Guest Post: Oppenheimer – Not The Morality Of The bomb

Written by Martin Sand & Karin Jongsma

The recently released Christopher Nolan movie “Oppenheimer” proves to be a phenomenal movie that deserves being watched on screen. Despite its 3 hours length, “Oppenheimer” is an intriguing portrayal of a genius, albeit somewhat narcissistic character, who – in the second half of the movie – seemingly regrets being involved in the development and deployment of the atomic bomb. “Oppenheimer” is much more than a biography of a memorable scientist; it’s a tale of the complex relation between science and politics, and the complexity of moral decision-making in an uncertain world faced with unprecedented suffering and cruelty. It provides insights into how the political climate in the “era of ideologies” (Karl Dietrich Bracher) could make it difficult for scientists to have left-leaning views, while pursuing successful scientific careers in the US. Those times and experiences are worth recollecting, also for ongoing discussions about censorship and academic freedom.

The movie itself does not provide a definitive stance on the question of the moral quality of Oppenheimer as a person, which is a great strength of this monumental portrayal. Arguably, one of the biggest mistakes one could make in quest for a definitive moral judgement – and one that Oppenheimer himself seems to have fallen trap to – is to reduce this question to the moral justifiability of dropping the bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This would mean, as we shall argue, to arbitrarily end the history of atomic weapons with their deployment in 1945 and reduce his involvement to his contribution to their development, neglecting his wavering and the uncertainties in the early phases of the war and his work after.

It is the dropping of the bombs that brings Oppenheimer in greatest moral distress. His underlying assumption that those actions were gravely morally wrong, is opposed by only few philosophers nowadays who defend the droppings of these bombs mainly in utilitarian spirit. A great majority of philosophers doubt that – even if we accepted a moral theory that allows for the aggregation of lives and the drawing of conclusion that those action that saves most lives are the ones that are permitted – that droppings were in fact the actions that saved most lives. Many commentators believe that the War could have been over after the Potsdam Conference had the American conceded immunity to the Japanese emperor and many believe that even the continuation of the war would not have been quite as devastating as, for instance, Henry Stimson, Secretary of War assumed. This, then – if one were to follow the aggregationst assumptions – had been the better courses of action.

Of course, the justifiability of the droppings will have to be considered in light of the knowledge that was ready at hand at the time and not after the fact and one will never know how certain one could have been at the time about the number of people that will be saved and killed.

But an answer to this question of justifiability, if one would want to pursue it in this way, of course, presumes much more than such knowledge (assumptions about probabilities of deaths and success rates): Namely that the weighing of lives (civilian and non-civilian) or their suffering is at all a morally acceptable basis for military decision-making. Given its possible implications such conviction is clearly one that is in need of a careful defense.

The empirical question is furthermore complicated when considering the long term development – the history of the a-bomb after the droppings of August 1945: Here, one would have to speculate whether such weapons were never used again after Nagasaki and Hiroshima, because this single time they were deployed has been the best deterrent and gravest warning to everyone after. The immediate effect on the stalemate between the Soviets and the US on European soil, that might have otherwise quickly escalated, cannot be underestimated either, but must remain equally speculative. Additional counterfactuals would come into play.

Let us assume – for the sake of argument – that the bombings were morally wrong and blameworthy. It seems then obvious that given Oppenheimer’s known contribution to the project, this taints him in some way – despite Truman’s insistence that he might overplay his role significantly (“You think anyone in Hiroshima or Nagasaki gives a shit who built the bomb? They care who dropped it. I did. Hiroshima isn’t about you.”). His causal contribution is undeniable and so his character must be tainted by those deaths. However, a mere causal contribution does not suffice for blame as responsibility theorists will readily point out – what about his foreknowledge and intentions?

That will require looking at the story from the beginning rather from the end: The original decision, the intent behind getting involved in the first place, aside from prestige and being flattered to be leading this operation – was to win the war against Germany, as expressed in his own words: “It’s not your people they’re herding into camps! It’s mine!”, as he explains to Ernest Lawrence. Furthermore, several moments in the movie show that Oppenheimer continues to naively assume that he might impact the deployment decision of the bomb in a later stage – a central naivety that might be –a key moral flaw of the movie’s protagonist. In a meeting, in which he senses how pointless his interventions are, he nevertheless insists that there are no suitable military targets in Japan, still being illusory about the idea that the bombs might be dropped on cities. Stunned and disappointed, Groves later makes him aware in a conversation after the Potsdam Conference, where several scientists including Oppenheimer consider the deployment of a bomb somewhere in the countryside merely to deter from further military action or to use it on, how others in contrast see his role: “Robert, we’ve given them an ace. It’s for them to play the hand.”

He has contributed to the development and deployment of these bombs, but not with this intent in mind, and he had limited control, albeit trying to exert so that the bombs are not used. Does this absolve him? Perhaps, while this is the one most often evoked, that is not real question that the movie wants us to explore. It might be rather this: Is his response – the remorse and guilt that he feels – fitting? This fittingness is not completely determined by his responsibility. Moral regret might be genuine, yet unfounded and it might be absent, yet actually morally expected. It is this intertwinement of the question of responsibility with the question about the fittingness of his moral sentiments that makes this movie ethically interesting and the biographic portrayal captivating.