Comments on ‘Moral Clarity in the Nuclear Age’

I read with keen interest Michael Novak’s essay, “Moral Clarity in the Nuclear Age” [April 1]. Unfortunately, I found it very seriously flawed in its moral analysis of deterrence.

Novak properly reaffirms the key principles of the just-war doctrine, among them the principle demanding that the means used in waging war must themselves be just. One can never rightly resist an aggressor or rightly protect human goods by choosing a means that is immoral. And it is absolutely immoral to choose to kill innocent persons, innocent in the technical sense that they are noncombatants.

WM

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William E. May

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I read with keen interest Michael Novak’s essay, “Moral Clarity in the Nuclear Age” [April 1]. Unfortunately, I found it very seriously flawed in its moral analysis of deterrence.

Novak properly reaffirms the key principles of the just-war doctrine, among them the principle demanding that the means used in waging war must themselves be just. One can never rightly resist an aggressor or rightly protect human goods by choosing a means that is immoral. And it is absolutely immoral to choose to kill innocent persons, innocent in the technical sense that they are noncombatants.