Hezbollah Murders 56 Lebanese, Including 34 Children

When the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing over 200,000 people, those people were murdered by imperial Japan. Likewise, when Israel bombs a Hezbollah-infested village in Lebanon, killing 56 people, those people are murdered by Hezbollah. In circumstances such as these, there is a difference between the killer and the murderer. The murderer is the aggressor—the agent who initiates force and thus necessitates retaliatory force on the part of the victim. The victim, in retaliating, may kill people in the process, but all such deaths are the responsibility of the aggressor.

He who necessitates the use of retaliatory force is morally responsible for the consequences of that force. So says the law of causality.

Let's keep our concepts in order—and the blame where it belongs.

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Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Destroyed_balustrade_in_bombed_Beirut_house_July_20_2006.jpg

About Craig Biddle

Craig is cofounder and editor of The Objective Standard, cofounder and director of education at Objective Standard Institute, and executive director of Prometheus Foundation. He is the author of Loving Life: The Morality of Self-Interest and the Facts that Support It; Rational Egoism: The Morality for Human Flourishing; and the forthcoming Moral Truths Your Parents, Preachers, and Teachers Don’t Want You to Know. He is currently working on his fourth book, “Thinking in Principles.”

View all articles by Craig Biddle →