Abstract
In this paper I will pursue an interesting if frightening isomorphism between Aristotelian and Marxian paradigms of deception. The former is intrapersonal: a self-deceived agent devises strategies to prevent himself from knowing either a principle or a consequence of some action that would make it immoral to perform that action.1 The latter paradigm is interpersonal: a political deceiver is one who tries to prevent others from knowing either the principles or consequences of his own actions. Physicist Ray Kidder of Livermore Labs, who resigned their Star Wars project, says of this latter case that ‘the public is getting swindled by one side that has access to classified information and can say whatever it wants..., whereas [skeptics]... would go to jail [because of Reagan’s ‘gag rule’ on research].’2 A political decision structure can be designed to preclude public discussion of the projectible consequences of particular programs or policies. Paradoxically, then, as outsiders we must devise independent means to discover these consequences in order even to raise this question of deception, and thereby to address the issue of culpability in the case of ‘accidental’ war.3 Luckily, such independent means exist, in the accidental war studies conducted by mostly former military personnel who preceded the governmental gag rule on military research.
This is a technical version of my December 1987 paper, ‘Preventing Accidental Nuclear War,’ at the joint meeting of International Philosophers for the Prevention of Nuclear Omnicide (IPPNO) and the Concerned Philosophers for Peace, at the Eastern Division meeting of the American Philosophical Association. I am grateful to Douglas Lackey for feedback on an earlier version. Lackey’s own ‘Taking Risk Seriously’, Journal of Philosophy, 83 (Nov. 1987): 633–40, was read too late to facilitate parts of my ‘culpability’ thesis.
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Notes
Alfred Mele, Irrationality (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), chapters 8 and 9.
Quoted by Flora Lewis, New York Times, December 3, 1985.
I say ‘accidental’ rather than ‘unintended’ since, at least on the analysis of personal culpability to be endorsed, it is nonparadoxical to claim that an agent can intend to achieve the conditions which he knows (or, if negligent, ought to know) might result in an accident.
John Steinbruner, The Cybernetic Theory of Decision: New Dimensions of Political Analysis (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974). His more recent ‘Launch under Attack,’ Scientific American 250 (January 1984): 37–47, might be read also as a relevant instance of the cybernetic theory, but will be modified as culpability requirements dictate. For a definitive statement of the amorality of the cybernetic or systems view, see the opening remark in Richard Ned Lebow’s ‘Loss of Control’ in Nuclear Crisis Management: A Dangerous Illusion (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987): ‘I describe several different ways in which [loss of strategic control] could lead to unintended nuclear war between the superpowers. I describe the likely cause of each of these paths to war and show the extent to which they are structural attributes of the superpowers’ alert and response systems. A high level of risk is, I shall show, inherent in strategic force generation’ (p. 75). Nowhere has Lebow identified the question of responsibility for such risks.
Paul Bracken, The Command and Control of Nuclear Forces (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), pp. 65–66. See also his ‘Accidental Nuclear War,’ in G. Allison, A. Carnesale, and J. Nye, eds., Hawks, Doves, and Owls (New York: Norton, 1985).
See H. Friedlander and S. Milton, The Holocaust: Ideology, Bureaucracy and Genocide (Millwood, NJ: Kraus International, 1980)
Fred Weinstein, The Dynamics of Nazism: Leadership, Ideology, and the Holocaust (New York: Academic Press, 1984).
Daniel Ford, The Button (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985); excerpted in The New Yorker, April 1 and 8, 1985.
D.W. Kindschi, Lt. Col. (NORAD), Aerospace Command Center, USAF, Public Relations Department. Letter to Gary Houser, 1983.
See Frank Greve, ‘Top Advisors Were in Dark on SDI Plan,’ Charlotte Observer, November 17, 1985.
See Kurt Gottfried and Richard N. LeBow, ‘Anti-Satellite Weapons: Weighing the Risks,’ in F.A. Long, D. Hamer, and J. Boutwell, eds., Weapons in Space (New York: Norton, 1986).
Robert Aldridge, Dean Babst, and Linn Sennott, eds., The Nuclear Time Bomb: Assessing Accidental Nuclear War Dangers through the Use of Analytical Models (Dundas, Ontario: Peace Research Institute, 1986).
See also Clifford Johnson, Dean Babst, Robert Aldridge, and David Krieger, ‘Computer-in-Chief,’ Global Security Study No. 2, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (Santa Barbara, CA).
Brian Crissey, Michael Wallace, and Linn Sennott, ‘Accidental Nuclear War: A Risk Assessment,’ Journal of Peace Research, 23 (1986): 9–27.
Bernard Bereanu, ‘Self-Activation of the World Nuclear Weapons System,’ Journal of Peace Research, 20 (1983): 49–57.
See also Alan Borning, ‘Computer System Reliability and Nuclear War,’ in Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery, February 1987; and Barbara Marsh, ‘The Probability of Accidental Nuclear War: A Graphical Model of the Ballistic Early Warning System,’ unpublished M.S. thesis (Monterey, CA: Naval Postgraduate School, 1985).
David Morrison, letter from Lt. Col. Charles Wood, Acting Director of Public Affairs, Headquarters Space Command (NORAD), as reported in The Accidental Nuclear War Prevention Newsletter 1, 3 (September 1985). Available from Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, 1187 Coast Village Rd., Suite 123, Santa Barbara, CA 93108.
Personal correspondence, January 1986.
William Arkin and Peter Pringle, ‘C3I: Command Post for Armageddon,’ The Nation 236 (April 9, 1983): 434–438.
See also Morris Bradley, ‘Psychological Processes That Make Accidental Nuclear War More Probable,’ Technical Report No. 8, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (see note 14, above).
At APA convention (see note * above).
From Crissey, chapter 2 of The Nuclear Time Bomb (Dundas, Ontario: Peace Research Institute, 1986).
Alexei Aleksandrov, interview in the Christian Science Monitor, June 3, 1982.
See Newsweek, March 31, 1986, p. 65. See Kenneth Adelman, ‘Proposed Intermediate Missile Accord Doesn’t Do Everything,’ in San Diego Union, July 5, 1987.
Carl Sagan and colleagues update these data on inverse proportionality in Lester Grinspoon, ed., The Long Darkness: Moral and Psychological Analyses of Nuclear Winter (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986).
See also Z. Kripke, ‘The Health Effects of Underground Nuclear Testing,’ San Diego PSR Newsletter, August 1986.
‘Culpable Ignorance of Interference Effects,’ in D. MacLean, ed., Values at Risk (Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Allenheld, 1986), pp. 132–152.
‘Consistency in Rationalist Moral Systems,’ The Journal of Philosophy, 81 (June 1984): 291–309.
Quoted in David Rosenberg, ‘A Smoking Radiating Ruin at the End of Two Hours: Documents on American Plans for Nuclear War with the Soviet Union, 1954–55,’ International Security, Winter 1981.
I discuss the logic of such cases in ‘Moral Dilemmas, Deliberation, and Choice,’ The Journal of Philosophy, 82 (March 1985), esp. note 15 and Section II.
Model Penal Code and Commentaries (Official Draft and Revised Comments) (Philadelphia, PA: America Law Institute, 1985), § 2.02, p. 226.
Earlier versions of the Crissey et al. studies (see notes 11–13, above) used the phrase ‘unintentional nuclear war,’ a title now amended to ‘accidental.’ Thus, with regard to the case at hand, it would be self-contradictory to say that one directly intends an unintentional war, but only paradoxical to say that one intends a strategy whose actual (probabilistic) effect is, legally, an ‘unreasonable risk,’ viz. of ANW. One may be held accountable for knowing that consequential entailment, even if one were ‘actually’ ignorant of it. On the relation of this point to Aristotle’s theory of action, see Alfred Mele (note 1, above).
Los Angeles Times, May 8, 1984. This episode is where my earlier study, ‘The Representation and Resoluton of the Nuclear Conflict’ (Philosophy and Social Criticism, 10 [Winter 1984]) concluded, and essentially where the present study resumes.
New York Times, September 21, 1986, p. A1. If anyone is a real student of these media misrepresentations, I can furnish quotations from three months of New York Times microfilms on this Craxi incident.
Robert Aldridge, ‘Background Paper on the Probability of a United States Launch-on-Warning Policy for Strategic Land-Based Missiles’ (Santa Clara, CA: Pacific Life Research Center, May 1986).
In reply to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request from David Morrison of the Center for Defense Information, as reported in the Accidental War Prevention Newsletter 1,3 (September 1985), p. 4. See note 14. See also Bill Moyers, ‘The Constitution vs. 1987? Problems with the National Security State’ (interviews with Bruce Blair and constitutional lawyer Edwin B. Firmage; seventh of PBS series, ‘In Search of the Constitution,’ 1987); and Clifford Johnson, ‘The Constitution vs. the Arms Race,’ Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility Newsletter (Spring 1987). The latter describes Johnson’s lawsuit against Weinberger et al. over the DoD’s unconstitutional usurpation of presidential authority for having a launch-on-waming capability; the suit has so far been dismissed as ‘merely political’ by a federal district judge. The case is also recounted by Edward Lempinen, Student Lawyer, May 1987.
Aldridge (note 30, above), p. 18.
Aldridge, p. 17.
Quoted by James Ridgeway, Village Voice, July 1, 1986, p. 46.
Strategic Command and Control: Redefining the Nuclear Threat (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1985), p. 235.
‘Command out of Control? Working Profile: Bruce Blair,’ Nuclear Times (May/June 1985), p. 235. In the report itself, Blair also notes that LOW is an official option, programmed into the war-fighting Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP). See Our Nation’s Nuclear Warning System: Will It Work If We Need It?, transcript of House hearings (September 26, 1985).
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Aldridge (note 30, above), p. 8.
‘Call to Mutiny,’ in E. P. Thompson and Dan Smith, eds., Protest and Survive (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1981), p. xvii.
Unless, of course, the missile launching officers have been sensitized to the angst of pushing the button. Colonel Mal Wakin averred in a public debate with Richard Wasserstrom (‘War, Morality, and Public Nuclear Policy,’ University of Dayton, October 1983) that by teaching ethics to those officers the military would be humanized.
See LeMay’s recent claim that civilian control of atomic bombs ‘hampered’ the effectiveness of SAC at its inception; see also his claim that he did have secret access and is ‘saying that [he] could have started the [sic] war’ in the early 1950s — i.e., before the present command-and-control structure began to authorize a DoD origin to the ‘Permissive Action Links’ (PALS). The source is International Security (Spring 1988), and is quoted in ‘Nuclear Attack Reportedly Would Have Taken Week,’ San Diego Union, March 24, 1988 (A24).
‘A Rational Approach to Nuclear Disarmament,’ in James Sterba, ed., The Ethics of War and Nuclear Deterrence (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1985).
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Anderson, L.V. (1989). Cybernetics, Culpability, and Risk: Automatic Launch and Accidental War. In: Durbin, P.T. (eds) Philosophy of Technology. Philosophy and Technology, vol 6. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2303-4_1
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