Yeah, the atomic boming was just an example. You could add your own event (either historical or hypothetical) and say whether or not you think it's justified if you want.

Agreed on that.  

On the original premise though, is it right to do horrible things for good in the long term like I said it depends on the cost.  If you do something that kills hundreds but saves thousands, I think its justified.  

Now, again this depends on perception.  Im sure Hitler figured "Well if I get rid of all the jews and those who don't fid this concept that I have for a human being, then good things will be at the end."  Obviously he was delusional, but it brings up the question "Is it right to do horrible things to bring about good, but it depends on what I consider horrible and good."  

Heres an example thats been in recent news.  Im not a big fan of bees.  In fact, one could say I have a phobia of bees.  I don't necessarily pass out or scream, but if I see a bee near me, the first thing I want is it away.  Most people just brush them away, but the few times I was stung as a kid it hurt like nothing before (obviously some of this was perception of pain and a kid but still) so I don't like them.  Anyways, point being is I would like them all to go away.  If they did, I wouldn't have to worry (though I dont like wasps either but I digress).  In my perception that is good.  HOwever, objectively that would be bad (which is why its been in the news).  Fruit would be affected, honey and many other flowers that are pollinated by bees.  

So again, if you want what would be objectively called good, then it really comes down to cost.  Say, going back to WWII and what not, and this is an extreme hypothetical, if someone was given the choice (besides Hitler cause we knew his answer) "You have two choices.  Kill the jews or kill everyone but yourself." then in my mind the answer would be clear.  Kill the smaller of the two.  However, you run into the problem with if you were the one doing it and were a jew.  Then one might consider option two. 

Brett Keane on youtube did a challenge on this recently to theists (specifically two of them, but anyone could answer).  If you assume that god exists, and you believed in him (which is why this was proposed to theists ), you have two choices.   Either choice, you go to heaven.  First option is, Kill God.  Second option, Kill the entire human race (including yourself, but you get to go to heaven).  

Anyways, just some thoughts on this.   

Yes, somethings cannot be avoided in a hard situation.

Again, yes.  Germany might have surrendered already, but Japan was still fighting a war with us.

We had to choose between another D-Day style invasion of the Japanese Homeland in which countless numbers of people would have died, or dropping a few bombs that would "break" the hold over the people that the Japanese Emperor had over his people.

Leading into the dropping of the bombs we had some knowledge that the civilian population of Japan would have been involved in the fight should we try to land forces on the island.  Civilian populations of the various Islands in the Pacific actively fought against the Allied forces.

Think of it like the movie "Red Dawn."  If there were an attack on the US homeland by a landing military force, a LOT of people here would take up arms in the civilian sector and fight back.

Same with Japan.  In fact, even more so.  At the time, Shinto in Japan had become an Emperor cult due to the influence of Shinto in the government.  At the time of World War II the State religion of Shinto held that the Emperor was a god.

This would have led to an army that basically would have been almost EVERY LIVING BEING on the Islands of Japan against a landing force that would be dwarfed in it's shadow.

Dropping the bomb forced the Emperor to surrender.  Landing a military force on japan would have led to MORE DEATH on BOTH SIDES than the bombs did.

In the case of an impossible situation such as a war, there is no way to avoid horrible acts.  The Blitz of London, the bombing of Dresden, the trench warfare of World War I...  Impossible situations call for hard decisions...

I would given i had the proper authority to do so.

For example.  If i was a judge tasked to try a felon who is eventually found to be a serial rapist/murderer, then i'd go and give him the death sentence (assuming that the state i'm in allows that).

However, if i was an ordinary citizen, who happens to be in a situation where i see an escaped convict who is a known serial murderer and can kill him and plead self-defence, i'd opt not to do so and just call the cops and have them take care of him.

Of course this is just a pair of scenarios which could go differently in several ways, but that's the gyst of my opinion. 

Double post

If our moral positions are informed by reference to human suffering, then we should always seek the solution that is going to minimize suffering across the foreseeable outcomes and time frames. The problem in politics is not usually that people put the ends before the means - it is that the means involve human suffering and the ends, while laudable goals in some sense, do not acheive a commensurate reduction in suffering.

It seems clear that a protracted land war with Japan would have been the solution likely to cause the absolute maximum of suffering, so the bomb drops were probably justified. The choice of cities with civilian populations was harder to understand except from the standpoint of terrorizing the population into refusing to fight any more. It would have been morally more defensible to bomb an isolated military target first, then escalate as necessary. On the other hand, perhaps the administration felt sure that the Japanese government already knew about the bomb and its capabilities, but weren't going to back down unless the civilian population was equally convinced of the hopelessness of fighting on. Basically, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings gave the emperor an "out" to surrender without losing face.