Christopher Nolan’s latest masterwork, Oppenheimer, opens with a quote on Prometheus and the consequences of his most famous action—namely, stealing fire from the gods and giving it to humankind.
With bass-filled sound design and fiery visuals, the film satisfies viewers while touching on Greek mythology, the ethics of war and peace, the relationship—or lack thereof—between genius and wisdom, and the psychology of creating weapons of mass destruction.
The Promethean archetype in this context is a familiar one—the scientist takes the place of Prometheus and develops an unprecedented device to aid humanity without either anticipating or sufficiently caring about its destructive potential.
Seeing as I’ve promised you philosophy in this column, let’s examine a certain argument “Oppie” employs which captures the spirit of a philosophical tradition called consequentialism.
In the film, when asked if the bomb is big enough to end World War II, J. Robert Oppenheimer declares the weapon is big enough to end all wars. He predicts an unprecedented age of peacefulness achieved through mutually assured destruction.
Lurking here is the position that a nuclearized world—the world from which the moviegoer views Oppenheimer—is more peaceful than a non-nuclear world, which, though hypothetical for us, is the reality Oppenheimer lived and worked in.
This method—weighing the pros and cons of possible worlds—is a common practice in consequentialist philosophy. To determine the more appropriate alternative through this method, the decision maker should pursue whichever alternative produces the better consequences or outcome.
We can, at least in theory, try to calculate the value of a given situation by comparing it with alternative possibilities. This is most clear when one person must choose between two things.
As an example, let’s consider the question of whether one should cook dinner or get takeout.
If I cook dinner instead of getting takeout, I presumably do this because it creates a better outcome for my life in some way. I might gain 500 ‘units’ of happiness by cooking my own dinner, where I’d only gain 300 ‘units’ of happiness if I ordered takeout. I therefore get more good consequences for my action if I make my own dinner than if I order takeout, making this route more desirable through a consequentialist lens.
We see the same sort of reasoning from Oppenheimer’s position. Seeing two possible worlds—one nuclearized and one not—Oppenheimer weighs the suffering produced by warfare in each world and concludes a nuclear world produces less violence overall.
Though similar to my example above, this calculus considers what provides more happiness and less suffering for the whole world, instead of just one person.
In some ways, Oppenheimer’s reasoning seems justified. It’s reasonable to assume the onset of a third world war is more likely without nuclear weapons, given the absence of mutually assured destruction. Surely the death toll in such a conflict would be astronomical, and unnecessary suffering has indeed been thwarted by way of nuclearization.
In other ways, his reasoning is unjustified. While direct conflict between major world powers like America and Russia was, and continues to be, prevented by nuclearization, proxy wars have since produced violence and suffering despite the world’s unprecedented “peace.”
This “peace” is one maintained through the use of less powerful nations and their citizens as fodder—regions such as Iran, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Ukraine.
It goes without saying the 210,000 dead in Hiroshima and Nagasaki might have something to say here.
More concerning still is the prospect that modern nuclear missiles won’t stay in their silos forever. Major world powers still possess nuclear weapons, and though they’re not currently in use, there’s no telling a nuclear armageddon won’t ensue in the future.
If Oppenheimer was aware—or at least suspicious—of this outcome, his argument becomes even less persuasive. Though major world powers no longer fight directly, they still fight. Since the glowing-green nuclear genie has been let out of the bottle, there’s always a risk for future nuclear destruction.
In Nolan’s film, we’re led to believe Oppenheimer was suspicious of great nuclear destruction, as he suffers from visions of the destructive force of his bomb on flesh and blood, as well as the planet overall.
Developing the bomb in the face of such suspicions can also have psychological consequences. This is notably evident when Oppenheimer leaves behind a cheering crowd to meet one fellow scientist crying in his partner’s arms, and another throwing up with bloodshot eyes.
Years after the war, in dialogue with Albert Einstein, Oppenheimer reveals the permanence of these psychological consequences. Referencing a prior conversation, he asks Einstein if he re early concerns about igniting the atmosphere upon nuclear detonation, thus ending the world.
Despite the possibility of atmospheric ignition being ruled out after testing, Oppenheimer tells Einstein he believes this worry has nonetheless come to , and the world-ending chain reaction he foresaw had begun.
The film then concludes with an apocalyptic vision—and perhaps an inevitable one—of nuclear weapons being detonated from pole to pole.
Chained to a proverbial rock and tortured for the rest of his life, Oppenheimer would live and die with this vision. Perhaps we’ll meet our own ends by its realization. Whichever way the dice fall, Oppenheimer serves as a cautionary tale against opening boxes whose contents we’re not prepared to handle.
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