Who Can Endeavour Peace?

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Abstract
It is even possible to write philosophically on ethics and nuclear issues? In spite of the growing literature which seeks to apply ethical reasoning to nuclear issues doubts run deep here. They reflect more than hesitation between consequentialist and action-based conceptions of ethical reasoning, or over paradoxes of deterrence that can be generated by mixing these. We may even doubt whether nuclear arms and dangers either can or should be treated as ‘problems’ for ethical analysis. Won't methods that pass muster for diagnosing and discussing lesser, more local crises fail here, distract from other (perhaps more ‘realistic’) responses, and even risk further dangers? Perhaps philosophical inquiry is not only irrelevant, because it cannot help solve nuclear ‘problems,’ but also impossible because we cannot convincingly identify the deepest ethical difficulties, the real constraints on their solution, or the most promising agents of change.