Question

Once upon a time, I was thinking about the argument for the justification of mass civilian killing that is read off a sense of collective responsibility in "evil nations," and wondered:

If it is justifiable for a pilot to kill civilians because those civilians bear sufficient collective responsibility for the evil actions of their military, then are those civilians themselves not justified in trying to survive air raids? If adult civilians try to save their children during an air raid, is this wrong? Were firefighters in Tokyo, for example, unjustified in trying to put out the fires caused by Operation Meetinghouse? Should all these civilians accept being killed as punishment for their "complicity" in their military's actions? Or even if it's not that, yet if killing these civilians is good because it will cause the evil nation to surrender, then in trying to survive, would these civilians be interfering with the good of causing that surrender?
Now, one time (in the Critique of Practical Reason) Kant quotes some Latin poesy:

"Be you a good soldier, a faithful tutor, an uncorrupted umpire also; if you are summoned as a witness in a doubtful and uncertain thing, though Phalaris should command that you should be false, and should dictate perjuries with the bull brought to you, believe it the highest impiety to prefer life to reputation, and for the sake of life, to lose the causes of living."

Suppose, then, that you live in a society in which the amount of mindless slaughter and the infliction of pain is so vast and is coupled with the desolation of the global ecosystem, and follows upon the murder of millions of people in non-aggressor countries, a campaign of enormous crime for which reparations have yet to be offered. (These are probably not the only things wrong with the nation in question.) If the only way for someone to "make a living" in such a country is to be an accomplice to the preceding (not everyone "runs this risk," but many do), then does Kant's proviso kick in? For in the Doctrine of Virtue he asks:

What if you bear some measure of responsibility for the nexus of darkness in your nation at some time? Is that the kind of guilt or at least compromised position that Kant indicates with respect to the counterfactually forsaken king or the rabies-infected peasant? Or, then, something such as makes you like the "collectively guilty" civilians in some other evil realm. I ask this, though, because Kant elsewhere (in the Doctrine of Right) says:

... there can be no penal law that would assign the death penalty to someone in a shipwreck who, in order to save his own life, shoves another, whose life is equally in danger, off a plank on which he had saved himself. For the punishment threatened by the law could not be greater than the loss of his own life.

In other words, here, if the living arrangements and employment opportunities that are available to a resident of an evil state are themselves evil on some other level, yet is being such an employee akin to dealing with a shipwreck, such that one would not be given to condemn oneself to death for said evil, since only by such evil can one survive anyway?

Answer 1

Kant's ethical framework is based on reason and the preservation of civilized life. Killing civilians, even based on collective responsibility, is considered immoral according to Kant. The morality of an action is determined by its adherence to perfect duties, not solely by its consequences or potential gain.

Step-by-step explanation:

Kant's ethical framework is based on the concept of reason and the idea that certain actions are universally considered wrong because they undermine civilized life. Kant describes perfect duties, which are obligations that all individuals have all the time. These duties include not killing, lying, stealing, and breaking promises. The justification for these duties lies in the fact that if everyone were to engage in these actions, it would lead to the collapse of society. Kant also distinguishes between intentions and consequences and emphasizes that the morality of an action is based on the intention behind it, rather than the result. In the context of your question about justifiability of killing civilians, Kant's framework would suggest that killing civilians is ultimately immoral, regardless of the collective responsibility they may bear, because it undermines the fundamental principle of not killing.

Furthermore, Kant differentiates between perfect duties, which are universally obligatory, and imperfect duties, which are more subjective and context-dependent. While it is important to consider the circumstances and potential harm caused by actions, Kant argues that the morality of an action cannot be solely based on its consequences or the potential gain. For example, the sunk costs of moral decisions, such as evaluating the cost of war over time, should not solely determine the justification of the action. Instead, the morality of an action should be determined by its adherence to the principles of reason and the preservation of civilized life.

In conclusion, Kant's ethical framework emphasizes the importance of reason and the preservation of civilized life. Killing civilians, even based on a sense of collective responsibility, would be considered immoral according to Kant's principles. The morality of an action is determined by its adherence to perfect duties, not solely by its consequences or the potential gain. Evaluating the justifiability of moral decisions requires considering the underlying principles and the overall impact on society.