian national struggle only if it results from legitimate struggle, as was the case in the First Intifada, violent but generally legitimate, it brought about the Oslo Accords.
2/ I hope that made my previous comments clear. Now for some peripheral issues, you mentioned:
2.1/ Israel (the State) descriptively has disdain for the international community. You mentioned resolutions of the UN general assembly where Muslim countries have a huge bloc and grouped with other third world countries have an automatic majority. Naturally, these resolutions do not strike the Israeli government as having much weight or interest. As a matter of fact, Israel is the subject matter of roughly 20% of the resolutions by the general assembly…That’s a pretty damning figure for bias.
One can also point to the detrimental role the UN had in the history of the conflict, from forming UNRWA that aggravated the refugee problem in ways unparallel elsewhere, to the actual inability of UN peacekeeping forces to keep peace. UNIFIL has done absolutely nothing about Hizbollah illegally controlling the south of Lebanon against the 2006 resolution that ended the Second Lebanon War.
So yeah, Israel has disdain for some institutions of the international “community” (in what sense are we even calling our dysfunctional global geo-political array of power a community?). It works rather well with other institutions just as the EU or NATO.
2.2/ as to the calculations of civilian deaths, see my replies above. I don’t doubt that a substantial number of civilians died during the war. As I said, that in itself is neither here or there. Furthermore, the death and plight of the civilians in Gaza falls squarely with their political leadership. Hamas can release the hostages and agree to the demilitarization of Gaza and the war will end immediately, it was their actions on 7/10, and then their willing to fight with 2 million human shields around them that is culpable for those deaths.
As I side note I will add that I'm a peace activist here for years, it's a sticky situation. Horrible actually. I have too many friends who might die in the coming weeks, and know people who died already. But in the current state of affairs the Hamas regime must be toppled. There is simply no alternative. In a positive note I think this war would reignite the peace process to a tempo we hadn't seen since the 90's
No, this post and your replies have been the highest quality conversation I’ve seen on the subject! I appreciate the response and will try my best not to initiate any additional points of contention. I know these are more difficult times for you than myself, so I’m sure you’ve got better things to do than argue online with some asshat American who’s not intimately involved in the situation. I’m glad to hear that you’re a peace activist and hope that your core convictions aren’t broken by the terrible events of the past month. I loved the inspiring groundswell of activism this past year, and I pray this energy is not lost.
I respect your arguments and continue to support all Israelis as they continue to grieve and consider the correct response, and I know my thought experiment was provocative. I hope you can understand why one would feel compelled to introduce an additional provocative thought experiment which includes the potential rationalizations of enemies when allies introduce provocative thought experiments which include the possible rationalizations of 5000 civilian deaths.
I obviously don’t know what the right answer is, but I hope we continue to explore other solutions that don’t necessitate the moral calculus of civilian death tolls. I have faith that people of Israel will choose an appropriate pathway forward. I cannot fathom the pain that you and those close to you have gone through in the past month and am heartbroken that these conversations need to be had because of the errant and egregious geopolitical calculations of Hamas. I know the heartbreak I feel now must pale in comparison to the heartbreak you must be enduring.
To summarize what I’ve learned from you, I recognize the international community has failed both sides in a myriad of ways over the years. I may want to shine light on how the international community failed to protect Palestinian rights. You may want to shine light on how the international community failed to protect Israeli rights. I am in no position to litigate this. I agree with you that proportionality certainly doesn’t necessitate equivalency and that it is possibly not the strongest statute for grounding human rights law.
However, these are the norms and institutions we have, and I do still deeply believe that we need to maintain the ethical commitment to avoiding excessive deaths, no matter how objectively justified a cause is. Like any good philosopher, you raise important conversation points that need to be addressed by leaders on proportionality in asymmetrical war, what protections can be extended beyond groups with shared cultural norms, and the role of the international community in policing the atrocities that took place on October 7th, but this does not need to be the forum for those debates.
These are difficult times which require difficult conversations, and I really do appreciate your willingness to engage on the subject. I know the PM and his government’s rhetoric are not representative of the greater Israeli population or its military, and it is important not to let their perspective be conflated with the common Israeli perspective.
I really do hope you are doing alright in these difficult times, Nevo. I respect you as a scholar, which is why I was comfortable engaging in difficult conversations like this on an academic forum. I am still extremely interested in reading an Israeli history of the conflict if you have any recommendations.
I know words, thoughts, and prayers can offer little console for the grief and horrors you and those close to you have endured in the long course of this conflict, but I hope you can accept it as the best I can offer.
I agree with most of what he says, though I think he's downplaying the important aspect that we discussed here about the importance of goals in war to the discussion about means
This article attempts to make some interesting points, but I think it unfortunately misses the mark because it doesn’t consider a critical aspect: time. The article focuses solely on the terrorist act and the cost of the hero’s response to the terrorist attack. This makes sense in your movie example: if the cost of the hero’s response is greater than the cost of the terrorist act that triggered it, then the response of the hero to the terrorist act is immoral. But in the movie example, after the hero’s response, the movie ends! In contrast, in real life, time marches forward. So in assessing the morality of the hero, we can’t ignore what happens in the time after the hero’s response. The article implies that you can’t predict what will happen next after the hero’s response, so you ignore the question. But the answer to the question of what happens next is decisive in answering whether the hero’s response is moral. For example, if the United States or any other foreign power had not taken any action regarding ISIS in Syria, it’s true that the civilians killed and other damage caused by the hero’s response would not have happened. But a consequence of no response to ISIS’s terrorism is that ISIS would certainly have maintained its territory or expanded it. This would have led to more people suffering at the hands of ISIS, including more barbaric terrorism involving beheadings, murders of civilians, tortures, and hostage taking. But even worse, it would have signaled to other nefarious organizations throughout the world that they too could pursue the tactics of beheadings, murder of civilians, tortures, and hostage taking, and that nobody would stop them. If our heroes stop acting out of concern that the inevitable civilian casualties of war outweigh responding to barbaric terrorism, barbaric terrorism will become an accepted, normalized behavior in our world. To many people with good morals who believe in the preciousness of human life, the prospect of barbaric terrorism proliferating unabated throughout our world is literally terrifying. When considering whether the inevitable deaths resulting from the hero’s response are moral and acceptable, one must compare not only to the cruelty of a terrorist organization’s actions immediate past actions, but to the summation of the terrorist organizations’s past organizations that the future terrorism that will result throughout the world when terrorist organizations learn that they can act against civilians with impunity. Consequently, it appears the hero in your title is not the one who is myopic, but rather it is your article’s failure to consider the long-term impact of not responding to heinous terrorist attacks that is myopic.
I typically have great respect for your work and insights, and I’d love to hear a response on the concerns raised here.
Thanks for your thoughtful comment! We agree with much of it, though we would clarify that our point is not to “assess the morality of the hero” but instead to highlight a descriptive feature of how our minds make sense of moral scenarios. As you point out, responding swiftly and aggressively to villains can prevent suffering in the long run. We actually think this is one reason why the myopia of heroism is so deeply embedded in our minds. Our sense of morality evolved as an adaptive solution to living in social groups, where other people could harm us - one important way of discouraging harm is to respond aggressively when people victimize others. A natural tradeoff of our intense preoccupation with victimization is that it renders other victims, and alternative sources of harm, less salient - even those that arise from our well-intentioned efforts to prevent harm.
Thanks for the valuable clarification and additional comments. Based on this discussion, it seems to me the terminology of "myopia of heroism" is misleading to a casual reader (at least to me). The article focuses solely on the hero's response, which happens immediately after the terrorist incident. But when deciding on a response, a hero who is thoroughly considering the moral scenario should be considering a longer period of time, at which point the civilian victims of the hero's response must be weighed against the long term rise in terrorism and hence larger number of victims that would result from no response. (Perhaps this is what should happen, but most people may not naturally do this rational calculation.) In essence, the hero should weigh the larger number of future lives saved against the smaller number of lives lost in the shorter term. This is perhaps more akin to hyperopia, not myopia.
As an Israeli, I have to say that rescuing the hostages is not the major motivation for Israel's response. There is no way any sane person could return to her or his community at the border of Gaza without a very strong reason that these horrific events will not repeat themselves. And since Israel is a small country, we are all at the border of Gaza. Israelis and Palestinians will only be able to co-exist (so we hope and pray) after this terrorist regime - who puts killing Israelis ahead of their own people's prosperity - are removed from power.
I think there’s a myopia of minimisation that this piece fails to take into account.
The continued existence of brutal regimes such as Hamas or ISIS will lead to more death and suffering in the long run. If it is a just cause to topple them, why are 5000 dead civilians now more important than 10,000 over ten years?
In general a more aggressive attitude can shorten a war and reduce the overall amount of casualties. It’s even more myopic to judge the myopia of heroism solely on the basis of the short term consequences.
[!!!Trigger Warning: I sincerely recommend you not read the following if you are understandably not interested to engaging in perspective-taking presently]
Forgive me for speaking out of turn, but couldn't Hamas apply this proposed "myopia of minimisation" logic to justify their horrific attack on Israel? (Obviously: they shouldn't)
I think it is important to think through how this argument may be leveraged by others with different perspectives or understandings of the situation.
If you'd allow me for just a moment--and this is understandably difficult and taboo to suggest and maybe even condemnable to entertain--but maybe we can think through a militant Gazan's perspective for just a passing moment to illustrate why this "aggressive attitude" might be problematic in military action:
1) The citizens of Gaza, international human rights groups, and Gaza's de-facto governing body, Hamas, consider themselves to be living in a "open-air prison" since the Israeli blockade was enforced in 2007. The following comes from the Norwegian Refugee Council (2018): "A 2012 UN report predicted the Palestinian enclave would be 'unliveable' by 2020 if nothing was done to ease the blockade, but in June 2017 a UN report on living conditions in Gaza stated that all the indicators are going in the wrong direction and that deadline is actually approaching even faster than earlier predicted."
2) By your logic, Hamas may argue it's justifiable to sacrifice 1400 Israeli citizens (and countless of its own citizens in Israel's inevitable response) if it has the potential to draw the attention of the international community back to the perceived tremendous suffering of its citizens under the Israeli blockade. I recognize what follows is rightfully blasphemous: To steel-man this argument, the failures of the largely nonviolent civil disobedience efforts in the Great March of Return in 2018 & 2019 (see sources below) may leave one perceiving no other options to get international attention on the struggling enclave. A Gazan militant who applies an "aggressive attitude" may say: "Maybe a violent outburst in the short term will generate the conditions to save more of us in the long term"
3) Obviously, this is a terrible conclusion to draw and the actions on Oct 7th were abominable, disgusting, and immoral.
Therefore: It is perhaps not wise sacrifice masses of human life (e.g., ~1240-5000 Palestinian civilians as of 10/29/23*) in the short term for the hypothetical possibility of less deaths in the long term.
I'm sorry, on the issue of killing civilians, I am deontological.
Disclosure: In no way, shape, or form am I arguing for Hamas, condemning you, blaming Israel, or relativising the brutal events of October 7th. And I do not claim to be an expert on any of the context I listed above. I recognize I am making a cheap appeal to authority (i.e., the UN, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Norwegian Refugee Council).
I implore others to correct my sources and evidence if I made any factual or logical errors here.
All I hope to achieve in this is to note out how your logic may facilitate outcomes approximating the horrors of October 7th in Gaza.
I pray for you and your family in these difficult times.
[Explicit condemnation: I think the acts that occurred on October 7th are disgusting, horrific, immoral, and wrong.]
*10/29: AP News estimates 8000 deaths. We present a low and high estimate. In the low estimate, I accept Joe Biden's assertion to not trust the numbers and cut it in half. I also assume half of the deaths were collatoral damage by Hamas. I then apply a civilian death rate of 62%, in line with UN News proportions of women and children dead as of 10/23/23 (This estimate assumes literally every man above the age of 18 in the entire Gaza Strip is a Hamas militant). In high estimates, we use the full 8,000 deaths reported and apply a 62% civilian death rate, in line with UN News proportions of women and children dead as of 10/23/23 (This model still assumes literally every man above the age of 18 in the entire Gaza Strip is a Hamas militant).
Some sources:
https://www.nrc.no/news/2018/april/gaza-the-worlds-largest-open-air-prison/
https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/06/14/gaza-israels-open-air-prison-15
https://www.unrwa.org/campaign/gaza-great-march-return?__cf_chl_tk=qs8xHKK6KwULzNKXOTAtGx0H4KjSKiWyVoqMqlq_MHA-1698783448-0-gaNycGzNEFA
https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/10/1142687
Well I would breakdown this counter argument as there are several problems floating above:
1. Firstly, the sheer fact that people might have differing judgements about a matter does entail factual relativism. A says B is the baddy, while B says the opposite does not entail that there is no fact of the matter as to who is the baddy.
As trivial as this point is, as no one is rationally guided to act according to what *they* consider to be evil, it still seems to daunt the ability of very clever people to make moral judgments.
2. I’m not sure you can frame any argument about numbers qua numbers as guided by deontological reasoning. In fact I think it is inherently utilitarian which make it inevitably flawed. From a deontological perspective when a war is a jus as bellum, the number of fatalities in itself is not something that can render it wrong. Destroying Nazi Germany would have been actually just even if half a million more German civilians would have died. Proportionality (if it’s even a coherent doctrine in war, and we can leave this issue aside) might mandate that some means are wrong, not that the war in itself is bad. And even that would be under the severe epistemic limit in calculating the proportions
3. I’ll add some (but not all) factual problems here:
A/ there is absolutely no reason to take any figures released by Hamas at face value.
B/ as a matter of historical fact every time the Palestinian National movement opted for violence against civilians it actually took them five steps backwards. It was true during the rebellion of 1936-39, it was true for their refusal to accept the partition plan, it was true when the PLO were hijacking planes and killing athletes, and it was true when they start suicide bombings in buses and pizza shops.
Any advance they did have over the past 100 years was through diplomacy.
If 7/10 was meant to bring global attention to their plight and block an Israeli-Saudi deal than its a high toll to pay as the Israeli response would calamitous for them. That’s contra to diplomatic moves they could have done like accepting the authority of the PA and pressuring Israel to return to negotiation table. Now their faith is sealed as any post-war arrangement would be decided above their heads.
C/ this is the fifth time in fifteen years that Hamas brought an inferno on the people of Gaza. Each time it got them some global attention but zero gain as Israel is determined not to reward Hamas for violence. There is simply no amount of global pressure that will change this fact. Whether Israel is right about its contempt for the international community is besides the point, that’s just a fact, hence no amount of violence would change that.
D/ Moreover, as an Israeli intelligence community veteran I think the western charitable reading of Hamas’ actions is truly misguided. The line of reasoning you suggest is simply not one someone from Hamas or PIJ would take.
Thank you for engaging with my comment, Nevo. I appreciate the dialogue. I believe this is an important conversation to have for someone like myself who is not as versed in the history of the conflict. I am trying my best to educate myself with diverse, reputable evidence, so I would love to read the sources for the historiographical account you have suggested are readily available.
To clarify my position and my understanding of your position, it seems we do not agree on the issue of the internationally recognized doctrine of “Proportionality” or how much stock to put into the international community. Please set me straight if I’m misunderstanding what you are are suggesting. I do not want to take you out of context.
I would love to hear more about your thoughts Proportionality and the International Community given you suggest Proportionality may not be a “coherent doctrine” and that "whether Israel is right about its contempt for the international community is besides the point".
In regards to moral relativism, I admit that I may have watched one too many Adam Curtis documentaries, such as Bitter Lake (2015) which argues against Western politicians’ representation of the geopolitical development of militant Islamic groups in the context of the war in Afghanistan. Because of this perspective, I have a hard time perceiving geopolitical conflicts in terms of what Curtis calls “goodies” and “baddies”. I think this is particularly apparent in our disagreement on the justifiability of the hypothetical death of “half a million more German civilians” in World War II. Again, I may just be reading too much Kurt Vonnegut (see Slaughterhouse Five for a differing perspective in regards to the bombing of Dresden, especially chapter 1). As Vonnegut tries to demonstrate, the baddies in the case of WWII are objective and obvious (i.e., not relative), but the methodology for achieving justice against the baddies seems nonetheless ethically dubious (i.e., firebombing an entire city).
As a broader point of consideration, I’m particularly concerned about the possible effect active war zones could have on individual perceptions of what is “good” and “bad”. Consider one IDF First Sergeant’s testimonial on Operation Protective Edge (2014):
“[…] after three weeks in Gaza, during which you’re shooting at anything that moves - and also at what isn’t moving, crazy amounts – you aren’t anymore really… The good and the bad get a bit mixed up, and your morals get a bit lost and you sort of lose it, and it also becomes a bit like a computer game, totally cool and real.” (1)
Points of clarification and requests for clarification on disputed facts:
A/ For the purposes of my previous argument, I accepted your assertion to take the casualty figures released by sources in Gaza with a grain of salt. AP news reported 8000 deaths as of 10/29/23 (2). I cut these figures in half twice to account for 1) potential inflation of overall numbers and 2) potential for collateral damage. I then applied a 62% civilian death rate in line with the UN News report of 62% proportion of women and children accounted for in these deaths (3). This model assumes every man above the age of 18 can be treated as a combatants. Controlling for these caveats, we are still well over 1,200 civilian deaths in Gaza.
I note that the names, sex, age, and ID card numbers of over 6,500 Gazans reported to have died in initial Israeli aerial bombardments been released as of 10/26/23. Over 250 reported bodies have not yet been identified (4).
These reports of +8,000 dead seem intuitively a bit more believable in the context of the specific losses I’ve heard. The UNRWA reports over 35 of its staff in Gaza has now died (3), and Al Jazeera journalist, Wael Dahdouh, seems to have lost most of his family in this conflict (5).
From the sources I’ve been consuming (i.e., admittedly, primarily left-leaning news sources), my sources indicate that international organizations have largely corroborated the estimates presented by the health ministry in Gaza for previous military operations (e.g., Operation Cast Lead; Operation Protective Edge). I note that I have no firm source to verify this presently. However, I would also note that in general death rates are often low-balled, especially when bodies may be trapped under rubble.
B/ I agree that any historical advances need to be achieved through diplomacy. This was precisely the point I was trying to achieve in my argument against disproportionate military responses from Israel.
In regards to the historiography you present, I am no expert on the history of this conflict, so I would love to read your sources.
I do want to flag for any readers just a few UN Resolutions regarding Israeli actions: Resolution 2253 (1967), Resolution 2546 (1969), Resolution 2792 (1971), Resolution 2851 (1971), Resolution 3414 (1975), Resolution 31/6-E (1976), Resolution 31/20 (1976), Resolution 31/61 (1976), Resolution 32/5 (1977), Resolution 32/91 (1977), Resolution 33/183-D (1979). Skipping forward a bit: Resolution 66/225 (2012) Resolution ES-10/19 (2017), Resolution ES-10/20 (2018), Resolution ES-10/21 (2023).
Some noteworthy UN Security Council resolutions which the US could have block with it’s veto power: Resolution 106 (1955), Resolution 111 (1956), Resolution 162 (1961), Resolution 228 (1962), Resolution 237 (1967), Resolution 242 (1967), Resolution 248 (1968), Resolution 256 (1968), Resolution 258 (1968), Resolution 259 (1968), Resolution 262 (1968), Resolution 265 (1968), Resolution 270 (1968). Skipping forward again, Resolution 799 (1992), Resolution 904 (1994), Resolution 1435 (2002), Resolution 2334 (2016). (6)
C/ To my ears, arguing that “this is the fifth time in fifteen years” in which “an inferno” has been brought on the people of Gaza and noting Israel’s “contempt for the international community” might not support your argument the way you think it is. Kinda hits my ears in an odd way. I’d also love more context for this “contempt for the international community” which you posit.
Again, I must admit, a lot of my perspective is being shaped by the statements of the international community like the recent statement of the UN Secretary-General (7), director of WHO (8), human rights organization (9; 10; 11), Jewish-American scholars (12), Civil Rights Activists (13; 14), South African leaders (15), and Holocaust survivors (16). Again, I recognize this are simple appeals to authority, so I’d love to be corrected or for these voices to .
D/ I respect and appreciate your service to the Israeli intelligence community and appreciate the insight of a veteran. On a personal note, Many of my perceptions of this situation have been shaped by conversation I've had with a dear friend, a marine, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan. I remember watching “Generation Kill” (2008) with him and talking about his experiences of the wars in the middle east. I actually consulted with him when I considered joining the American military and was moved by his recommendation of “Terminal Lance: The White Donkey” by Maximilian Uriarte.
War is a truly terrible thing for all parties involved.
On a practical level, if I can speak as a citizen of America, a close ally of the Israeli state, I believe it is important to stress caution in prosecuting wars on terror. You may have a different perspective on the outcome of our wars, but from my vantage, it didn’t seem to work out exceptionally well. (17)
Sources:
(1: IDF Testimony) https://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/pdf/ProtectiveEdge.pdf
(2: Casualty Reports) https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-news-10-29-2023-de1a7d660ba2f6d80b3d7aeaae5bb0f3
(3: Casualty Reports) https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/10/1142687
(4: Casualty Reports) https://www.barrons.com/news/hamas-lists-around-7-000-names-of-gaza-dead-041e80e7
(5: Casualty Reports) https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/10/25/wael-al-dahdouh-family-gaza-al-jazeera/
(6: UN Resolution Reference) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_Nations_resolutions_concerning_Israel
(7: UN Secretary General) https://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/official-statements/secretary-general-remarks-to-security-council-middle-east
(8: Head of WHO) https://twitter.com/DrTedros/status/1718662684583879090?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1718662684583879090%7Ctwgr%5E0f6b646aaaf0284c35b198735ae66998b2e1ca3d%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fhealthpolicy-watch.news%2Fwho-calls-for-israel-to-rescind-order-to-evacuate-al-quds-hospital-israel-says-its-used-as-hamas-command-center%2F
(9: Human Rights Watch) https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/10/12/israel-white-phosphorus-used-gaza-lebanon
(10: Amnesty International) https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/10/damning-evidence-of-war-crimes-as-israeli-attacks-wipe-out-entire-families-in-gaza/
(11: Norwegian Refugee Council) https://www.nrc.no/news/2023/october/israel---gaza-world-leaders-must-call-for-an-immediate-ceasefire/
(12: Dr. Norman Finkelstein) Finkelstein, N. (2021). Gaza: An inquest into its martyrdom. Univ of California Press.
(13: Dr. Cornel West) https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/10/cornel-west-harvard-israel-palestine-00120827
(14: Angela Davis) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIVxooM5kG8
(15: Nelson Mandela) https://www.nelsonmandela.org/news/entry/nelson-mandela-palestinian-struggles-and-decolonisation
(16: Gabor Maté) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHDBw-wx6w0
(17: Article on Israel-Hamas War Logistics) https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/25/israel-hamas-war-assault-gaza-doomed-to-failure
I think we are tangling several very distinctive issues together, as well as descriptive claims I made and somewhat normative claims. I will try to regiment them and answer them as best as I can considering the format:
1/ Your original reply was that perhaps we can apply the Myopia of Minimisation (MoM) reversely. To be clear, we can. In fact, I wasn’t espousing for MoM personally, I simply raised it against the Myopia of Heroism, showing it to be somewhat problematic from roughly the same set of premises MoH comes out from. But I will get to that again later.
My counterargument to you was threefold:
1.1/Firstly, the mere fact that MoM can be reversed does not trouble me. As I said I think that for one to be troubled by the mere fact that arguments can work both ways is simply to be troubled by a ghost of crude relativism.
Now as I think 7/10 was not instigated on grounds of something like MoM, i.e., the 7/10 attack was not devised as an instrumental act to reduce future harm by calling global attention to the plight of Gazans, this is all perhaps a moot point.
1.2/ Secondly, I view both MoM and MoH as generally uninteresting as they have an underlying utilitarian rationale. That was my argument about “numbers qua numbers”.
You mentioned you are a strict deontologist about intentional harm and then turned to some numeric considerations. I retorted that a proper deontological position on war starts with the question of jus ad bellum. If a war is just, as toppling Nazi Germany was, the numbers of collateral deaths are in themselves normatively inert to render it unjust. That was the point. As I think that 7/10 created a just cause to topple the Hamas regime, the numbers in themselves do not bother me, as long as civilians are not targeted maliciously. Knowing the IDF I know that it is not the case, though I can admit that our response is much more heavy-handed than usual. So firebombing a city like Dresden – bad, sorry Butcher Harris; but a naval blockade like WW1 that brought mass hunger in Germany – legitimate.
I will add that I think that the leap from deontological case studies of individual morality (and moral psychology for that matter), to the political sphere with collective actors fails. I think it fails philosophically, that moral principles of individual morality simply have no normative force in mass collective processes. And I think it fails pragmatically, as the real-world large-scale examples are so messy, factually and historically, that it is incalculable as to how to move from the individual to political collectives. Ergo, a theory of political morality must have a different philosophical foundation that is not classic normative ethics.
You raised further questions about proportionality. I will answer briefly, as this in itself is worthy of an entire book.
I can definitely see how proportionality can play a role in individual morality. If someone steals my pencil it would be quite insane if I shoot him in retaliation. However, notice the setting: we both share cultural norms, polity, and generally play the same “language games”. I can also see some benefits of applying proportionality in legal settings where one has to weigh legal rights. Again we assume some shared normative paradigm here – a shared legal system.
I cannot see how to apply proportionality considerations in war. On 7/10 Hamas killed 1400 civilians. Would the proportional response be a 1:1 ratio? Or maybe children are worth 20% more/less to adults? As Hamas raped X amount of women does that mean the IDF must now rape equally the same amount in order to be proportional? These perplexities are actually absurdities as it is simply incoherent to weigh lives in warlike scenarios. That’s a replication of the failed leap from individual to political settings.
Moreover, war is frequently asymmetrical nowadays. If the stronger more organized side is constrained by proportionality norms (that do not bind the smaller aggressor mind you), you simply incentivize organizations like Hamas to burrow in civilian settings. They want to win their war, they know they have the lower hand in technology, so they immerse themselves in civilian infrastructure. That’s a pretty standard move for this type of organization. That makes fighting them inherently asymmetrical in proportions as you naturally can’t fight them without hurting civilians. Hence, a strict proportionality requirement incentivizes terrorists to dig deeper between civilians.
(And one can add that in real life scenario you rarely have control or knowledge about the number of civilians in a given area.)
Lastly, I will add that for any norm to be valid it must be practicable. If I legislate that people must not breath I failed to create a norm as people can’t obey that norm. Proportionality popped up in international humanitarian law after WW2 and to be frank I don’t know of a single war since to meet these standards. In fact, I don’t know of a single war to be waged according to the strict demands of IHL, ever. I think this is indicative that perhaps the noble project of IHL is a failure precisely as it requires states to act according to impossible standards in real-world scenarios and it is completely unfit to regulate asymmetrical wars. And I can attest personally, war is hell.
1.3/ Lastly I pointed out that even if one wants to apply MoM reversely it simply fails factually.
If the aim was to minimize future damage by focusing global attention then it will fail. The damage wrought on Gaza by the actions of Hamas in 7/10 is far greater than they would have suffered otherwise for decades. My historical point was that it is a recurring feature of the Palestinian national movement. Violence never minimized their suffering. And I’m not denying they suffered a great deal (though far less than other nations who sadly do not enjoy the PR status the Palestinians have).
The second point was about instrumental rationality. Global attention should be a goal only if it somehow advances the Palestinian national cause. My factual claim was that it does not, as no amount of global attention or outrage would move Israel, as Israel is determined never to reward Hamas for violence. This is not a normative claim but rather a descriptive one. Global attention could advance the Palestinian national struggle only if it results from legitimate struggle, as was the case in the First Intifada, violent but generally legitimate, it brought about the Oslo Accords.
2/ I hope that made my previous comments clear. Now for some peripheral issues, you mentioned:
2.1/ Israel (the State) descriptively has disdain for the international community. You mentioned resolutions of the UN general assembly where Muslim countries have a huge bloc and grouped with other third world countries have an automatic majority. Naturally, these resolutions do not strike the Israeli government as having much weight or interest. As a matter of fact, Israel is the subject matter of roughly 20% of the resolutions by the general assembly…That’s a pretty damning figure for bias.
One can also point to the detrimental role the UN had in the history of the conflict, from forming UNRWA that aggravated the refugee problem in ways unparallel elsewhere, to the actual inability of UN peacekeeping forces to keep peace. UNIFIL has done absolutely nothing about Hizbollah illegally controlling the south of Lebanon against the 2006 resolution that ended the Second Lebanon War.
So yeah, Israel has disdain for some institutions of the international “community” (in what sense are we even calling our dysfunctional global geo-political array of power a community?). It works rather well with other institutions just as the EU or NATO.
2.2/ as to the calculations of civilian deaths, see my replies above. I don’t doubt that a substantial number of civilians died during the war. As I said, that in itself is neither here or there. Furthermore, the death and plight of the civilians in Gaza falls squarely with their political leadership. Hamas can release the hostages and agree to the demilitarization of Gaza and the war will end immediately, it was their actions on 7/10, and then their willing to fight with 2 million human shields around them that is culpable for those deaths.
As I side note I will add that I'm a peace activist here for years, it's a sticky situation. Horrible actually. I have too many friends who might die in the coming weeks, and know people who died already. But in the current state of affairs the Hamas regime must be toppled. There is simply no alternative. In a positive note I think this war would reignite the peace process to a tempo we hadn't seen since the 90's
No, this post and your replies have been the highest quality conversation I’ve seen on the subject! I appreciate the response and will try my best not to initiate any additional points of contention. I know these are more difficult times for you than myself, so I’m sure you’ve got better things to do than argue online with some asshat American who’s not intimately involved in the situation. I’m glad to hear that you’re a peace activist and hope that your core convictions aren’t broken by the terrible events of the past month. I loved the inspiring groundswell of activism this past year, and I pray this energy is not lost.
I respect your arguments and continue to support all Israelis as they continue to grieve and consider the correct response, and I know my thought experiment was provocative. I hope you can understand why one would feel compelled to introduce an additional provocative thought experiment which includes the potential rationalizations of enemies when allies introduce provocative thought experiments which include the possible rationalizations of 5000 civilian deaths.
I obviously don’t know what the right answer is, but I hope we continue to explore other solutions that don’t necessitate the moral calculus of civilian death tolls. I have faith that people of Israel will choose an appropriate pathway forward. I cannot fathom the pain that you and those close to you have gone through in the past month and am heartbroken that these conversations need to be had because of the errant and egregious geopolitical calculations of Hamas. I know the heartbreak I feel now must pale in comparison to the heartbreak you must be enduring.
To summarize what I’ve learned from you, I recognize the international community has failed both sides in a myriad of ways over the years. I may want to shine light on how the international community failed to protect Palestinian rights. You may want to shine light on how the international community failed to protect Israeli rights. I am in no position to litigate this. I agree with you that proportionality certainly doesn’t necessitate equivalency and that it is possibly not the strongest statute for grounding human rights law.
However, these are the norms and institutions we have, and I do still deeply believe that we need to maintain the ethical commitment to avoiding excessive deaths, no matter how objectively justified a cause is. Like any good philosopher, you raise important conversation points that need to be addressed by leaders on proportionality in asymmetrical war, what protections can be extended beyond groups with shared cultural norms, and the role of the international community in policing the atrocities that took place on October 7th, but this does not need to be the forum for those debates.
These are difficult times which require difficult conversations, and I really do appreciate your willingness to engage on the subject. I know the PM and his government’s rhetoric are not representative of the greater Israeli population or its military, and it is important not to let their perspective be conflated with the common Israeli perspective.
I really do hope you are doing alright in these difficult times, Nevo. I respect you as a scholar, which is why I was comfortable engaging in difficult conversations like this on an academic forum. I am still extremely interested in reading an Israeli history of the conflict if you have any recommendations.
I know words, thoughts, and prayers can offer little console for the grief and horrors you and those close to you have endured in the long course of this conflict, but I hope you can accept it as the best I can offer.
To reiterate: I condemn Hamas and the attack of October 7th and continue to grieve for all the innocent lives lost in the past month.
Well said! I'd love to hear a response from the article's authors on this critical flaw in their logic.
I'll add that my former teacher wrote an extensive reply to some philosophical issues to be found here:
https://dailynous.com/2023/10/30/how-not-to-intervene-in-public-discourse-guest-post/
I agree with most of what he says, though I think he's downplaying the important aspect that we discussed here about the importance of goals in war to the discussion about means
This article attempts to make some interesting points, but I think it unfortunately misses the mark because it doesn’t consider a critical aspect: time. The article focuses solely on the terrorist act and the cost of the hero’s response to the terrorist attack. This makes sense in your movie example: if the cost of the hero’s response is greater than the cost of the terrorist act that triggered it, then the response of the hero to the terrorist act is immoral. But in the movie example, after the hero’s response, the movie ends! In contrast, in real life, time marches forward. So in assessing the morality of the hero, we can’t ignore what happens in the time after the hero’s response. The article implies that you can’t predict what will happen next after the hero’s response, so you ignore the question. But the answer to the question of what happens next is decisive in answering whether the hero’s response is moral. For example, if the United States or any other foreign power had not taken any action regarding ISIS in Syria, it’s true that the civilians killed and other damage caused by the hero’s response would not have happened. But a consequence of no response to ISIS’s terrorism is that ISIS would certainly have maintained its territory or expanded it. This would have led to more people suffering at the hands of ISIS, including more barbaric terrorism involving beheadings, murders of civilians, tortures, and hostage taking. But even worse, it would have signaled to other nefarious organizations throughout the world that they too could pursue the tactics of beheadings, murder of civilians, tortures, and hostage taking, and that nobody would stop them. If our heroes stop acting out of concern that the inevitable civilian casualties of war outweigh responding to barbaric terrorism, barbaric terrorism will become an accepted, normalized behavior in our world. To many people with good morals who believe in the preciousness of human life, the prospect of barbaric terrorism proliferating unabated throughout our world is literally terrifying. When considering whether the inevitable deaths resulting from the hero’s response are moral and acceptable, one must compare not only to the cruelty of a terrorist organization’s actions immediate past actions, but to the summation of the terrorist organizations’s past organizations that the future terrorism that will result throughout the world when terrorist organizations learn that they can act against civilians with impunity. Consequently, it appears the hero in your title is not the one who is myopic, but rather it is your article’s failure to consider the long-term impact of not responding to heinous terrorist attacks that is myopic.
I typically have great respect for your work and insights, and I’d love to hear a response on the concerns raised here.
Thanks for your thoughtful comment! We agree with much of it, though we would clarify that our point is not to “assess the morality of the hero” but instead to highlight a descriptive feature of how our minds make sense of moral scenarios. As you point out, responding swiftly and aggressively to villains can prevent suffering in the long run. We actually think this is one reason why the myopia of heroism is so deeply embedded in our minds. Our sense of morality evolved as an adaptive solution to living in social groups, where other people could harm us - one important way of discouraging harm is to respond aggressively when people victimize others. A natural tradeoff of our intense preoccupation with victimization is that it renders other victims, and alternative sources of harm, less salient - even those that arise from our well-intentioned efforts to prevent harm.
Thanks for the valuable clarification and additional comments. Based on this discussion, it seems to me the terminology of "myopia of heroism" is misleading to a casual reader (at least to me). The article focuses solely on the hero's response, which happens immediately after the terrorist incident. But when deciding on a response, a hero who is thoroughly considering the moral scenario should be considering a longer period of time, at which point the civilian victims of the hero's response must be weighed against the long term rise in terrorism and hence larger number of victims that would result from no response. (Perhaps this is what should happen, but most people may not naturally do this rational calculation.) In essence, the hero should weigh the larger number of future lives saved against the smaller number of lives lost in the shorter term. This is perhaps more akin to hyperopia, not myopia.
Thank you for some much-needed nuance and reflection on our moral impulses. This piece has been healing.
thanks for writing it.
As an Israeli, I have to say that rescuing the hostages is not the major motivation for Israel's response. There is no way any sane person could return to her or his community at the border of Gaza without a very strong reason that these horrific events will not repeat themselves. And since Israel is a small country, we are all at the border of Gaza. Israelis and Palestinians will only be able to co-exist (so we hope and pray) after this terrorist regime - who puts killing Israelis ahead of their own people's prosperity - are removed from power.
This is a powerful piece! TY!