"The Greater Good": Part II

How do you convince a soldier to fire on a village in which there is a real possibility women and children are living? How do you convince a police officer, and FBI or CIA agent to commit an act that--under ordinary circumstances--would be clearly both illegal and immoral? How do you convince a fighter or a bomber pilot to use his guns, missiles or bombs on territory that may house hundreds, even thousands of civilians? The greater good. The outstanding example of this moral equation, of course, is the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Nagasaki during the war with Japan. From President Truman down the chain of command to the airman who would ultimately push the button releasing the bomb, some moral justification for using a weapon whose devastating power to kill had already been dramatically illustrated only days before must have been present. The greater good. It is not my purpose here to debate whether in fact a greater good was served by using the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, rather it is to demonstrate the power of this rationale, and to ask this question: What happens when this rationale is used so often that we effectively lose sight of our morality?