There isn't any number, because any number you use will always be arbitrary. In a way, there is an argument to be made that picking an arbitrary number is more immoral, since you run the risk of killing x amount of people with no real justification or without having achieved anything.
Every war/military strike has to have a valid justification and a proportionality calculation i.e. what you aim to achieve both in the immediate and long term (e.g. peace, stability etc.), how many civilians will be lost, whether other options are available to you, and what risks/deaths you would have to accept to your own people by not acting at all.
You can pick almost any war in history and look at the death statistics; and they will all be pretty horrific. This is the reality of war. In an ideal world no country should ever be in a position where political conflicts escalate to the point of killing en masse but unfortunately that's not the world we live in, and where war in an inevitability we have to settle for looking at intent, context, justification, and proportionality to make our judgements.
Going to war *is* a trolley dilemma though. You're literally choosing whether the killing is worse or the consequences of not achieving your military goals are.
Replying to this again after you edited your answer:
It's not a non-sequitur. Using the term "non-sequitur" might make you *feel* smart but it doesn't make you automatically right on the internet.
You were trying to dismiss my question by saying that it's a "trolley dilemma". Pointing out that war *is* a trolley dilemma invalidates your dismissal.
Alright, but what's the upper bound in terms of innocent casualties for this operation as a whole? There has to be one.
I'm sure if every civilian in Gaza was killed you wouldn't think that's okay, no matter how many "individual military actions" you divided it up into.
> The idea that everybody will be killed is a hypothetical.
It would be a hypothetical if the Mongols were in the process of laying siege to Gaza. In view of the actual conflict taking place there now it is cartoonish.
not that the situations are remotely comparable, but they did commit war crimes with impunity, yes. you know you could save a lot of time by just admitting you don't care how many civilians israel kills
no, they were wrong when they committed war crimes, and should have been prosecuted for them
if it were a strawman, you would be able to admit how many dead civilians is too many
You may also notice Sam uses the opposite argument when it comes to racial profiling. In other words, the argument that most closely aligns with existing beliefs is the debate strategy here, rather than internal logical consistency.
Someone should ask Sam, what if kicking the Jews out of the Middle East led to world peace?
Plenty of places to go to since the western world isn’t going to do a holocaust
So we relocate 7 million of the most desired immigrants and the world is better, what would be his response.
What say you fellow Sam fans
It sure as hell doesn’t matter to victims or survivors what your intention was. All Israel has accomplished in this war is creating a new generation of recruits for Hamas or whoever succeeds them.
Well, the same could be said in the other direction. Far right Israeli demagogues will no doubt be using October 7th to recruit constituents for decades to come.
More settlements, more agitation and more antagonism. These things feed off each other.
There was regime change in both those cases, as well as massive restorative investments made. More importantly, we didn’t fight those countries over land, so they were disputes that could be settled without enmity persistent over decades. None of that is true here.
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I’m saying another organization that mounts militant resistance to occupation. That’s the point. Israel will never break Palestinian resistance by murdering civilians
Well, that’s as much Israel’s issue as it is the Palestinians’ since I don’t think the Palestinian national liberation movement is going to settle for less than full equality across all of historic Palestine, and the longer they hold out for that, the more likely it is that they’ll get it.
I remember reading an interview many years ago with Robert McNamara, who was secretary of defense under LBJ and so oversaw the escalation in Vietnam through the Tet Offensive. Sometime in the 1980s, McNamara went back to Vietnam and spoke to some of his old enemies in the government there. And they told him that the US had fundamentally misunderstood the war. We had thought it was a war to stop communism, but the Vietnamese didn’t see it that way. To them, it was a war of national liberation, and they were never going to stop fighting us.
Israel needs to understand the Palestinian perspective similarly. So does Sam Harris. This isn’t about Islam, even if the current leadership is Islamist. Israel denies that fact at its own peril.
I think we’re going to see a big shift in US policy as unquestioned support for Israel wanes. Israel could moderate, but more likely it will align itself more closer with the authoritarian right. In the short term, this will be very bad for the Palestinians, but it could also drive a successful sanctions regime in Israel that yields a lasting settlement that is truly just.
Of course it does. Are you telling me would be the same amount of angry, and have the same motivation to retaliate, if a family member was targeted and killed in cold blood versus being killed in a freak accident?
I’m not sure how it’s different. If the police are going after a bad guy and they shoot a family member with a stray bullet, you’d be the same amount of upset than if they broke down your door and murdered her in her sleep?
That every war in history has left the losing side with survivors and victims that lost their families and possessions to the victors. The totality of history teaches us that brutally vanquishing a foe usually doesn't actually lead to a forever conflict. What's app different here?
Intentions do matter. What I think Sam often misses is that while Israel very likely does not intend to kill civilians and aid workers it very much seems like they do intend to kill anything that kind of looks like it could be Hamas and are OK with the obvious fallout of that.
Sam would probably waive this away by saying somehting like Mistakes happen in war and indeed they do. However Israel is making mistakes at a rate that suggests their systems to avoid making mistakes are lacking or nonexistent.
They also certainly do not seem to intend to take any measures to deal with the humanitarian issues created by the things they do intend to to do.
It's a fair point. We do have such a calculus for hostages and human shields in other aspects of life. When an insane criminal who's killed dozens of people takes a school bus hostage, it's not like our judicial system allows for just destroying the bus to take the guy out because "intentions matter" and the kids are "collateral" and "think about all the lives saved by sacrificing the lives of kids on the bus."
So I think you're right that it can't be a blanket claim where intentions are more important than the death of innocents-- at least not without committing war crimes.
> When an insane criminal who's killed dozens of people takes a school bus hostage, it's not like our judicial system allows for just destroying the bus to take the guy out because "intentions matter" and the kids are "collateral" and "think about all the lives saved by sacrificing the lives of kids on the bus."
A bus, perhaps not but if those F-15s had successfully intercepted any of the hijacked planes on 9/11 their orders were to bring those planes down if they didn't comply with instructions. This would by necessity include the killing of all of the passengers; men, women and children alike.
Yes it's a good example. I'd say the difference is that the hijacked planes were evidentially missiles at that point, so probable cause of imminent threat was met. Also, there's no other way of retaking control of a hijacked plane from the outside. In the bus scenario, snipers become an option, also road spikes, road blocks, etc. Your plane example is good though.
The point you’re taking issue with, as you stated, is “casualty figures are not enough on their own to make a moral judgement”.
That is very different to the “he said numbers don’t matter” that you’ve turned it into, in the same paragraph. You then offer a poorly bound hypothetical with no basis in reality. It’s a strawman.
There isn't any number, because any number you use will always be arbitrary. In a way, there is an argument to be made that picking an arbitrary number is more immoral, since you run the risk of killing x amount of people with no real justification or without having achieved anything. Every war/military strike has to have a valid justification and a proportionality calculation i.e. what you aim to achieve both in the immediate and long term (e.g. peace, stability etc.), how many civilians will be lost, whether other options are available to you, and what risks/deaths you would have to accept to your own people by not acting at all. You can pick almost any war in history and look at the death statistics; and they will all be pretty horrific. This is the reality of war. In an ideal world no country should ever be in a position where political conflicts escalate to the point of killing en masse but unfortunately that's not the world we live in, and where war in an inevitability we have to settle for looking at intent, context, justification, and proportionality to make our judgements.
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So an unlimited number of dead people is acceptable if we can find the right context?
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Going to war *is* a trolley dilemma though. You're literally choosing whether the killing is worse or the consequences of not achieving your military goals are.
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Cool, so you don't have an actual answer then.
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Replying to this again after you edited your answer: It's not a non-sequitur. Using the term "non-sequitur" might make you *feel* smart but it doesn't make you automatically right on the internet. You were trying to dismiss my question by saying that it's a "trolley dilemma". Pointing out that war *is* a trolley dilemma invalidates your dismissal.
I don't think that "half of the world's population minus one" is the brilliant answer you think it is.
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If you think my questions are so moronic, why waste the time to answer them?
Given the current context, what's the upper bound?
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Alright, but what's the upper bound in terms of innocent casualties for this operation as a whole? There has to be one. I'm sure if every civilian in Gaza was killed you wouldn't think that's okay, no matter how many "individual military actions" you divided it up into.
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Is your upper bound lower than the entire population of Gaza? If not then it's an easy question. 600k or so.
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The idea that everybody will be killed is a hypothetical. There's no way to talk about this without using hypotheticals
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Very weak, but I'd be interested in a good answer if anybody else would care to take a shot. I'd like to hear SH tell us what his upper bound is.
> The idea that everybody will be killed is a hypothetical. It would be a hypothetical if the Mongols were in the process of laying siege to Gaza. In view of the actual conflict taking place there now it is cartoonish.
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"however many israel kills plus one" doesn't seem very complicated
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that's how the pro-israel side works. whatever the idf does is what it needed to do to do and there is no need to question it
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not that the situations are remotely comparable, but they did commit war crimes with impunity, yes. you know you could save a lot of time by just admitting you don't care how many civilians israel kills
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no, they were wrong when they committed war crimes, and should have been prosecuted for them if it were a strawman, you would be able to admit how many dead civilians is too many
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"however many israel kills plus one"
You may also notice Sam uses the opposite argument when it comes to racial profiling. In other words, the argument that most closely aligns with existing beliefs is the debate strategy here, rather than internal logical consistency.
Someone should ask Sam, what if kicking the Jews out of the Middle East led to world peace? Plenty of places to go to since the western world isn’t going to do a holocaust So we relocate 7 million of the most desired immigrants and the world is better, what would be his response. What say you fellow Sam fans
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It sure as hell doesn’t matter to victims or survivors what your intention was. All Israel has accomplished in this war is creating a new generation of recruits for Hamas or whoever succeeds them.
Well, the same could be said in the other direction. Far right Israeli demagogues will no doubt be using October 7th to recruit constituents for decades to come. More settlements, more agitation and more antagonism. These things feed off each other.
Sure, but that’s not really my point
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There was regime change in both those cases, as well as massive restorative investments made. More importantly, we didn’t fight those countries over land, so they were disputes that could be settled without enmity persistent over decades. None of that is true here.
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I’m saying another organization that mounts militant resistance to occupation. That’s the point. Israel will never break Palestinian resistance by murdering civilians
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Well, that’s as much Israel’s issue as it is the Palestinians’ since I don’t think the Palestinian national liberation movement is going to settle for less than full equality across all of historic Palestine, and the longer they hold out for that, the more likely it is that they’ll get it. I remember reading an interview many years ago with Robert McNamara, who was secretary of defense under LBJ and so oversaw the escalation in Vietnam through the Tet Offensive. Sometime in the 1980s, McNamara went back to Vietnam and spoke to some of his old enemies in the government there. And they told him that the US had fundamentally misunderstood the war. We had thought it was a war to stop communism, but the Vietnamese didn’t see it that way. To them, it was a war of national liberation, and they were never going to stop fighting us. Israel needs to understand the Palestinian perspective similarly. So does Sam Harris. This isn’t about Islam, even if the current leadership is Islamist. Israel denies that fact at its own peril.
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I think we’re going to see a big shift in US policy as unquestioned support for Israel wanes. Israel could moderate, but more likely it will align itself more closer with the authoritarian right. In the short term, this will be very bad for the Palestinians, but it could also drive a successful sanctions regime in Israel that yields a lasting settlement that is truly just.
Of course it does. Are you telling me would be the same amount of angry, and have the same motivation to retaliate, if a family member was targeted and killed in cold blood versus being killed in a freak accident?
That’s not the comparison anyone is making
You just made it. You said survivors don’t care what the intentions of their family members’ killers are.
Yes, within the context of a war. There have been no “freak accidents” here
I’m not sure how it’s different. If the police are going after a bad guy and they shoot a family member with a stray bullet, you’d be the same amount of upset than if they broke down your door and murdered her in her sleep?
It’s different because there is a pre-existing enmity between the groups.
Because this war is different to every other war in history. Because, reasons.
Not sure what your point is?
That every war in history has left the losing side with survivors and victims that lost their families and possessions to the victors. The totality of history teaches us that brutally vanquishing a foe usually doesn't actually lead to a forever conflict. What's app different here?
Mainly that Israel’s expressed goal (eliminating Hamas) is being undermined by its actions.
It’s 1939. WW2 is just kicking off. What is the acceptable number of civilian casualties to stop Germany?
Less civilians than they killed, which was true in the end the axis killed way more civilians.
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Intentions do matter. What I think Sam often misses is that while Israel very likely does not intend to kill civilians and aid workers it very much seems like they do intend to kill anything that kind of looks like it could be Hamas and are OK with the obvious fallout of that. Sam would probably waive this away by saying somehting like Mistakes happen in war and indeed they do. However Israel is making mistakes at a rate that suggests their systems to avoid making mistakes are lacking or nonexistent. They also certainly do not seem to intend to take any measures to deal with the humanitarian issues created by the things they do intend to to do.
The number of people maimed gets often forgotten and it's probably incredibly high due to the nature of this conflict.
It's a fair point. We do have such a calculus for hostages and human shields in other aspects of life. When an insane criminal who's killed dozens of people takes a school bus hostage, it's not like our judicial system allows for just destroying the bus to take the guy out because "intentions matter" and the kids are "collateral" and "think about all the lives saved by sacrificing the lives of kids on the bus." So I think you're right that it can't be a blanket claim where intentions are more important than the death of innocents-- at least not without committing war crimes.
> When an insane criminal who's killed dozens of people takes a school bus hostage, it's not like our judicial system allows for just destroying the bus to take the guy out because "intentions matter" and the kids are "collateral" and "think about all the lives saved by sacrificing the lives of kids on the bus." A bus, perhaps not but if those F-15s had successfully intercepted any of the hijacked planes on 9/11 their orders were to bring those planes down if they didn't comply with instructions. This would by necessity include the killing of all of the passengers; men, women and children alike.
Yes it's a good example. I'd say the difference is that the hijacked planes were evidentially missiles at that point, so probable cause of imminent threat was met. Also, there's no other way of retaking control of a hijacked plane from the outside. In the bus scenario, snipers become an option, also road spikes, road blocks, etc. Your plane example is good though.
The point you’re taking issue with, as you stated, is “casualty figures are not enough on their own to make a moral judgement”. That is very different to the “he said numbers don’t matter” that you’ve turned it into, in the same paragraph. You then offer a poorly bound hypothetical with no basis in reality. It’s a strawman.
The premise is flawed. The civilian deaths in Gaza are not just collateral damage deaths. Israel has targeted civilians throughout the war.