In civilian deaths, do "the numbers speak for themselves"?
Is there a difference between the deaths that the Israeli army is causing in Gaza and those Palestinians inflict on Israeli civilians with suicide bombers and missiles aimed at population centers? Commentators who say that there is -- and there are many -- rely on a philosophical concept known as "double effect," whether they realize it or not.
Palestinian civilians may be dying, but that is not the intent of the Israeli army, which aims its missiles and ground assaults at combatants. The civilian casualties are a secondary, regrettable outcome (a second "effect") resulting from 1) accident or 2) the fact that Palestinian combatants live among civilians. If the Israelis could kill Hamas militants without killing civilians, they would; conversely, Hamas's primary aim is to kill civilians, which is what makes them terrorists.
It's a widely invoked distinction in both philosophy and state policy. But some philosophers reject it-- meaning that they view the deaths caused by Israel's actions as just as intentional as those caused by a suicide bomber. David Velleman, a philosopher at NYU, made a version of this argument in an email message posted at Crooked Timber.
The Israelis could easily foresee that many civilians would die as a result of their invasion of Gaza: "They have accepted those Palestinian deaths as a cost of pursuing their ends, and hence as part of a 'package deal,' all of which is intentional on their part."
Likewise, the conservative British columnist Peter Hitchens wrote, of the supposed difference between "directly deliberate" and "accidental but unavoidable" attacks: " I wouldn’t say that was a specially important distinction, especially if you are a victim."
But is it true, as Rashid Khalidi, a professor at Columbia, has put it, that "the numbers speak for themselves" -- that the Israelis have killed more people, so their actions are worse?
Defenders of "double effect"-style arguments warn of the consequences of abandoning the doctrine. There are two possible outcomes if a state rejected the standard distinction between intentional and foreseeable-but-unintentional killing of civilians, according to Chris Bertram, a professor of Social and Political Philosophy at the University of Bristol. (He makes the case in the comments section of Unspeak.) One, Bertram writes, would be pacifism: It would be impossible to strike back at an enemy whose soldiers and military equipment stood near civilians, without killing some; to get credit for protecting civilians a state would have to forswear war.
But far more likely, if the world began to see no difference between firebombing whole cities and more narrow attacks (with unavoidable civilian casualties), states would firebomb whenever they felt it would help their military efforts.
Note that philosophical debate does not map precisely onto opinions about the current war: Defenders of the double-effect principle are themselves divided: Some, including Bertram, still think Israel's leaders have been insufficiently protective of civilians, that Israel and its supporters have deformed the doctrine into an all-purpose excuse for whatever military endeavor they prefer. Others find Israel's response to the rocket attacks from Gaza entirely justified -- and just.
