Scott J. Lawson
March 1, 2024
Some supporters of Israel’s offensive in Gaza apparently love “Ends justifies the means” reasoning – until it is used against their cause.
That is the conclusion I am forced to reach after reading an opinion piece in The Atlantic by Graeme Wood titled, “Stop Glorifying Self-Immolation.”
The article is in response to the viral spread of a shocking self-immolation by a 25-year-old United States Air Force Airman named Aaron Bushnell of San Antonio, Texas.
Bushnell live-streamed the incident. The video captured his statement before the self-immolation as he calmly approached the Israeli embassy. His words were as follows:
“I am an active duty member of the United States Air Force and I will no longer be complicit in genocide. I’m about to engage in an extreme act of protest but compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers, it’s not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.”
Bushnell then picks his spot, covers himself with an accelerant, puts on his cover, lights the accelerant and stands straight up as the flames engulf him immediately. He yells “Free Palestine” six times and remains standing for over 30 seconds.
Bushnell’s obvious point was to gain attention to what he views as the plight of Palestinians that have long been suffering from Israeli oppression; especially those in Gaza that are currently being killed, maimed, starved, and displaced by the recent Israeli offensive with the support of the United States.
Graeme Wood finds this reasoning problematic and Bushnell’s actions a result of violent fanaticism. He is even more disturbed by what he describes as the “glorification” of Bushnell’s self-immolation by supporters of the Palestinian cause. He cites two examples of such supposed glorification. The first is, “The theologian and presidential candidate Cornel West praised his “extraordinary courage and commitment.”” The author’s second example is, “Rest in power,” tweeted Jill Stein, the former Green Party presidential candidate, with an image of the young man ablaze.””
Of the two examples cited, I would argue only West’s is close to what would constitute “glorification” of the act of self-immolation. Most of what could be described as responses “in support” of Bushnell are aimed at agreement with his ideals and sympathy for his fate. Jill Stein’s tweet seems typical of this type of response. Most people would probably agree a self-immolation is an “extreme act,” and one not too likely to inspire masses of copycats any time soon.
Does the “extreme act” constitute a protest? Technically it is, but as I will detail below, it should not be considered a morally valid one. In this case however, Bushnell’s reasoning is quite logically valid, even if you want to disagree it is logically sound. This may have helped compel this particular act into the hearts and minds of many more people than the typical self-immolation. Bushnell definitely gave his audience something to think about because he made it about our actions and the consequences of the actions on others. When we see him burning, we can imagine little Palestinian kids burning after their home is destroyed by ordinance bought with US funds in a war effort sustained via US support.
Graeme Wood points out that studies on the effectiveness of such acts indicate they are hit or miss. But for this point to mean anything, one must first accept that reaching an end goal can and should morally justify the means of achieving it. In this case, Wood seems to support the idea that this is not justified, even if he does not fully identify the reasons – morally – why it is not justified. Insofar as Wood concludes the act of self-immolation is an unjustified violent one, he is correct.
It becomes apparent as one reads the article however, that Wood is stuck in a hypocritical position. He appears to be in support of Israel’s actions in Gaza, which Israel justifies as necessary in response to the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas. The problem is, while Israel claims to be going after “Hamas,” they are killing thousands of civilians (disproportionately women and children), recklessly destroying Gaza, perpetuating starvation and sickness, and are generally acting in a manner that cannot be universalized in any way. Consider how Wood describes his opposition to Bushnell’s self-immolation and ask yourself if it does not also apply to what Israel is doing in Gaza;
“In addition to being an immoderate act, self-immolation is a violent one, indeed one of the most violent, and if you dislike violence, then you should abhor it no matter your view on the war in Gaza. Self-immolators choose that method over hunger strikes, civil disobedience, marches, and a long menu of other morally exemplary tactics.”
Israel’s actions, especially at this point, can at least be described as “immoderate” and “violent.” Indeed, as Wood states, no matter your view on the war in Gaza, the immorality of the acts is on full display for all to see. Just as Wood rightfully described several other avenues for “morally exemplary tactics” for protest other than self-immolation, so too should he recognize all the missed opportunities for Israel and the other parties involved to solve the complex differences in the conflict other than perpetuating wanton destruction and death. Indeed, nearly the entire world sees this, yet Israel and the United States (with their financial and military support along with UN veto power) continue to justify the horrific means to a terrible end.
Perhaps this continued unreasonableness by such powerful entities drives people that feel helpless (including those that have long tried the aforementioned “morally exemplary tactics”) to resort to such irrational acts. Wood states in his article;
“Nearly all the self-burnings in the modern era, the goal was more worldly: to call attention to alleged injustice and stress one’s devotion to ending it. In a letter to Martin Luther King Jr., the monk Thich Nhat Hanh said that burning oneself will “prove that what one is saying is of the utmost importance,” and demonstrate “determination and sincerity.” … The livestreamer in D.C. said he wished to end his complicity in the Gaza war. That war began when Hamas terrorists burned Israelis alive, and the livestreamer showed no appreciation of the irony that it would end, for him, with his own voluntary experience of the same fate. His willingness to suffer this way certainly demonstrated his “determination and sincerity,” to use Nhat Hanh’s phrase. It also showed his numbness to the suffering of others: His cinders should inspire action, but the much larger piles of cinders of whole families in the Kfar Aza kibbutz somehow should not.”
Talk about irony. Wood again fails to recognize the importance and necessity of judging the morality of one’s actions in themselves rather than by the ends they may achieve. Like Wood, I agree that self-immolation is not a virtuous act that is worthy of glorification. I view such an act as a violation of a moral duty one has to themselves. This stems from the same moral imperatives that govern our actions toward others. So if we are to reject that reasoning behind self-immolation, we ought to reject it as a justification for Israel’s acts as well.
In accord with his wider deontological ethics, philosopher Immanuel Kant describes the duties we have to ourselves in his book The Metaphysics of Morals. He states there are limiting “negative duties” and widening “positive duties” we have to ourselves. The negative duties “forbid a human being to act contrary to the end of his nature and so have to do merely with his moral self-preservation.” The positive duties “command him to make a certain object of choice his end” and concern “his perfecting of himself.” We can see how self-immolation would be in clear violation of these duties.
Kant himself addresses the notion of “killing oneself” directly, which he essentially regards as a crime. But he also asks “casuistical questions” specifically related to our topic, that give us something upon which to reflect. He asks, “Is it murdering oneself to hurl oneself to certain death (like Curtius) in order to save one’s country? – or is deliberate martyrdom, sacrificing oneself for the good of all humanity, also to be considered an act of heroism?”
This reflects the notion that ethics allows for latitude in imperfect duties which “unavoidably leads to questions that call upon judgment to decide how a maxim is to be applied in particular cases, and indeed in such a way that judgment provides another (subordinate) maxim (and one can always ask for yet another principle for applying this maxim to cases that may arise). So ethics falls into a casuistry” which is “neither a science nor a part of a science; for in that case it would be dogmatic, and casuistry is not so much a doctrine about how to find something as rather a practice in how to seek truth. So it is woven into ethics in a fragmentary way, not systematically (as dogmatics would have to be), and is added to ethics only by way of schools to the system.”
This is all to say that in ethics we will always be faced with seemingly overlapping and even sometimes contradictory duties we have towards ourselves and others. We have one type of duty to ourselves to not harm ourselves. We have a duty to others to not harm them. We also have another type of duty that compels us to speak up and act in defense of the rights of others. And of course this is all made more complex in the context of warfare. Just as there are limits on action regarding protest and activism, so too are there limits on what can be justified as action in the name of self-defense. We always need to consider the maxim of our actions. To universalize “ends justifies the means” precludes the moral judgment of the action in all cases. And we certainly cannot, as Graeme Wood appears to do, pick and choose when to apply it to our preferred ends. He further writes,
“The Palestinian case, in its minimal form, goes something like this: Palestinians have lived in and around the territory of Israel for a long time, and Israel shouldn’t force them to move or mistreat them if they stay. The Israeli case is also simple: Jews have been there a long time too, and have their own right to safety and dignity. I am aware that even these summaries will draw vicious ire. But my point is that a decent person can agree with both, and from that serene starting point negotiation could begin. Social-media posts attributed to the D.C. self-immolator suggest that he thought Israelis were fair game for violence, one and all, and that fanaticism was his default setting.”
If it is to be assumed, as Wood suggests, that the failure for a serene starting point for negotiations is due to the notion actors such as Bushnell see one and all Israelis as fair game for violence based off of his act of self-immolation being aimed at the governments of Israel and the US, what is to be assumed about the actions of Israel towards one and all Palestinians? To reach the supposed “serene starting point” Wood envisions, someone will need to break the childish “he started it” whataboutism cycle that props up the immoral “ends justifies the means” reasoning. This cannot happen until we all collectively recognize that it is wrong in all instances; including using previous attacks as a pretext to conduct exponentially worse attacks on a largely civilian population over an extended period of time.
Wood’s closing to his article puts a self-contradictory cherry right on top of his hypocritical cake. He writes,
“Some people are, psychologically speaking, just built this way. But mass movements can choose whether they want to be associated with spectacular atrocities. I have serious doubts about the value of discussing anything with someone who brings a jerry can and a Zippo to the conversation. The Palestinian cause is already associated with death cultism: Hamas arrives at the conversations pre-drenched. Certain factions of the Israeli right seem excessively open to conflagration too. The tendency to celebrate and encourage this behavior, or even to be moved by it, strikes me as deeply sick. I am moved only to check the inspection certificate on my office’s fire extinguisher.”
Perhaps Graeme Wood ought to also check himself to understand what he is “pre-drenched’ with before entering such conversations. It certainly is not moral consistency. In his article he lamented having to inadvertently see Bushnell covered in flames chanting “Free Palestine” while scrolling social media. Maybe we will see less of such acts – and less dead Palestinians and Israelis – if the “ends justifies the means” mentality is universally rejected. We are all responsible for our own acts; we better ensure they are in accord with what is objectively right, even if other actions appear to be more expedient towards some preferred end.