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Recently the movie American Sniper (haven't actually seen it yet) has been criticized as propaganda, furthermore a discussion on the IRC that lasted all of about 4 sentences before everyone lost interest got me thinking about the topic: can a war be righteous and can it have heroes?

I'm of the opinion that war can absolutely be righteous and because of that righteous nature heroes will emerge. The American Civil War and WWII both were fought for causes other than petty religious or economic reasons: In the Civil War soldiers of the union fought and died to end slavery and keep the US unified and in WWII allied soldiers fought insane dictators trying to take over the world and exterminate "inferior races." Isn't the act of dying to save others to be heroic? To end this I'll quote the bible: "Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends." John 15:13

As for the movie American Sniper, which has 6 Oscar nominations and made $135 million box office It's about the man that the gorilla warfare copypasta is probably based on; a US Navy SEAL who served four tours of duty in Iraq with 160 confirmed kills making him the most lethal sniper in US military history. Bill Maher called it's main character a patriotic psychopath, Seth Rogen compared it to the movie at the end of Inglourious Basterds, (he has since apologized as well as Seth Rogen can) and failed clone of Gabe Newell Michael Moore called snipers cowards not heroes (he then fellates himself and says he tried to save more lives than a sniper ever could by protesting the war).

Treating any major conflict as good versus evil is dire oversimplification.

allied soldiers fought insane dictators trying to take over the world

The Soviet Union killed more Third Reich soldiers and lost more men than all of the other European allied nations combined during World War II. It was also, at the time, led by an insane dictator who pursued iron-fist policies against his own people and who tried to take over the world after the war ended (whether or not that was actually Stalin's goal – and whether or not the Cold War was a righteous conflict – is also a matter of contention, funnily enough).

Also, let's not forget the policy of internment in the US, in which the government sent countless innocent Japanese-Americans to mass prisons. German-Americans and Italian-Americans were mostly left alone, though, for no reason other than the fact that they were better integrated into society and thus were harder for the state to target.

American Sniper

He calls the Iraqis (not just the militant targets, mind you) "damn savages" and states that he "couldn't give a flying fuck" about them. Here's an excerpt from his book:

Was his killing helpful and constructive on a practical level in the end? That's up for debate. But God knows that he didn't mind sounding psychopathic.

@Particle

Also, let’s not forget the policy of internment

Are you comparing this to the holocaust or trying discredit the noble nature of the allies cause by pointing out a wrong? one wrong doesn't mean a person/nation is completely discredited. If you were trying to compare it to the holocaust 120,000 sent to an internment camp doesn't even compare to 11 million slaughtered and also theres the crimes the Japanese committed before and during the war where they raped and murdered hundreds of thousands (deaths could be in the millions) of civilians.

German-Americans and Italian-Americans were mostly left alone, though, for no reason other than the fact that they were better integrated into society and thus were harder for the state to target.

So? That sounds like they were doing as much as possible to pull of a reverse Schindler's list. And it's not just that they left Italians and Germans alone because they were difficult to target, they only interred 1200-1800 of 150,000 Japanese living in Hawaii and "11,507 ethnic Germans": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_German_Americans and 1881 Italians were taken into custody. Also, in 1988 our greatest president signed an act that gave $20,000 in reparations to each surviving internee.

It (The Soviet Union) was also, at the time, led by an insane dictator

Stalin was only on our side because of a common enemy, I never said he was a good guy he was barely an ally. My Grandfather Served in the Aleutians during WWII and got shot down over Siberia, he was taken prisoner by the Russians and fed nothing but raw chicken causing his teeth to fall out. That's not much of an ally. In fact both sides knew they were going to be at each other after WWII, both Patton and Churchill wanted to go to war with the Soviets while they still had their armies ready.

American Sniper

Like I said, I didn't see the film or read the book I just thought it was relevant to the topic. As for whether or not what he did was constructive heres a quote from another sniper from the Vietnam war, he holds the Marine Corps record for confirmed kills: "I can't help thinking about how many people that he may have killed later, how many of my friends, how many Marines. He [messed] up and he deserved to die. That still bothers me."

@Starscream

one wrong

Here's a comprehensive list of wrongs.

Excerpt/example:
"Antony Beevor describes the rape of German women during the occupation of Germany as the "greatest phenomenon of mass rape in history", and has estimated that at least 1.4 million women were raped in East Prussia, Pomerania, and Silesia alone."

he was barely an ally

Without the Soviet Union, the war would have been lost. Period. Once again, the Soviets lost more lives and took more lives from the Nazis during the war than every European allied nation (and the US) combined. If you're going to claim that the USSR was "barely an ally" because they did some unsavory things, then you're basically moving the goalposts. How am I supposed to show that the Allies were flawed if every flawed nation is disqualified from being an Ally?

The Cold War is another matter and not entirely relevant to WW2. What Stalin did afterwards does not change the fact that he was the lynchpin of the Allied forces in Europe.

Furthermore, you simply cannot argue that the purpose of the war was to stop the Holocaust, because the Allies were almost entirely unaware that such a thing was taking place until the war was almost over. The general sentiment in 1939 was that Hitler was an aggressive, greedy leader, not an evil one. In fact, in the years leading up to the war, Western propaganda frequently depicted Hitler as a competent and mostly benevolent person who built Germany back up from the ashes (Mein Kampf was published and widely available by this point, by the way). World War 2 started primarily because of territorial and power-related concerns, not ethical objections.

“I can’t help thinking about how many people that he may have killed later…"

…which is why I pointed out that the author wasn't just addressing enemy combatants, but rather all Iraqis. It's this kind of attitude – that every man, woman, and child in Iraq is a "damn savage" because they're Iraqis – that makes the US so unpopular on the global stage. I don't think that anybody who considers themselves a patriot should be glorifying it.

Good v. Evil only exists in hollywood movies. As much as many people want to believe that the wars their countries fight are righteous and just, the fact of the matter is that every war is righteous and just to the country fighting it. WW2 is brought up quite a bit as a "heroes v. villains", "fight the good fight" type of deal, but that is a very simplistic and naive way to look at it. Every single country that fought in that war, (and every war ever, for that matter) has two things in common: They felt that their cause was right and justified and they were the good guys, and that they all were in actuality fighting for their own, selfish reasons.

If it seems that America, Britain and France (excluding Russia because they apparently don't count even though they, as stated above, were the single most important factor contributing to the allied victory, and were personally, directly responsible for the surrenders of both Germany and Japan) were the "good guys", keep in mind who happened to write the history that makes that claim, a privilege consistently held by the victor of any conflict. If The Axis had won WW2, The Allies would have been the "bad guys".

Not a single war has been black and white.
The thing is; black and white doesn't work in the real world.
Truth,honor. fighting Evil. All that black and white shit exists only in the movies, books, TV series, whatever.
Try black and white in a world of credit cards, punk rock, mastectomies, Watergate, the rise of homegrown Nazism, Anita Bryant, and the terrifying fact that more than half of all serious crimes in the United States are committed by people between the ages of ten and seventeen---and that includes rape, murder, robbery, aggravated assault and burglary."

I think the main conflict in this area of thought comes from the fact that people seem to either think about wars in simple, black-and-white terms or very complex, different-shades-of-grey (or even all the same shade) ones. In my opinion, you simply have to consider both at once in order to get the whole picture.
The problem with that is that for most of human existence it was virtually always the lack of the latter that caused problems, so today it seems ass-backwards to suggest considering issues in that way at all. But now we have people, with this thread so far as a perfect example, wracking their brains and hearts in agony over the question of "were the Allies really the "good guys' in WWII?" that they seem to forget that the Axis powers, and the Nazis specifically, were… well… motherfucking evil bastards, and objectively needed to be stopped for their horrendous human rights violations and extreme ambition of bringing the entire globe under fascist rule. Somebody had to do that job, and expecting any kind of perfection from that opposition is just ridiculous- we're still talking about humans after all.
Oh, and by the way, Stalin was always just on the side of whoever was convenient for him at the moment, and held a treaty with Nazi Germany for years. But the Allies ended up needing them for their manpower.

By whose standard were they evil bastards though? Yours? Mine? What does it matter what we think? What makes the Axis powers objectively evil? I reject the notion that whether the Allies were the "good guys" is beyond question. This isn't a comic book where Batman is the hero and the Joker is the villain. Every country fighting in WW2 had their own justifications and reasons, and to say that because you personally find the actions of one side reprehensible, that automatically makes their opponent morally righteous is not very intellectually honest. The actions of anyone in history should be considered in their own context, rather than ours, to fully understand the nature of their actions.

Do you really believe that the Allies were some shining bastion of morality and justice that could do no wrong? That the Axis were just a bunch of comic book supervillains that punched babies and strangled kittens for fun? Every nation in WW2 had war crimes. Every nation in WW2 had prejudices. Every one of them felt that their cause was just, and that they were the good guys. What makes one of them more right than the others, besides an individual's personal opinions?

It may seem callous or heartless to even suggest for a moment that the Nazis weren't objectively evil or that Hitler wasn't literally Satan, but looking at the big picture, it's not hard to at least understand why he did as he did, and why the Axis fought that war. They aren't in the right, but they aren't necessarily in the wrong either, and pretending that they are just because it offends our sensibilities does a great disservice to the cause of preventing another such tragedy. Refusing to even try to understand the why of it all, in service of perpetuating a black and white, simple and easy "good guy" "bad guy history, is a one way ticket to history repeating itself. If we don't attempt to understand where the players on that stage were coming from, we have no recourse against more people coming from there as well.

EDIT: Cipher_Oblivion above says it better than I do, but I may as well leave this here since I've already typed it out and all.

motherfucking evil bastards, and objectively needed to be stopped for their horrendous human rights violations

My second post in this thread covers this point.

Firstly, the Allied powers were ignorant (willfully, on occasion) of Axis human rights abuses until well into the war. They didn't begin the fight against Germany with the intention to stop the Holocaust because they didn't know that there was such a thing at the start, and by the time that they were aware, the war had reached such an entrenched and irreversible stage that it would likely have played out in a similar way even if the Holocaust hadn't happened.

Secondly, like I pointed out, the Allies had their fair share of human rights violations. Take the Katyn massacre and incidents like it, for instance.

expecting any kind of perfection from that opposition is just ridiculous

To call the mass rapes across Europe "imperfection" would be a serious understatement. What if a vigilante were to hunt down a child-murderer and succeed, but also murder a couple of kittens (for no good reason) himself in the process? Personally, I would be overjoyed that the child-murderer got their just deserts, but I sure as hell wouldn't call the vigilante the "good guy" in the situation, let alone a hero.

This is why I prefer to praise actions, not sides. The liberation of concentration camp prisoners was a truly good deed. Internment and mass rapes were not. Trying to tally each side up in an attempt to justify a black-and-white point of view of something as complex as a world war is lazy thinking.

the Allies ended up needing them for their manpower.

They absolutely did. The Soviet Union was a loose cannon, but it ended up becoming the most vital Ally of the war. Without it, the war would have been lost, the Germans would have enforced global fascist rule, and the Nazis would never have had to answer for the Holocaust.

"Can a war be good vs. evil?"
There's always something among the theoretical numbers or imaginative examples that will allow a "this can happen".

How about this:
Have there been wars in human history that are good vs. evil? What renders a war as "good vs. evil"?

Rhetorical Questions Time:
What constitutes a war?
Is there such a thing as a just war?
What is the value of a human life?
-What constitutes a human life?
Under what circumstances, if any, is human sacrifice necessary?
Under what circumstances, if any, should the opposition be dehumanized?
What pros/cons are there to war?
What constitutes a winner, and what constitutes a loser?

Chpher_Oblivion wrote:

Do you really believe that the Allies were some shining bastion of morality and justice that could do no wrong? That the Axis were just a bunch of comic book supervillains that punched babies and strangled kittens for fun?

Glad that you noticed that I said those things that I didn't say, and conveniently ignored the thing I actually said:
Somebody had to do that job, and expecting any kind of perfection from that opposition is just ridiculous- we’re still talking about humans after all.
(Yes Particle, my language here was weaker than I intended, though I would recommend that you consider how much we actually know for certain about these events based on concrete evidence.)

To use the old cliché, war is hell, and will certainly result in a number of atrocities originating from all sides and directed at all sides, many that are too horrible to even fully fathom. This is not a point of argument.
What is the point of argument is the degree to which moral relativity should be applied. While that line of thinking certainly has many merits and is important to an enlightened worldview, like I said before, it has to be balanced out, or else you'll end up finding yourself saying things like "well, it's just your opinion that Jews aren't the scum of the Earth that need to be destroyed, so you can't call Nazis objectively evil". This is a statement that is technically 100% correct, but belies all the different layers of "truth" that exist in historical interpretation. In fact, I'd call using moral relativity to the absolute maximum very intellectually dishonest, because it results in one acting as if they are capable of considering these issues without opinion/bias, which is quite literally impossible.
Finally, I ask you to ask yourself this question: Who actually started this war? I don't think it's too much of a stretch to suggest that said party holds majority responsibility for whatever ensues, even to some degree the cruel acts committed against them. With all the facts I'm aware of, the answer is pretty obvious- the Nazis not only did so, but they desired war to achieve their ultimate ambition of taking over all of Europe. There is very little subjective interpretation needed here.

Who actually started this war?

This is also a contentious issue. The origins of World War II stretch back to the end of World War I, when the Treaty of Versailles was dictated to the Germans. Had the terms not been as harsh, the German economy would likely not have collapsed, and thus the German people would have been less likely to flock to extremist politics. The Nazis would not have gained power, Hitler would not have become Chancellor, so on and so forth.

Most of this is speculation, of course. We will never know for certain how the world would have turned out had action X or Y been taken. But every effect has a cause, and the question of who streamlined Hitler's route to dictatorship should not be ignored.

I actually didn't put words in your mouth, and I didn't ignore what you said.

the Nazis specifically, were… well… motherfucking evil bastards, and objectively needed to be stopped

What I did was ask you to prove it. It isn't a given that the Nazis were evil. Objective morality doesn't exist. If you want to make an argument that the Axis were the "bad guys" you need to make a case. You can't just state that what the Nazis did was wrong and base your argument around it. Though I do personally agree that the holocaust was wrong, I can't just state that it was and refuse to back it up.

war is hell, and will certainly result in a number of atrocities originating from all sides and directed at all sides, many that are too horrible to even fully fathom.

If you accept that the Allies committed just as many atrocities as the Axis, then why call them heroes? Why act like they are on a pedestal beyond the Axis; That they are somehow morally superior? What makes the Allies the good guys and the Axis the Bad guys?

What is the point of argument is the degree to which moral relativity should be applied.

Moral relativity isn't something we can decide when and where to apply. It is a sad fact of our reality. The fact is that nothing at all is objectively wrong. "Right" and "wrong" are just abstract concepts our monkey brains put together to make sense of our cooperative instincts and inherent empathy. Reality itself, the universe, whatever you want to call it, doesn't give a single flying fuck who does what to whom. The sad truth is that as horrible as the holocaust appears to be to most people, myself included, it was not objectively wrong.

The only standard human behavior of any kind can be held to is human standards, and each human has their own standards, making any individual's standards meaningless to any other human unless they have the power to enforce theirs over the others. What I feel is right and wrong has no inherent value to you or anyone else, and what you feel is right and wrong has no inherent value to me, or anyone else. If you have a case to make for your standards being the correct standards, then fine. Be my guest. Present your case. If what you say is convincing, I may well agree, as may everyone else. But you cannot take for granted that your standards are the correct ones without backing it up with a compelling argument.

it has to be balanced out, or else you’ll end up finding yourself saying things like “well, it’s just your opinion that Jews aren’t the scum of the Earth that need to be destroyed, so you can’t call Nazis objectively evil”

It is just your opinion that the Jews aren't evil and it is true that the Nazis weren't objectively evil. The fact that it is an opinion I happen to share says nothing to it's validity. If you find that fact to be worrying or sad, then good. So do I. But it is a fact that no act, no ideology is objectively evil, because there is no morality inherent to anything in the laws and structure of the universe, or indeed beyond the human mind. The opinion that the Nazis were evil is just that: an opinion, and no amount of disgust at their actions on our part can change that fact. No matter how much we wish the world was an inherently good place where there is a clear, objective right and wrong, a clear, objective black and white, an easy place where there are no tough questions that don't have clear answers, it doesn't change the fact that our reality is a cold, unforgiving place that doesn't give a fuck that people hurt each other, and never seems to give easy answers.

I’d call using moral relativity to the absolute maximum very intellectually dishonest, because it results in one acting as if they are capable of considering these issues without opinion/bias, which is quite literally impossible.

This claim strikes me as very ironic, specifically because that was the entire point of my argument. I never claimed I could divorce myself from my own biases. Indeed I claimed the exact opposite quite vehemently. Nobody is capable of considering an issue subjectively, removing entirely the influence of their own biases. That's why I'm saying that a person's subjective opinion shouldn't be given deference. People's opinions are inherently biased. Your opinion is also biased, as is mine. That we think the holocaust is wrong is in itself a bias, generated by our own, subjective moralities.

There is nothing inherent in existence that makes the holocaust wrong. We can say that it is wrong because it hurt people and hurting people is wrong, but that is also subjective. Even if hurting people were objectively wrong, what about mitigating factors? If it's wrong to kill someone for being Jewish, is it also wrong to kill someone for being a Nazi? Is it wrong to kill someone for breaking into your house? Is it wrong to kill someone for insulting you? Is it wrong to kill someone for wearing a blue shirt? If so, why? If not, why not? What is the difference? These questions may seem silly, but what honestly makes it "right" or "wrong" to kill someone? There are arguments to be made about these things, but nothing can be taken for granted.

Who actually started this war?

Particle hit the nail on the head above, and I'd like to expand on that point a bit. Even granting you that the war was started by Germany (which as mentioned above is not beyond contention), I feel that the why of the situation is a far more relevant issue. If Germany started WW2, it was only because they were fleeced so mercilessly by France after WW1. If France was unfair in their in their demands at Versailles, it was only because they took heavy losses in a war they were dragged into by a labyrinthine web of alliances that led back to a border conflict and assassination between Austria-Hungary and Bosnia. If Gavrilo Princip killed Archduke Ferdinand, it was only because of strained relations between Bosnia and Austria-Hungary. This was only because of earlier conflict, which in turn was also because of even earlier conflict. If we really want to play the blame game i'm sure a savvy enough historian with enough time and resources on their hands could trace it all the way back to the first caveman whacking the second caveman over the head with a rock because the guy gave him a funny look. Who "started it" is largely irrelevant.

What matters is why a particular conflict happened, and what the motivations of the various factions involved were, and in WW2, if you really analyze the motivations of the factions, you'll find that none had such lofty idealistic intentions as "defeat evil" or "fight for truth and justice". They all had their reasons, and the reasons were all largely self serving. None of them were inherently "right" or inherently "wrong". None of them were "good" and none were "evil". They all just pursued their goals, whatever they may have been, and not one of them gave a damn how many people they had to hurt, how much destruction they had to cause, how many civilians they had to carpet bomb, how many of their own countrymen they had to conscript into fighting, or how many of each other's soldiers they had to put six feet under. The only thing any of them cared about was getting what they wanted, and whether or not we, more than half a century later, believe that they were righteous doesn't make a bit of difference.

Dear god man, you've got a straw man factory going on up there! It's pretty easy to "defeat" my "argument" when you conveniently ignore the parts of my reply where I actually made that argument. Especially when I pretty clearly point out that I never even remotely claimed that "the Allies were some shining bastion of morality and justice that could do no wrong", but you proceed to misinterpret that statement as relating to my views on the Nazis instead.

Objective morality doesn’t exist.

Yes it does. But, not in the way that you think. You see, the very existence of morality is dependent upon the human brain (and debatably a very small handful of other higher lifeforms, though certainly nowhere near to the same degree) which is capable of understanding and… now here's the key… interpreting the concepts of "right" and "wrong". Therefore, if even a single person interprets morality as being absolute, or just can fathom the possibility of such an individual, then "objective morality" exists- it's only an idea in the first place. This is why when you say…

Moral relativity isn’t something we can decide when and where to apply.

…I say that you have a grave misunderstanding of what I'm trying to argue, and in addition are blatantly begging the question. Objective and subjective morality both exist, and both can be applied everywhere. In my opinion, both should be applied everywhere to paint the full picture of reality, as, like I said before (but you seemed to miss), there are many "different layers of' 'truth' that exist in historical interpretation", and in reality in general as well. I also never specifically claimed that the Nazis were objectively evil with no room for debate, but rather that they objectively needed to be stopped, which based on the interests of the rest of the world now and today is pretty much true without question, considering that they desired for global fascist rule without human rights as we know them.

Going all the way back to my first post, I started with "people seem to either think about wars in simple, black-and-white terms or very complex, different-shades-of-grey (or even all the same shade) ones. In my opinion, you simply have to consider both at once in order to get the whole picture". Now I'll clarify that:
Missing the latter makes your points ignorant and simple-minded.
Missing the former makes your points functionally useless.
Sitting in front of your computer in a prosperous First World nation (I assume- please correct me if I'm wrong, though it doesn't really change my argument) you have the convenience of saying that "technically there no such thing as good and evil", which, I repeat, is accurate as a single aspect of the whole shebang of reality. But if you ever end up having to come face to face with the horrors of war, you're going to end up having to make certain possibly painfully difficult decisions- all of a sudden, it's going to sound like a very good idea to use those subjective opinions you've got stored up in your head to make concrete moral declarations. Of course, for your sake, I hope that never has to happen.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and about the whole "Treaty of Versailles" thing- yeah, that was some bullshit, and from a broad perspective a lot of blame should be put there. But then again, the Kaiser and his minions did some fucked up shit too that eventually caused that injustice. And if you keep following the chain of cause-and-effect back, eventually we'll just end with "the Big Bang caused all evil", which, once again, is technically true but functionally useless. Though yes, I should have said "who directly caused WWII?"

man, get a load of all these long-ass posts up in here

Can't we all just agree that all wars are evil vs. lesser evil and call it a day? No country has ever gone to war for the greater good; all wars ultimately boil down to fights over money, or power, or resources. The most morally justified a warring country can get if they're defending themselves from invasion.

Yeah, well

And that's also a great way to simply state why the Allies were justified in their desire to take down Germany, even without knowledge of the Holocaust- the Nazis (and Imperial Japan for their side of the globe) wanted to fucking invade everything.

@0.9999…=1

they objectively needed to be stopped… based on the interests of the rest of the world

And in the process of stopping the Axis, the Allies committed an impressive number of acts against the "interests of the world" themselves; I have already pointed out the human rights-related half of this multiple times, and the territorial ambitions of the Nazis were comfortably matched by the overwhelming expansion of the Soviet Union near the end of the war.

EDIT: to address your post directly above mine: I don't disagree that they were justified in going to war, but many of the things that they did during the war were not justifiable.

Missing the former makes your points functionally useless.

Sorry, but what? It sounds like you believe that a black-and-white worldview is necessary in order for action to take place, as if having a shades-of-grey idea of war would leave a soldier paralyzed in thought on the battlefield. Do correct me if I'm misinterpreting what you're saying, because you're making no sense at the moment.

I don't need a black-and-white view of my friends to know that I like them. I don't need to ignore or dismiss the darker parts of their personality; in fact, I'd rather help them confront these problems. Likewise, I am perfectly capable of rejecting a simplistic and white-washed view of the Allies while simultaneously being glad that they won the war. Simply put, I see zero purpose for a black-and-white worldview outside of convenience.

“who directly caused WWII?”

I agree that the line must be drawn somewhere, but in terms of finding this line, IMO significance is more important than directness. In terms of significance, the Treaty stands out like a sore thumb. It was, to put it simply, pretty much the result of all that came before and the cause of all that came after in terms of the World Wars. The Treaty was influenced by Lloyd George, Clemenceau, Wilson etc., and it was responsible for Germany's economic collapse, the rise of Nazism, the rise of Hitler, etc. Hitler also used it as a basis for stirring up popular support and for testing the willingness of the Allies. If we're going to draw the line somewhere, then there is good reason to draw it at the Treaty. For instance, popular revulsion against the Treaty among the German people would likely have resulted in someone similar to Hitler coming to power even if Hitler himself had never existed; people like Hitler were not in short supply, while the Treaty was one-of-a-kind and irreplaceable.

I pretty clearly point out that I never even remotely claimed that “the Allies were some shining bastion of morality and justice that could do no wrong”,

But you did claim, and I quote: "the Nazis specifically, were… well… motherfucking evil bastards, and objectively needed to be stopped", and I responded with "If you want to make an argument that the Axis were the “bad guys” you need to make a case.", something you have still failed to do. No strawman necessary. The claim that one side is objectively evil necessarily includes at the least a tacit declaration that their opponents were in the right, which I don't accept as a given. If you have a case to make for that position, as I said, be my guest. If not, then at least stop claiming that I am misconstruing your point when the only thing I am doing is asking you to back up claims that you have made with evidence.

the very existence of morality is dependent upon the human brain

Exactly my point. Morality is a construct of our subjective minds and is therefore incapable of being objective. Gravity is objective. Electromagnetism is objective. That I am a human being is objective. That I am typing on a keyboard right now is objective. That the Beatles are a good band is subjective. That the colour purple is the best colour is subjective. That pizza tastes good is subjective. The difference between the former and the latter is that things that are objectively true are not up to debate. They are incontrovertible facts of reality. All people regardless of personal opinions and biases must accept those things as true, whether or not they like them.

There is no case to be made that gravity or electromagnetism do not exist. It is a fact that I am typing on a keyboard. My species is not up for debate. Things that are subjectively true have no factual basis in being true. They are only true to whomever happens to agree with them.
The validity of the claim that the Earth is round is in no way dependent on the biases and opinions of any person. The validity of the claim that the Nazis were evil is entirely dependent on the beliefs of the person considering it. There is no objective reason that the Nazis were evil. Any reason a person could come up with to argue that they were would be based on their own biased opinions.

Any moral pronouncement made by any person is only true insofar as it applies to their own opinions. If another person happens to agree, that still doesn't make it objectively true. Even if 99 percent of all people agree with an opinion, it's still an opinion. It still is not objective. Anything that only "exists" in the subjective opinions of a person isn't objective, even it they believe that it is. That their beliefs are objective is in itself a subjective opinion.

I say that you have a grave misunderstanding of what I’m trying to argue, and in addition are blatantly begging the question.

Demonstrate in what way I was begging the question. I was under the impression that when I said

"'Right' and 'wrong' are just abstract concepts our monkey brains put together to make sense of our cooperative instincts and inherent empathy. Reality itself, the universe, whatever you want to call it, doesn’t give a single flying fuck who does what to whom."

I was backing up the claim that moral relativism wasn't exactly optional. In the future, I would appreciate you only calling me out for logical fallacies I actually commit.

there are many “different layers of’ ‘truth’ that exist in historical interpretation”

What, pray tell, are these "layers of truth"? If I understand correctly, and please do correct me if I fail to grasp your point, you are saying that people's subjective views on historical events should be taken seriously. In a way, I do agree, as even people's subjective opinions are an important lens through which to view the events, and can provide vital context to issues. What I can not agree with, however, is that these personal "truths" are in any way an objective account of the righteousness or wrongness of any historical act.

they objectively needed to be stopped

And I'm saying to prove that. I can agree that there is a good case to be made that the Axis subjectively "needed" to be stopped. But there is also an argument to be made that they didn't. Who is to say whether they did or did not "need" to be stopped. Surely from their perspectives, they didn't need to be stopped at all. From their perspectives, the Allies "needed" to be stopped. What makes one camp inherently correct and the other inherently incorrect? And if they weren't inherently correct or incorrect, then what makes it objective that the Axis "needed" to be stopped? That most of the modern world would agree that they did does not, an objective argument, make.

Missing the former makes your points functionally useless.

How so? I don't see what the subjective opinions of people that may or may not be correct have to do with whether or not an army objectively "needed" to be stopped. If you want to have a debate about whether or not we personally, subjectively believe they did, I would be happy to oblige. But this thread, if the title is to be believed, is about whether or not a war is a matter of "good" and "evil", both meant to be*objective* declarations of an entity's rightness or wrongness. And my position is that a war is not, in fact, a matter of objective right and wrong, but of subjective costs and benefits, justifications and objections, actions and consequences, all open to debate and discussion.

Sitting in front of your computer in a prosperous First World nation

Whether or not I live in a first world country is entirely beside the point, and I find it insulting that you would insinuate that my point is somehow invalid just because I don't happen to live in a warzone. It's a low fucking blow, and frankly it's beneath you. For someone so quick to accuse me of logical fallacy on several occasions, you sure didn't hesitate to fire off that ad hominim.

If I faced the horrors of war as you suggest, there's no doubt in my mind that my opinions would be tainted by my own biases and subjectivity. Even so, it doesn't begin to change the fact that as I stated previously, my subjective opinion has nothing to do with reality. The opinions of biased people that have a direct, personal stake in the matter mean nothing to whether or not a country is objectively justified in a war. Do they hold relevant information for and against such an argument? Sure. But do they prove anything about who was right and wrong? In my opinion, no.

who directly caused WWII

Who indeed. There are several compelling arguments to be made for any given party, or any combination of parties being at fault. If we all want to debate that, I'd be happy to chime in on that as well. For the time being, however, it really doesn't matter for this particular discussion who started it, as the question at hand pertains to whether war is about "good" and "evil".

Snickerway Said:

Can’t we all just agree that all wars are evil vs. lesser evil and call it a day?

Evidently not, as much of this debate has centered around the question of whether WW2 was a matter of good vs evil, or a morally gray conflict with no heroes and villains, and a mountain of equally deplorable wrongdoings on both sides.

Alright, I no longer have the time and energy to spit out another brick wall of a post. But I will do some further clarification: It is not only entirely possible, but indeed beneficial, to hold seemingly contradictory worldviews simultaneously, because- to repeat myself for the eleven billionth time- it allows you a better understanding of the whole (mind-numbingly complex) picture with multiple different levels and angles. This includes using both the "black-and-white" and "different-shades-of-grey" goggles to analyze history.. I never said that doing only the former was even remotely a good idea, nor did I use that on the Allies.(Seriously, I get that they fucked up a whole fucking lot- can we just drop that?)
And again, what about the Central Powers in WWI and their atrocities? Is there not a large amount of "significance" to be found there? Hell, I'll even throw in the original Allies for good measure- it's just that I'm wondering what your exact reasoning is for drawing that line.

EDIT: Ah shit, not again.
Look, Cipher, I don't wish for there to be any anger between us. I did not intend to insult or patronize you- trust me, I not only live in such a prosperous nation, but also one of the most prosperous regions of one of the most prosperous states of said region, so what I said about you certainly applies to me as well. It wasn't an ad homenim either, because the statement wasn't designed or intended to refute your argument, but rather to point out that our ability to analyze these issues of war however we want is a luxury that we should both not take for granted. That luxury suddenly becomes extremely difficult to maintain, if not outright vanishes, when we have to make decisions in the so-called "real world" about ugly-ass war, as those decisions would still have to be made in spite of the impossibility of "proving" jack shit. I also never claimed that black-and-white morality should be applied alone- in fact, that was a large part of what I was saying the whole time. The fact is, black-and-white truth doesn't really exist in science either, because of the whole "we could just be brains in jars" thing- there are a certain set of unprovable assumptions that must be made before working in science, or you might as well just shove your thumb up your own ass and call it a life. In my opinion, for historical analysis to be worthwhile, a similar thing must be done by the analyst, though what those assumptions should be is clearly far more nebulous.

I just gotta say that we've clearly reached ad nauseam levels. We're both frustrated by each other's lack of ability to properly address all of our various points. But with such a ridiculously complex academic field, it would take a series of fucking novels to accomplish that. (Which I actually hope to do at some point.)

It is not only entirely possible, but indeed beneficial, to hold seemingly contradictory worldviews simultaneously

I can agree to that. I readily admit that along with my understanding of the objective facts of an issue, I just as strongly hold many subjective opinions of the issue. I also agree that this is important in understanding the whole picture, as the objective facts alone say nothing to the individual motivations of the parties involved. As long as one always takes care to take subjective opinions with a grain of salt, and remembers that absolutes (such as good vs evil) are rarely sufficient to grasp the entire reality of the issue. The problem arises when people (as many do) refuse to accept their own opinions as being subjective, and proclaim that people they disagree with are "evil" and people they agree with are "good".

what about the Central Powers in WWI and their atrocities? Is there not a large amount of “significance” to be found there? Hell, I’ll even throw in the original Allies for good measure- it’s just that I’m wondering what your exact reasoning is for drawing that line.

My claim that every participant in any given war ever fought for their own self serving reasons is one I stand by. I don't think that there is such a thing as a "just war" in the first place, so I have no reason to believe any combatant at any point was entirely in the right or in the wrong. As you said, war is hell, and being the hell that it is, no war has ever been fought with entirely noble intentions, but being that no man is in his own eyes a villain, no war has ever been fought with entirely ignoble intentions either. And to claim either extreme of any combatant is, in my eyes, an insult to the mind-boggling complexity these issues actually hold.

Edit

Just read back through and saw this:

And that’s also a great way to simply state why the Allies were justified in their desire to take down Germany, even without knowledge of the Holocaust- the Nazis (and Imperial Japan for their side of the globe) wanted to fucking invade everything.

I do, for the record, disagree with the notion that the Axis was not just as justified in WW2 as the Allies were. And I find the notion that the Axis wanted to "fucking invade everything" to be a ludicrous oversimplification that doesn't begin to do justice to the overwhelming complexity of the politics leading to that war.

Eddit

our ability to analyze these issues of war however we want is a luxury that we should both not take for granted.

Fair enough.

I just gotta say that we’ve clearly reached ad nauseam levels. We’re both frustrated by each other’s lack of ability to properly address all of our various points. But with such a ridiculously complex academic field, it would take a series of fucking novels to accomplish that.

Indeed. This really is a rather nebulous issue to be easily debated properly with any brevity.

I don’t wish for there to be any anger between us.

Nor do I. I apologize if I come off as overly aggressive. This just happens to be an issue I'm very passionate about. As far as I'm concerned, this has nothing to do with anything else, and I don't take it personally, and likewise hope you don't either.

It's official now: an internet argument has ended with friendliness and civility.

"they fucked up a whole fucking lot". Well… that was pretty much the main point of my original post. So, uh, cool, I guess; I'm glad that we agree here at least.

>mfw I return from a two-hour stroll to find three new walls of text and two opponents apologizing to each other

First of all… Love this thread. Second… I don't want to resuscitate a closed argument… but many of us cheer for the underdog for a reason…

Killing to defend onself usually trumps killing to take something, in terms of subjective morality.
Killing to save someone or even champion an ideal usually trumps killing to assert control.
But, if every killing was simply preventative and heroic like this, of course, no shots would ever be fired ! That is why we always search for initial perpetrators (e.g. Ferdinand, the Versailles treaty, etc.).

Nearly all soldiers that describe war politics say the same thing. They fight to survive, and they fight harder for their brothers: to save the men they know and work with; and then more abstractly, for the people they represent back home. They don't fight for abstract theories. They let generals and politicians decide the right and wrongness of their actions after the fact.

We've all heard statistics that many soldiers in fact, flinch and freeze in combat, because killing fellow humans is psychologically difficult. Intrinsically wrong.

Just look at the Milgram experiment or the Trolley problem. The further you are from the direct cause of another person's death or harm, the less guilt you feel about it. Shooting a gun is harder than firing a missile. Strangling someone is orders of magnitude more difficult than ordering someone you don't know, several chains of command below you, to kill someone else you don't know, who is thwarting your ambitions (and those who you govern alongside with).

This is also why we don't inherently trust politicians or anyone too authoritatively or politically separate from us; why we go through so much effort to choose and elect them, why we hold them to a higher standard than we do ourselves (e.g. clinton), and why we assign watchdogs and command structures to monitor them. They hold the actual power to apply subjective morals on a scale much larger than any one person normally can. With impunity.

If you want to talk about moral relativity from a psychological point of view, everyone, except psychopaths, develop an awareness called the "Theory of mind". We recognize our own separate conciousness and identity, and then the separate, conscious identities of others. This is empathy and it's the basis for all modern civilization, anti-war sentiment, and the "do unto others" maxim of most religions. We feel and think, and recognize that others do the same. We know what we don't want done to us, and on an individual (however biased) level, try not to commit crimes against others, unless we can rationalize it by saying
a) we feel we've been trespassed on, or
b) we feel we can get away with it without harming anyone

This adds up to organized civilization. Humanity's goal is to keep as many people unharmed as possible for our mutual goals and survival (i.e. happy and out of war). How many people you try to keep alive, and more importantly, who you don't spare, is the subjective part (Just your neighbours? Your city? Everyone in your country? Everyone in your ideology? Everyone like-minded to you? Everyone on the planet?)

But from a more natural, primal point of view, as just another organism, there is nothing wrong with murder on any scale. Our primitive selves needed only to survive, eat, find a mate, and reproduce. If that required killing strangers… even threatening relatives, so be it. Watch any animal documentary and you'll see this. This is how we justify war on an individual level.

With all the gloss of modern civilization, all it takes is one hereditary neurochemical imbalance; one psychopath or sociopath, to initiate meaningless harm, and the cycle of eye for an eye begins again. The rationalization comes in and the conflict snowballs. It's unavoidable.

Based on all of this, the act of the holocaust is objectively wrong. It's motivation is objectively wrong (scapegoating a minority as the cause of economic failure rather than challenging an authoritative power). But only some of the participants are guilty. People who were swayed or forced into cooperating for selfish reasons (i.e. to get money and food) are simply human. They are objectively better than those who participated without coercion. Similarly, Allies killing Germans to liberate Jewish survivors (however factually inaccurate) are objectively "more" moral than those gassing innocents, but still amoral. (Why else would we generally try to imprison criminals, rather than execute them?). But when you look at this on a whole, you can see how morality, however agreed upon, is never absolute.

This applies to all forms of harm, in war, the business world, and the legal world (and its respective soldiers, policy makers and commanders: police, lawyers, judges and politicians)

TL;DR : All soldiers go to proverbial hell: No killing is acceptable, unless all killing is (variably) acceptable. Scale and relative harm matters.
Power and ambition corrupts everyone: Mutual self-preservation is an objective moral benchmark, but unattainable on a grand scale.
There is no good war; only good intentions: You can simultaneously be a heroic soldier, trying to liberate oppressed people (micro scale), while still fighting a corrupt war, for the personal gain of your leaders and countrymen (macro).

In war,every war,there are heroes and villains on all sides,these men and women are known for their exceptional behaviour,may it be generous and merciful,or cruel and hateful.

I can agree with Katratzi that morality is never absolute,and that is exactly my point.
Axis and Allied soldiers in WW2 fought for differing ideals,ideologies with different core points.

Were the Allied soldiers better from a moral standpoint?In my opinion,most likely.
You have to differentiate between a cause and the ones acting in it's name.
Nationalsocialism is an ideology based around antisemitism,socialdarwinism and racism,it only knew enemies and wanted to expand the influence of the so called ''arian masterrace''.
Does that mean that every german believed in the nazi ideals,back when Hitler rose to power around 1933?Some/most of the tenets of nationalsocialism were already around in the Kaiserreich and weren't seen as anything unusual.The thing is,Hitler used the hopes and dreams of a generation that believed there was no future for their country to fuel his own agenda.
Many of the people in germany didn't believe in his cause,so he used loopholes in the constitution and scare tactics to bully people into submission.

This should speak for itself,meaning not all germans were into fascism and the like,but most didn't do anything,which is were evil was indirectly commited.Those who acted,or were in left wing parties,etc,feared for their lives,since voicing the wrong opinion in a bar could mean you ended up dead,even as early as 1925.

The cause of the Nazi ideology was rotten,rotten to the core and nothing good could ever come off it,any positive things for the german people were unintended side effects and everyone who fought for it with passion was morally corrupt.But,many people weren't even in a position to judge what was happening in their country after 1933,since they were being brainwashed by force-fed propaganda.

In the war itself,men and women died on all sides,doing horrible and honorable things,even if they were fighting for the Reich,they could be heroes,since,in death,all of mankind are alike.

But you have to ask yourself,how many people would have died for a misguided cause,if Germany had won the war?How many would have ended up in camps,getting killed for looking different,or for their religion?

Every country committed atrocities in their history,but that doesn't mean they can be excused.
The allied soldiers might have done bad things for a good cause,but many german soldiers did bad things for a bad cause.

So,I believe it is safe to say,that allied soldiers weren't evil,in comparison to soldiers of the axis,at least,and that there CAN be heroes in war,on all sides,but war itself is an expression of what evil humanity is capable of,which is immoral in itself.

Edit:Katratzi summed up quite a few of my points in his TLDR section,I was in a hurry while reading and writing this,so excuse my incompetence.

Evil is a biological creation that can only be attributed to biological creatures.

A meteorite cannot be evil. That meteorite falling and killing the person who cured cancer would not be evil.

War is a concept of conflict.

War cannot be evil. What the members of a war do to each other can be evil.

A cyber war over a bit of data is not evil. if one side were to doxx other members to get negative outcomes to happen to each other, that would be evil, but the war doxx them, the people involved were the ones that did it.

A sniper killing children and laughing and loving every second of it, is evil.
The war that sniper is in, is not evil.

War is not good or evil. people are good or evil.

War can be wasteful. WW1 was wasteful, there was no bad guy, just people doing bad things to each other, wasting resources and lives in a war that wasn't needed.

didn't watch american sniper. so I won't judge it yet.

Who cares? just make sure you are on the winning side.

War is nothing but a senseless killing. In my eyes, war essentially allows two forms of evil bastards to toss around and kill their citizens.
The only times morals come into play is when one side crosses the absolute line, and even then, as a user above stated; it is still Evil vs. Lesser Evil.
There should be no reason a country sacrifices its likely innocent denizens for a 'justified cause.' War is nothing but a power gambit by multiple individuals. They sit up in their fine, fancy seats, thinking of a way to beat out the opposition and make themselves more intimidating to everyone else, and they toss out life after life, letting most, if not all of them, die or be imprisoned. All for the glory of their country right?
Every soldier in a way is sent into war with the mentality that their country is the moral god. The atrocities they commit? For Great Justice to your mother country!!
Again… it is all just a bunch of rich fools, bunch of lowlife, venom gargling politicians, wasting lives so they can become more powerful and have more. All at the cost of those innocent people.
That is what "War is Hell" means in my eyes. Once you're there, your life is practically considered less than worth it by those politicians. War is the Hell, and the people who lead it are the devils.
That is why I hope war, sometime in the future, is outlawed. It may be naive, but…
Maybe I just hate the fact that people constantly fight each other. Sure humanity is flawed, but… I believe every human, at heart, is a good person.