Rothbard on Nuclear Weapons
The bombing of three nuclear sites in Iran by the United States makes more salient than usual a vital issue. What is an appropriate libertarian policy for libertarians regarding these weapons? Is it all right for nations to possess them? If they do possess them, is it all right to threaten to use them or even to use them?
In seeking guidance on these issues, we should consult the work of our greatest libertarian theorist, who was thoroughly familiar with the just war tradition and also had a vast knowledge of contemporary events. I refer of course, to Murray Rothbard, and in today’s article, I’m going to discuss a part of his epochal essay “Two Just Wars” that deals with the issues I’ve mentioned.
Murray first discusses a point that would derail his whole analysis if it was accepted. Some people, such as the CIA agent William F. Buckley Jr., argue that killing millions of people isn’t morally worse than killing one person. Thus, if you argue that nuclear weapons kill people indiscriminately, it doesn’t matter. That of course is a terrible argument. Even if its premise that killing millions of people isn’t morally worse than killing one person is accepted—which of course it shouldn’t be—it wouldn’t follow that it is morally no worse to kill noncombatants than combatants. And nuclear weapons can’t discriminate between these two groups. But Murray takes the argument on his own terms and pulverizes the premise: “William Buckley and other conservatives have propounded the curious moral doctrine that it is no worse to kill millions than it is to kill one man. The man who does either is, to be sure, a murderer; but surely it makes a huge difference how many people he kills. We may see this by phrasing the problem thus: after a man has already killed one person, does it make any difference whether he stops killing now or goes on a further rampage and kills many dozen more people? Obviously, it does.”
For Murray, whether a weapon can discriminate between combatants and noncombatants is the key issue in assessing the morality of using the weapon. He explains this point here: “It has often been maintained, and especially by conservative
Article from LewRockwell
LewRockwell.com is a libertarian website that publishes articles, essays, and blog posts advocating for minimal government, free markets, and individual liberty. The site was founded by Lew Rockwell, an American libertarian political commentator, activist, and former congressional staffer. The website often features content that is critical of mainstream politics, state intervention, and foreign policy, among other topics. It is a platform frequently used to disseminate Austrian economics, a school of economic thought that is popular among some libertarians.
