Edward Feser at X:
Unbelievably reckless and immoral. As the Catholic philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe warned, the demand for unconditional surrender is a recipe for increasing rather than decreasing the tenacity of an enemy’s resistance, which will in turn tempt us to deploy ever more barbaric methods of warfare yielding ever higher numbers of civilian casualties. This was what led to the abominations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. People say “If we hadn’t done that, the invasion of Japan would have been a bloodbath.” But that presupposes that an invasion aimed at securing unconditional surrender was necessary and justifiable in the first place, which it was not. That an enemy nation has done wrong does not entail a right to demand that it put itself totally under our control . . . .
Feser, drawing upon Anscombe, is making an important point. If the adversary in an armed conflict acquiesces in the demand for unconditional surrender, the adversary not only surrenders but does so in such a way as to permit the enemy to do whatever it wants to the subjugated entity, including slaughtering the latter’s entire population. This is a purely conceptual point that merely unpacks the meaning of ‘unconditional surrender.’ Call it P1.
But the leaders of no entity on the losing side of an armed conflict, least of all the Islamist entity, will agree to that, assuming that they are sane and not suicidal. Call this point P2. And so the likely, but not inevitable, effect of the demand for unconditional surrender will be to increase the tenacity of the losing entity’s resistance in almost every conceivable case. Call this proposition P3. So far, so good. Feser is on solid ground, and I agree.
But there is no necessity that the party making the demand for unconditional surrender will go on to commit atrocities to enforce compliance with the demand for unconditional surrender. In fact, the U.S. demand for U.S. — pun intended — might well be a blustery move, a feint, on Trump’s part as one might expect from such a macher who is also notoriously sloppy in his use of words. The man is a crafty transactional pragmatist who scorns the typical political and diplomatic protocols and who likes outsmarting and out-psyching his enemies.
So why is the demand for unconditional surrender immoral? How does one validly move from the conjunction of P1 and P2 and P3 to the conclusion that the demand for unconditional surrender is immoral, as Feser claims it is?
Am I missing something? (I wouldn’t put it past myself.)
Bill,
Yes, P3 does not necessarily follow P1 and P2, for, as you argue, “there is no necessity that the party making the demand for unconditional surrender will go on to commit atrocities to enforce compliance with the demand for unconditional surrender.” And you are right that in that Trump’s demand for the unconditional surrender of the Iranian terrorists might well be a “blustery move, a feint,” designed to distract or disorient the latter, making their acceptance of what are most likely his real conditions—the transfer of enriched uranium, the termination of ballistic missile production, and the installation on a more moderate regime, theocratic or not—more likely.
More fundamentally, the moral acceptability of the demand for unconditional surrender is contingent on the nature of the enemy of which it is demanded. Specifically, certain regimes are (1) intrinsically aggressive, relying on warfare and other forms of mass slaughter as normal means to advance their interests, and/or (2) actually or potentially genocidal. No rational person doubts the applicability of both of these descriptors to Nazi regime, whose eastern European wars (1) in alone resulted in the deaths of between 30-40 million people and whose (2) genocidal policies exterminated another 13 million, either through mass murders or starvation. Fewer, unfortunately, understand that they apply also to Japan from 1931 to 1945, whose brutal military regime left between 19-30 million dead in East and South East Asia, due to warfare, war crimes, and famine (1 certainly and arguably 2 as in the cases of 2.7 million Chinese killed in “kill all, burn all, loot all” tactics and the 580,000 killed in biological experiments). In these cases, the demand for unconditional surrender was a necessary means to achieve lasting peace and security, since it allowed for the eradication of the persons and state apparatuses responsible for these monstrous evils: the Nazi party and state in Germany and the military dictatorship in Japan. In this way, many if not all of the guilty were punished and, most importantly, both nations were demilitarized and democratized, which removed the danger that they would once again pursue wars of aggression or genocide. Allowing partial surrender would not have guaranteed that this end. One can argue, in fact, that the unconditional demand in these and similar cases is not an unlimited one but rather one aimed at the elimination of particular evils. As such, it fulfilled the jus post bellum criterion by rebuilding more just societies and ensuring lasting security and peace.
Now, are not (1) and (2) appropriate descriptors of the regime in Iran? Has it not over the last 47 years pursued a policy of (1) war and violence, either directly or through its funded and armed proxies? Has it not sought for decades to develop a nuclear weapon, which, if obtained, has the potential to eradicate (2) the small state of Israel and much of it population and to kill millions of the citizens of other nations, in the Near East and Europe, including our troops? Would not the unconditional surrender of such a regime, which would removed these standing threats, be judged as something good?
Vito
Bill,
Here is another case to consider, one that does not involve a regime that was intrinsically aggressive or genocidal, that of the Confederacy of February 1861 to May 1865. And yet, the nonnegotiable conditions offered by Lincoln for the termination of the Civil War—the end of succession, the surrender and disbanding of the Confederate armies, and the end of slavery (acceptance of the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment) were, while not so termed, those of unconditional surrender. Lincoln required the complete submission of the seceding states before any discussion of reconstruction. This demand of a de facto unconditional surrender by the president certainly ensured the continuation of a war in which many thousands more would die (between 16 and 24 thousand killed or mortally wounded from late 1864 until May 1865), but it must be judged moral, since it ensured the end of slavery in the United States for all time, even at the cost of what some would term “atrocities.” This example reveals that sometimes the ends for which a nation fights are so manifestly moral that the demand for unconditional surrender is morally justified.
Vito
Vito,
Thanks for both comments. As for the second, two points.
First, as I said earlier, a lot rides on what exactly is meant by ‘unconditional surrender.’ You list three nonnegotiable conditions imposed by Lincoln for a cessation of hostilities. But Lincoln did not demand that the South pay reparations to the North. (Correct me if I’m wrong.) So does ‘unconditional surrender’ mean that the surrendering side must satisfy specific demands (such as the three you mentioned) or does it mean that the surrendering side must acquiesce in every demand of the winning side? Also, you suggest a distinction between de facto and de jure unconditional surrender. What’s the difference?
Second, your reasoning smacks of ‘consequentialism.’
a) Lincoln’s demand for U. S. “certainly insured” that many more would die.
b) Many more did die as a result of Lincoln’s demand.
c) The outcome (the end of slavery in the USA for all time) was a great good.
Therefore
d) Lincoln’s demand “must be judged moral,” i.e., morally permissible/acceptable/justifiable, and this despite atrocities and the horrendous suffering of the combatants.
This reasoning is correct only in the presence of an auxiliary premise:
P) The moral permissibility (impermissibility) of a course of action depends solely on the consequences of the course of action: if the consequences are good (bad), then the course of action is permissible (impermissible). So, contra deontologists (nonconsequentialists) such as Immanuel Kant, one and the same act-type can be morally acceptable (unacceptable) depending on circumstances and consequences. That is, no act-type is right or wrong always and everywhere and in every possible situation just in virtue of being the act-type or course of action it is.
Applying this to the relevantly different case of nuking the Jap cities, Truman’s order was justifiable by consequentialist reasoning, contra Anscombe and Feser. So it all comes down to the acceptability (unacceptability) of the auxiliary premise, P. I say “relevantly different” because the Jap cities because those cities were most inhabited by noncombatants. If anyone complains about my use of ‘Jap,’ that is what our fathers and grandfathers who fought in WWII called them.
Bill,
I am using the term “de facto” to mean “actually” or “in reality,” in that while Lincoln did not employ the phrase “unconditional surrender,” his three demands amount to essentially the same thing. You are right: Lincoln did not ask for reparations, and his approach to reconstruction, as evidenced in his Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction of December 1863 and his last public address of April 11, 1865, he was conciliatory and practical. But whatever notions the president had on this matter, they were not included in the surrender demands that he presented to the South, which had to accept the destruction of its central and state governments, the disbandment of its armies, and, most importantly, the end of slavery, which was central to its mode of production, social system, and ruling ideology–to its whole way of life. Except for the leniency toward most but not all Confederate officials, these terms mirror those that were imposed on both the Nazis and Japanese militarists. Thus, it is fair to say that the Civil War ended in a unconditional surrender.
Yes, I accept the idea that “one and the same act-type can be morally acceptable (unacceptable) depending on circumstances and consequences.” And I do so because of all innumerable historical situations in which this is the case.
Vito
Vito,
You write, >>I accept the idea that “one and the same act-type can be morally acceptable (unacceptable) depending on circumstances and consequences.” And I do so because of all innumerable historical situations in which this is the case.<<
Do you see that you are begging the question? The question is whether P above is true. You are maintaining in effect that it is true because it is true. In the case of the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, you are saying that these actions, which involved the intentional killing, i.e., murder, of innocent noncombatants (babies being born, old people on their death beds, monks in their monasteries, farmers growing food for private consumption way out in the country, et al.) were morally justified because of the axiologically positive outcome, namely the ending of the war. So in this case the good end justifies the murderous means.
I am not saying you are wrong; I am saying that you are begging the question. More later.
Bill,
Yes, I do see that what I wrote begs the question.
As for P, I repeat what I said in my first comment: Yes, P3 does not necessarily follow P1 and P2, for, as you argue, “there is no necessity that the party making the demand for unconditional surrender will go on to commit atrocities to enforce compliance with the demand for unconditional surrender.”
I also think that there are problems with P2. I accept the claim that “the demand for unconditional surrender will be to increase the tenacity of the losing entity’s resistance in almost every conceivable case.” However, I can accept it as an accurate description of the probability of an enemy entity’s action and still reject it as a policy prescription, for in cases where something good, such as long-term peace and security–would result from the unconditional surrender of a particularly evil adversary, the the demand is reasonable and justified.
Vito
This comment of Feser: “That an enemy nation has done wrong does not entail a right to demand that it put itself totally under our control . . . ” is a typical piece of detached philosophical thinking. Iran is terrorizing its population, its neighbours and many other countries since 1979. The opaque “done wrong”, while being a formally valid description of Iran’s destructive policies, completely disregards what exactly the murderous mullahs of Iran did and in doing so erases the memory of many thousands of innocent lives lost. Including American lives!
Trump tried to talk sense — for too long for some — to the suicidal hate driven maniacs that milk the Iranian people’s wealth and invest most of the revenues on financing terror groups, building nuclear weapons and missiles.
One can argue that “moral behaviour” of Carter and his successors allowed the preceding bloodshed and what Trump is doing should have been done in 1979 saving 47 years of the bloody Islamic terror rule and their ruthless fight for Islamic dominance in the region and beyond.
Hi Bill
My response above clearly was not a response to the question you asked.
But I wonder — not in a contrarian way — why this particular quasi-logical puzzle of how one gets from P1&P2&P3 to C1=”demand for unconditional surrender is immoral” is of epistemic or moral value to you. It is not a logical puzzle for the Ps are too vague and C1 is clearly context dependent like you say in response to Vito and in the discussion in the post.
My present question, which you don’t have to answer of course, is motivated by the logically irrelevant to your original post considerations in the response I provided earlier.
Dmitri,
Your March 9th comment above belongs in the Justifiable Pre-emption? thread, here:
https://maverickphilosopher.blog/index.php/2026/03/01/justifiable-pre-emption/#comments
Did you read through those comments? Ben and Vito made some excellent points.
There are three questions that concern me above.
Q1: What EXACTLY is meant by ‘unconditional surrender’?
Q2: Is Feser (who follows Anscombe) right in his claim that the demand for unconditional surrender is immoral? He might be right, but I don’t see that he has given a sound argument for his conclusion. The Lincoln argument based on remarks by Vito — the argument (P1 & P2 & P3 –> C — is invalid. Not that Vito gave that argument.
Q3 More fundamentally, in thinking about these life and death issues should we take a consequentialist approach or a deontological approach? Are there certain courses of action, such as the intentional slaughter of noncombatants, that are intrinsically wrong — wrong regardless of circumstances and consequences — i.e., wrong always and everywhere and in every possible world? Anscombe and Feser answer in the affirmative. Can you refute them?
Fiat iustitia et pereat mundus? Yes or no? See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_iustitia,_et_pereat_mundus
Hi Bill
I have read the thread on Justifiable pre-emption only now. You are right that my March 9 comment here belongs there. Quality comments from Ben and Vito!
As to Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus — I am in the consequentialist camp most of the times. Have humans been gods I’d reconsider. Refuting believers is very difficult and refuting moralizing believers who usually refuse to consider the context or evaluate the actual situation is impossible. Saying Iran is no clear danger to US is a huge telling sign for reasons others explained in that other thread.
I said earlier that Iran is not an imminent threat, but now, having carefully considered the remarks of negotiator Witkoff (from NewsMax and Fox reports), I issue a retraction. No time to go into details.
>>I am in the consequentialist camp most of the times.< < So you waffle back and forth? Either you are a consequentialist or you are not. I think what you mean to say is that you are consequentialist.
'Realpolitik' needs defining. I wonder what Vito would say. Realpolitik includes consequentialism, I'd say. So Vito, are you a Realpolitiker?
Here is the Witkoff interview: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2026/03/11/witkoff_iran_told_us_youre_not_going_to_get_from_us_diplomatically_what_you_could_not_achieve_militarily.html
Bill,
I understand Realpolitik as the practice of foreign policy based chiefly on pragmatic, implicitly rational, evaluations of national interest, power, and concrete circumstances, rather than ideological or moral considerations. It does not exclude ideology and morality as influencers of policy, but it assigns then a subordinate role that impact policy only when they align with the essential, practical interests of nations.
Am I a “Realpolitiker”? If by the question you mean do I think that Realpolitik is an accurate description of the way in which nations conduct their relations with each other, I would say “not entirely,” since I believe that history demonstrates too many instances in which world views, including highly irrational ones; moral principles; and internal political struggles shaped these relations, often as much as or at the expense of practical or material interests. In saying this, I do not deny that such interests and, as importantly, immediate circumstances, rather than abstract moral principles, are often the main drivers of foreign policy, for indeed they are, and I do not see a way in which it could be otherwise.
Vito
I am a reluctant consequentialist. And yes Witkoff’s interview provides an even clearer view explaining why Iran is a direct and imminent threat.
It seems you put full trust in the comments of Witkoff, so much so as to change a position you once held. Let us hope he is honest and credible in his comments.
Vito,
I suppose the quid juris-quid facti distinction applies here. I take you to be saying that, in answer to the question of fact, yes, the world operates according to real-political principles.
But I was asking whether you think it ought to. You could reply by saying that the historian qua historian is concerned with what is the case, or rather was the case, not with what ought to be the case, or ought to have been the case. So, with respect to the Allied firebombing of Dresden, e.g., the historian confines himself to questions about what actually happened and maybe also with the truth or falsity of certain counterfactual conditionals (e.g, if the firebombing had not occurred, the fall of the Third Reich would not have occurred in 1945.) Note that a counterfactual state of affairs, though in one clear sense not factual (it did not actually occur), is not therefore normative, but remains factual in a wider sense of the term.
Accordingly, the historian qua historian cannot say, e.g., that Truman’s ordering of the A-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was morally wrong. But the historian is also a human being, a free agent subject to moral laws, and he cannot fail to operate according to some moral code or other. If our historian is a consequentialist, the puzzle is how he could arrive at this moral system from mere facts.
Bill,
My problem arises from the fact that I am not at all sure that “ought” is applicable to the actions of states. By this I mean, that the term implies that the absolute moral obligations that one might apply to individuals apply equally to collective entities, which are aggregates of the wills of thousands of individual actors, statesmen and bureaucrats, all imbedded in political and legal institutions, national governments, instituted to secure the safety and well-being of a much larger number of citizens. They operate in a dangerous, competitive, often anarchic world, one where each nation strives for power and survival. This world is not that of most civil societies, in which the norms of law and custom normally ensure peaceful intercourse, thus permitting the space for the exercise of individual moral decision-making according to deontological principles. Nations that naively attempted to follow such principles in the international arena would inevitably ensure their self-destruction, hence risking the welfare and lives of their citizens. This does not mean that the foreign policies of states can never align with such principles, but they will only when doing so does not imperil their primary obligations.
I realize that this position is philosophically messy, since it is consequentialist with regard to nations and essentially deontological with regard to individuals. I would prefer that I could choose between the two, but I cannot. And I take my inability to do so not simply because of my evident lack of philosophic sophistication but, more fundamentally, as a reflection of our shared ignorance in these big moral questions. It seems that this lack of knowledge, which is tied up with the problem of evil, will forever stymie us from arriving at the moral neatness and certainty for which we strive.
Vito
P.S. By “essentially,” I mean that even for individuals perplexing situations exist where the commitment to deontological principles breaks down. I need not cite some classical examples of this, which are evident to you.
Vito