Nuclear weapons

REPHRASED: Is it moral for states to possess them?

• State: a coalition or political authority given a defined territory

A few points-

Pro:

• Possession prevents both conventional and nonconventional warfare as no state would even risk a first strike given MAD theory
• India/Pakistan example (deterrence in South East Asia despite all the makings of a nuke conflict)
• Implementation (AKA denuclearization) would be nearly impossible

Con:

• Risk = Magnitude x Probability, when the inevitable outcome of a nuclear strike will be extinction i.e. magnitude is infinity, no matter how small the probability, risk will still be infinity and thus we should not possess nukes
• Accidental strikes
• Nuclear winter

Personally, I'm all for possessing nukes

 

I'm all for it, but there must be someone to be trusted with the operation of these nukes i.e the one who 'hits the button'. They demonstrate a sign of a security cause no one would mess around with someone who has the power to Nuke another. They also strike fear as to when they will be used.

 

Are you afraid that you/your country will be nuked at this very moment?

 

Moral (according to my morals)? No.
Necessary? To an extent.


Just because the pros outweighs the cons does not make it Moral. Morality isn't something you can change to make you feel better about a decision. It's if an action is right or not depending upon the person's perspective.

 

They are need to save lives. IE Hiroshima and Nagashaki (sp?). Basically if we hadn't bombed them both sides would have lost more lives than the actual bomb took. It also keeps other countries in line.

 

But how would you know that more lives would have been lost if nukes hadn't been used i.e. you can never predict what the outcomes of your actions will be... The only thing you can be sure of is if your actions are moral or not. In the case of Hiroshima/Nagasaki, where the lives of those innocents were being used as a means to an end, something like that can never be considered moral.

OT: I'm talking about possession, not use

 

Innocent lives were lost in the bombs. The possible battle would have lost lives that were willing to give their lives up.

 

There's either two options. You're either for or against nuclear weapons.

• If you're for them, one may experience a nuclear war, and those affected by a nuclear winter.
• If you're against them, and they are removed from existence, other ways will be found to destroy at one's wish.

Basically, the prevention of terrorism and other attacks are inevitable. However, I'm against nuclear weapons for the sole fact that it can take away innocent lives.

 

I'm first off doubtful that happens as I live in Canada.. :nuts: But in life, everything happens for a reason.

 

To elaborate on the process of deterrence, Baudrillard writes: "Responsibility, control, censure, self-deterrence always grow more rapidly than the forces or the weapons at our disposal: this is the secret of the social order. Thus the very possibility of paralyzing a whole country by flicking a switch makes it so that the electrical engineers will never use this weapon: the whole myth of the total and revolutionary strike crumbles at the very moment when the means are available - but alas precisely because those means are available. Therein lies the whole process of deterrence."

Deterrence keeps both nuclear and conventional war from occurring; the possession of nuclear weapons by states ensures that there will be no violence between them.

 

I'd probably rather see them entirely disappear, but this isn't possible. So you sort of have to be for them, right? Or is this a hypothetical thread.

 

Solvency isn't a key issue - problems in implementation say nothing about the desirability of the two worlds being compared (one with and one without nukes). We're just debating about if they should or shouldn't be possessed.

EDIT: I see where you're coming from though... 90% of policy lies in implementation and if it's impossible to reach one point you wouldn't pick that point to go to...

 

States as in each individual state of the US?

Depending on the question, I believe that it is now a necessity for superpowers to posses nuclear weapons, ever since the arms race. However, the U.S. alone possesses enough nuclear weapons to blow the world up several times over, so continuing production of nuclear weapons in my opinion is pointless (nuclear research, however is not)

Each individual state of the U.S. obviously should not posses their own nuclear weapons. Thats too much power for one person in public office rather than the President to posses.

 

Sorry, I probably should have defined it in the first post...

State: a coalition or political authority given a defined territory

 

I have no problems with nukes. If nukes weren't the top weapon then something else just as dangerous will come along to replace it so it makes no difference.

Also am glad the U.S. has enough of these for defense incase the need ever arises.

 

We are having a debate on this in World history Class, About Pakistan + India.

It's going pretty good

 

You will agree that no nation that possesses nukes will not be attacked by any other nation because they fear a reciprocal nuke strike, right? This process of deterrence (just through their mere existence) is synonymous to fear - and controlling the actions of others by fear can never be moral.

 

Lol... don't try to design a math problem about life, doesn't really work.

Lol'd. Yeah that happens every day right? *shit i pressed the big red button*

OT: Anywho yeah I think for our protection we should keep them because rather be safe than sorry right?... You never know what could come up.

Where the hell was this up in your ass?

Scenario: Guy contemplates robbing a house, but knows he could go to jail or get shot by owner etc. He decides not to by process of 'deterrence' aka 'fear' as you said. This makes laws immoral because it controls people through fear? Moron.

What WOULD be immoral imo is a BRIBE. There's a difference. Give me all your money or we'll blow you up. Big difference.

 

okay, they're bad.

when Eisenhower first rendezvoused with the aliens, one of the points that the aliens made was for all the nations to destroy their nuclear weapons. Of course the people of earth didn't abide because we still have weapons but they basically told the aliens that it would be stupid to destroy their nuclear weapons with such an unclear future(referring to the aliens and now knowing what technology they posses).

I see the nuclear weapons as a form of interplanetary protection.

 

I really hope your jokeing The thing With Nuclear weapons Is that if someone sets one off there will be a domino Effect and will set a chain reaction off Which means another war which will last days becuse of the weapons that a possed now ect .