Abstract
Nuclear and chemical weapons are commonly grouped as immoral "weapons of mass destruction." There is, however, a lack of scholarly literature that would systematically study the nature and strength of the norms against the use of these weapons in a comparative perspective. To address this gap, we designed an original survey experiment to examine public attitudes to the hypothetical use of nuclear and chemical weapons on a representative sample of U.S. citizens.
Our findings suggest that the general public is more averse to the use of chemical weapons than nuclear weapons. In addition, we highlight several factors that seem to underpin the perception of many individuals that nuclear weapons are, from an ethical standpoint, "the lesser of two evils." Results of our experiment contribute to the scholarly literature on "taboos" surrounding unconventional weapons in world politics.