(1) Oppression is morally indefensible. As is brutality. So
(2) brutality in the service of oppression is doubly indefensible.
(3) Resistance to oppression, if not morally mandatory, is certainly morally laudable. So
(4) brutality in the service of resistance is at the very least morally defensible.

Upon introspection, I suspect that (4) lies at the core of my heartfelt approbation of the Hamas breakout of October 7. As does (2) at the core of my heartfelt disapprobation of the collective reprisals being carried out by the IDF over the thirteen months since against Palestinian civilians. I see no cause to revisit either (3) or (4). In short, resistance does get a moral pass unavailable to the oppressor.

But does it? (2) seems to hang on (1). Fair enough. But (1), I’m loath to confess, flies in the face of my commitment to a Hobbesian meta-ethics. So if the brutality of October 7 is morally defensible, so is the seventy-three years of Israeli brutality that gave rise to it. Either I give up (1) and (2), or I give up my Hobbesian meta-ethics, or I give up my pretence at consistency.

Too quick. I think Hobbes would argue – and so I can too – that where robust resistance to it is available, oppression is often imprudent. And since, as I’ve argued elsewhere, morality is reducible to prudence, brutality of oppression invites brutality in resistance.

Well, comes the counter, by parity of reasoning, the brutality of October 7 has invited the brutality of the retaliation. And that, I suppose, I have to concede. So as long as both sides are willing to pay the price – and clearly both are – the cycle of attacks and counter-attacks will go on, if need be to the last man standing.

But now comes the side bar. If passive complicity were morally culpable, we’d each be accountable for every evil we could have prevented. And that’s a burden too heavy for any of us to bear. But active complicity, e.g. America supplying the ordnance for the IDF’s massacres in Gaza, is another matter entirely. The so-called Iron Dome has rendered both the IDF and Israeli civilians pretty much invulnerable. As, for all intents and purposes, is America’s military. But not so America’s civilians. So is another 9/11 on the horizon? Let’s just say no one should be surprised. And, the usual “we wuzn’t doin’ nothin’!” notwithstanding – see my “Defence of Terrorism” entry – neither should our moral assessment of it be any different.

So I think I can rescue my consistency by replacing (1) with

(1′) Oppression is often morally imprudent, and with
(1″) As is active complicity with it.

But as always, I stand to be instructed on this score.

Categories: Everything You Wanted to Know About What's Going On in the World But Were Afraid to Ask, Social and Political Philosophy

Tags: collective reprisal, complicity, Gaza, IDF, October 7, oppression, resistance, Thomas Hobbes