Most of the debate on use of atomic bombs on Japan misses this point. The focus of the debate is always on the bomb, not on the target. In my book A Fighting Chance: The Moral Use of Nuclear Weapons, I apply Just War Doctrine to the use of nuclear weapons. My conclusion: the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were immoral, not because atomic bombs were used, but because they were targeted at cities full of noncombatants.
I once read a memoir by a Japanese submarine officer who had been stationed at a sub base near Hiroshima when the bomb was dropped on that city. He described the bombing from the standpoint of a nearby observer. Rather than attacking the city, the sub base should have been attacked. Yes, there still would have been some damage to the city, but the attack would have satisfied the Just War criterion of Discrimination, that is, attacks should be on the enemy's military forces, not on noncombatants. Whether it would have satisfied the other Just War criterion of Proportion is impossible to determine now, but my guess is, it would have. That is, the damage done to noncombatants (collateral damage, in the current vernacular) must not exceed the good done by the attack on a legitimate target.
Those who point to lives saved by the bombings are, whether they realize it or not, appealing to the Proportion criterion. Yes, the atomic bombs cost many lives, but they saved many more. However, Proportion is trumped by Discrimination. First of all, the attack must be against a legitimate target. Only after Discrimination is satisfied can one even ask about Proportion.
FWIW, I teach Just War Doctrine at Yorktown University.
Also FWIW, my father was stationed at an amphibious training base in California in 1945, and would have been manning a landing craft during the invasion. Yes, I'm glad the war was brought to an end without an invasion. However, I wish the bombs had been used in accordance with Just War Doctrine.
You're saying the killing of the civilians was deliberate, and part of the overall intent to shock the Japanese military / imperial leadership in a unique and unprecedented way.
That part about the submarine officer is interesting. Would the defenders of the bombing have said that the military targets they obliterated in Hiroshima were of significantly greater strategic military value than the submarine base?
The U.S., as I understand it, leafletted the city of Hiroshima (and a dozen or so other cities) saying that the inhabitants should evacuate. Was it ever even physically possible for them to evacuate? And ---this is speculation but --- if they had, would the U.S. still have targeted Hiroshima rather than some other possible target site?
In other words, was it precisely the presence of all those people which helped make Hiroshima a target of choice?
It's also been argued that, anticipating the invasion of the southern island of Kyushu, the Japanese prepared Operation Decision (Ketsu-Go) which envisaged the deployment of over 2 million troops along the coast to repel Allied landings. Do you think using the atomic bomb on these massed troops, causing say 2x the amount of (military)troop deaths on Kyushu, than the number of civilian deaths at Hiroshima, would have been justified?
To answer it myself: I think so.
Do we know what the actual target was? We know where the bombs hit, but where were they 'aimed'.
I put quotes on aimed because our bombing accuracy at that point in time was extremely low.
Do you think there is some way to tell what a person intends by analyzing their actions and choices? Or can intent simply be a person's verbal description --- one of may possible descriptions --- of what he was doing, and why?
I actually tried to digest G.E.M. Anscomb's book "Intention" to get to the bottom of this, but it didn't help. I could not grasp what she was getting at. (I'm not, generally, deficient in reading comprehension, but I was definitely stupid in relation to Anscombe's book!) Could you recommend some relatively straightforward reading on this?