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Japanese Internment Camps

Ethical Analysis - Nicholas Allston

Need for Transformational Leadership

What would the situation have looked like if the leaders who were involved followed a transformational model?

Selective Application of Ethics

History

On February 19, 1942, shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 with the intention of preventing espionage.

Roosevelt did not reach this decision by himself, hearing from military figures and other testimonies on what course to take. He could have seen the ethical violations involved in the unjust detainment of the Japanese citizens and convinced them otherwise, changing their views on the necessary action.

Choosing to selectively apply ethics between Americans (even of Italian and German descent) and Japanese Citizens.

  • Another ethical pitfall described by Pual and Elder, that groups hold different a different set of ethical standards to themselves to the ones used on groups different from them.
  • Widely accepted unjust detainment is ethically wrong, but was exercised on the Japanese to large degree.

Image Source: https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/opinion/article/Michael-Ego-op-ed-Showing-remorse-for-Executive-12189108.php

Kantian Ethics

Image source: http://mnchurches.org/blog/2021/01/7/us-reparations-efforts-japanese-internment-camps-during-ww-ii-and-civil-liberties-act

Detained and relocated people with at least 1/16 Japanese heritage, affecting about 120,000 people. Many conditions in the relocation towns were considered to be suboptimal.

To get an idea on what Kant would think about the detainment efforts, his ideas in the book

Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals.

Use of Pseudo-Ethics

C-1

"…act only according to that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law" (pp. 15).

If we found ourselves as a citizen of another country and they went to war with country we immigrated from, we would not like to be locked up without some fair ruling.

Image Source: https://history.house.gov/Exhibitions-and-Publications/APA/Historical-Essays/Exclusion-to-Inclusion/Internment/

Ended 1945 with the Ex Parte Endo Case

Allowed for the continuation of unjust detainment of Japanese citizens.

  • “as critical thinkers and autonomous persons we must remain free to critique commonly accepted… political ideas, and laws using ethical concepts not defined by these counterfeits of ethics” (Pual and Elder, pp. 9).
  • Though the multiple cases were presented to the court on rights violations, they still relied on the U.S. law to drive their decision making.

United States paid 70,000 affected Japanese Americans $20,000 in 1988.

Military leaders who openly rejected the orders given to them, convincing others to do the same. Already seen with Milton S. Eisenhower, who resigned from the head of the force tasked to relocate the Japanese-Americans for the reason that he was incarcerating innocent civilians.

C-2

"So act that you use humanity, in your own person as well as in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means" (Kant, pp. 66).

The United States assumes the actions of the Japanese people, not being free agents.

Image source: https://law.jrank.org/pages/2988/Ex-Parte-Endo-Trial-1944.html

History.com Editors. (2009, October 29). Japanese Internment Camps.

Retrieved from https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/japanese-american-relocation.

Kant, Immanuel. (2008). Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals.

ed. Jonathan Bennett. Early Modern Texts.

Paul, R., and Elder, L. (2019). The Thinker’s Guide to Ethical Reasoning.

London, UK: Rowman and Littlefield.

Sources:

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