Nuclear Deterrents: Intention and Scandal

Extract

It is difficult to persuade people to reflect seriously about moral questions concerning war. Most people who turn to the subject of war are primarily interested not in the choice between moral and immoral acts but in the search for ‘a practicable defence policy.’ Such people— especially if they are Christians—may occasionally recognise that the possession of nuclear weapons is what moral theologians call a proximate occasion of sin but they often feel that they are faced by a dilemma.

I believe that the extent of the duty to avoid the occasions of unlawful warfare is very commonly underestimated. Nevertheless one is bound to recognise that many Christians consider—in view of the magnitude of the Soviet threat to our natural and Christian liberties— that the case against nuclear deterrents of all types remains non-proven.

This dilemma disappears once it is shewn that, in a position in which we are bound to be tempted, there is a whole family of acts and omissions which are gravely sinful not after the manner of an occasion— namely, on condition that there is an alternative which is not equally an occasion of sin—but in an absolute manner. This has already been substantially demonstrated. In England, the most convenient presentations of the arguments are: E. I. Watkin’s article ‘Unjustifiable War’ in Morals and Missiles, edited by Charles S. Thompson; Nuclear Weapons and Christian Conscience, edited by Walter Stein, and Father Anthony Kenny’s article ‘Counterforce and Counter-Value’ in the Clergy Review for December 1962.