This worksheet focuses on a pamphlet entry by G.E.M.

Anscombe, Mr Truman’s Degree. In it she defends her

objection to American president, Harry Truman, receiving an
honorary degree from Oxford University. It is a complex piece
of work, which delves into many different issues in ethics and
politics.

In the worksheet below, you will find quotations from the text
and questions about the quotations. They focus on key
claims in the paper and certain arguments given. Students
are encouraged to read the original article which is somewhat
conversational in tone and quite different to a standard
philosophy paper. As such, it is good context for the
questions posed below, and for considering different kinds of
philosophical writing.

In 1939, on the outbreak of war, the President of the United

States asked for assurances from the belligerent nations that
civil populations would not be attacked.
In 1945, when the Japanese enemy was known by him to
have made two attempts toward a negotiated peace* [* See
Appendix.], the President of the United States gave the order
for dropping an atom bomb on a Japanese city; three days
later a second bomb, of a different type, was dropped on
another city. No ultimatum was delivered before the second
bomb was dropped.
Set side by side, these events provide enough of a contrast
to provoke enquiry. Evidently development has take place;
one would like to see its course plotted. It is not, I think,
difficult to give an intelligible account:—
(1) The British Government gave President Roosevelt the
required assurance, with a reservation which meant “If the
Germans do it we shall do it too.” You don’t promise to
abide by the Queensbury Rules even if your opponent
abandons them.
(2) The only condition for ending the war was announced
to be unconditional surrender. Apart from the “liberation
of the subject peoples,” the objectives were vague in
character. Now the demand for unconditional surrender
was mixed up with a determination to make no peace with
Hitler’s government. In view of the character of Hitler’s
regime that attitude was very intelligible. Nevertheless
some people have doubts about it now. It is suggested
that defeat of itself would have resulted in the rapid
discredit and downfall of that government. On this I can
form no strong opinion. The important question to my
mind is whether the intention of making no peace with
Hitler’s government necessarily entailed the objective of
unconditional surrender. If, as may not be impossible, we
could have formulated a pretty definite objective, a rough
outline of the terms which we were willing to make with
Germany, while at the same time indicating that we would
not make terms with Hitler’s government, then the
question of the wisdom of this latter demand seems to me
a minor one; but if not, then that settles it. It was the
insistence on unconditional surrender that was the root of
all evil. The connection between such a demand and the
need to use the most ferocious methods of warfare will be
obvious. And in itself the proposal of an unlimited
objective in war is stupid and barbarous.
(3) The Germans did a good deal of indiscriminate
bombing in this country. It is impossible for an
uninformed person to know how much, in its first
beginnings, was due to indifference on the part of pilots
to using their loads only on military targets, and how
much to actual policy on the part of those who sent them.
Nor do I know what we were doing at the same time. But
certainly anyone would have been stupid who had
thought in 1939 that there would not be such bombing,
developing into definite raids on cities.
(4) For some time before war broke out, and more
intensely afterwards, there was propaganda in this country
on the subject of the “indivisibility” of modern war. The
civilian population, we were told, is really as much
combatant as the fighting forces. The military strength of
a nation includes its whole economic and social strength.
Therefore the distinction between the people engaged in
prosecuting the war and the population at large is unreal.
There is no such thing as a non-participator; you cannot
buy a postage stamp or any taxed article, or grow a
potato or cook a meal, without contributing to the “war
effort.” War indeed is a “ghastly evil,” but once it has
broken out no one can “contract out” of it. “Wrong”
indeed must be being done if war is waged, but you
cannot help being involved in it. There was a doctrine of
“collective responsibility” with a lugubriously elevated
moral tone about it. The upshot was that it was senseless
to draw any line between legitimate and illegitimate
objects of attack.—Thus the court chaplains of
democracy. I am not sure how children and the aged
fitted into this story: probably they cheered the soldiers
and munitions workers up.
(5) The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour and there was
war between America and Japan. Some American
(Republican) historians now claim that the acknowledged
fact that the American Government knew an attack was
impending some hours before it occurred, but did not
alert the people in local command, can only be explained
by a purpose of arousing the passions of American
people. However that may be, those passions were
suitably aroused and the war was entered on with the
same vague and hence limitless objectives; and once
more unconditional surrender was the only condition on
which the war was going to end.
(6) Then came the great change: we adopted the system
of “area bombing” as oppose to “target bombing.” This
differed from even big raids on cities, such as had
previously taken place in the course of the war, by being
far more extensive and devastating and much less
random; the whole of a city area would be systematically
plotted out and dotted with bombs. “Attila was a Sissy,”
as the Chicago Tribune headed an article on this
subject.
(7) In 1945, at the Postdam conference in July, Stalin
informed the American and British statesmen that he
had received two requests from the Japanese to act as a
mediator with a view to ending the war. He had
refused. The Allies agreed on the “general principle”—
marvellous phrase!—of using the new type of weapon
that the Americans now possessed. The Japanese were
given a chance in the form of the Potsdam Declaration,
calling for unconditional surrender in face of
overwhelming force soon to be arrayed against them.
The historian of the Survey of International Affairs
considers that this phrase was rendered meaningless by
the statement of a series of terms; but of these the ones
incorporating the Allies’ demands were mostly of so
vague and sweeping a nature as to be rather a
declaration of what unconditional surrender would be
like than to constitute conditions. It seems to be
generally agreed that the Japanese were desperate
enough to have accepted the Declaration but for their
loyalty to their Emperor: the “terms” would certainly
have permitted the Allies to get rid of him if they
chose. The Japanese refused the Declaration. In
consequence, the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki. The decision to use them on people was
Mr. Truman’s.

For Discussion:

— In giving her view of the events leading up to the bombing of Japan,

Anscombe makes a number of interesting points. Do you think it is right to
think of the civilian population as necessarily part of the war effort? And if
so, what culpability do you think the civilian population has for the actions
and consequences of war?

— On the basis of what she says above, why do you think she focuses on
unconditional surrender as so devastating in its consequences during and
after the war?
General quotations and discussion points.

I have long been puzzled by the common cant about

President Truman’s courage in making this decision. Of
course, I know that you can be cowardly without having
reason to think you are in danger. But how can you be
courageous? Light has come to me lately: the term is an
acknowledgement of the truth. Mr. Truman was brave
because, and only because, what he did was so bad.
But I think the judgement unsound. Given the right
circumstances (e.g. that no one whose opinion matters
will disapprove), a quite mediocre person can do
spectacularly wicked things without thereby becoming
impressive.

— Here Anscombe makes two points that courage shouldn’t always be

linked to doing good; and, that it doesn’t take a great person to do
something ‘spectacularly wicked, but that you don’t become impressive
just by doing something spectacular. Do you agree?

“But the people fighting are probably just conscripts! In

that case they are just as innocent as anyone else.”
“Innocent” here is not a term referring to personal
responsibility at all. It means rather “not harming.” But
the people fighting are “harming,” so they can be
attacked; but if they surrender they become in this sense
innocent and so may not be maltreated or killed. Nor is
there round for trying them on a criminal charge; not,
indeed, because a man has no personal responsibility for
fighting, but because they were not the subjects of the
state whose prisoners they are.

There is an argument which I know from experience it is

necessary to forestall at this point, though I think it is
visibly captious. It is this: on my theory, would it not
follow that a soldier can only be killed when he is
actually attacking? Then, e.g., it would be impossible to
attack a sleeping camp. The answer is that “what
someone is doing” can refer to what he is doing at the
moment or to his rôle in a situation. A soldier under
arms is “harming” in the latter sense even if he is
asleep. But it is true that the enemy should not be
attacked more ferociously than is necessary to put them
hors de combat.

— She says that in the context of war, ‘innocent’ means ‘not harming’.
Do you agree? And what other meanings of innocent are there, and how
do they relate to innocence during war.

The state is not fighting the criminal who is condemned

to death. That is why the death penalty is not
indispensable. People keep on discussing whether the
point of it is deterrence or vengeance; it is neither. Not
deterrence, because nobody has proved anything about
that, and people think what they think in accordance
with their prejudices. And not vengeance, because that’s
nobody’s business. Confusion arises on this subject
because the state is said, and correctly said, to punish
the criminal, and “punishment” suggests “vengeance.”

— Here, Anscombe offers a very quick overview of the death penalty —

possible arguments for it and why it is problematic. The treatment is
quick; however, do you agree with both her assessment of the
motivations for the death penalty, and her dismissal of them?

Protests by people who have not power are a waste of

time.

— Do you think this is true? Think, conversely, if protests are ever useful,
should the protester already be powerful?
Bibliography

Anscombe G.E.M, (1981) Mr Truman’s Degree in The Collected

Philosophical Papers of G. E. M. Anscombe, vol. III, Ethics, Religion
and Politics. Blackwell, Oxford.

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