Just War and Unjust Soldiers: American Public Opinion on the Moral Equality of Combatants

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 411-444 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott D. Sagan ◽  
Benjamin A. Valentino
Keyword(s):  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Just Cause ◽  
Moral Equality ◽  
Women And Children ◽  
Just War Doctrine ◽  
Original Survey ◽  
Moral Equality Of Combatants

AbstractTraditional just war doctrine holds that political leaders are morally responsible for the decision to initiate war, while individual soldiers should be judged solely by their conduct in war. According to this view, soldiers fighting in an unjust war of aggression and soldiers on the opposing side seeking to defend their country are morally equal as long as each obeys the rules of combat. Revisionist scholars, however, maintain that soldiers who fight for an unjust cause bear at least some responsibility for advancing an immoral end, even if they otherwise fight ethically. This article examines the attitudes of the American public regarding the moral equality of combatants. Utilizing an original survey experiment, we find that the public's moral reasoning is generally more consistent with that of the revisionists than with traditional just war theory. Americans in our study judged soldiers who participate in unjust wars as less ethical than soldiers in just wars, even when their battlefield conduct is identical, and a large proportion supported harsh punishments for soldiers simply for participating in unjust wars. We also find, however, that much of the American public is willing to extend the moral license of just cause significantly further than revisionist scholars advocate: half of the Americans in our survey were willing to allow an unambiguous war crime—a massacre of innocent women and children—to go unpunished when the act was committed by soldiers fighting for a just cause. Our findings suggest that incorporation of revisionist principles into the laws of war would reinforce dangerous moral intuitions encouraging the killing of civilians.

scholarly journals Defeating Ignorance – Ius ad Bellum Heuristics for Modern Professional Soldiers

Diametros ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Maciej Marek Zając
Keyword(s):  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Military Deployment ◽  
Moral Equality ◽  
Invincible Ignorance ◽  
Practical Recommendations ◽  
Moral Equality Of Combatants

Just War Theory debates discussing the principle of the Moral Equality of Combatants (MEC) involve the notion of Invincible Ignorance; the claim that warfi ghters are morally excused for participating in an unjust war because of their epistemic limitations. Conditions of military deployment may indeed lead to genuinely insurmountable epistemic limitations. In other cases, these may be overcome. This paper provides a preliminary sketch of heuristics designed to allow a combatant to judge whether or not his war is just. It delineates the sets of relevant facts uncontroversially accessible and inaccessible to contemporary professional soldiers. Relevant facts outside these two sets should by default be treated as inaccessible until proven otherwise. Even such a rudimentary heuristic created in this way demonstrates that practical recommendations of MEC-renouncing Just War Theory are not too challenging to follow and still signifi cantly impact a compliant combatant’s behavior.

Extremism and Confusion in American Views about the Ethics of War: A Comment on Sagan and Valentino

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 451-463 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeff McMahan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
The United States ◽  
Moral Equality ◽  
Ethics Of War ◽  
The Law ◽  
Moral Equality Of Combatants

AbstractIn their article “Just War and Unjust Soldiers: American Public Opinion on the Moral Equality of Combatants,” Scott Sagan and Benjamin Valentino have revealed a wealth of information about the views of contemporary Americans on the ethics of war. Virtually all they have discovered is surprising and much of it is alarming. My commentary in this symposium seeks mainly to extract a bit more from their data and to draw a few further inferences. Among the striking features of Sagan and Valentino's data are that the views of Americans tend to cluster at the extreme ends of the spectrum of possible views about the ethics of war, that an apparent sympathy for pacifism coexists with harshly punitive views about the treatment of soldiers, and that few of those surveyed appear to have given any thought to the implications of the views they expressed for what it might be permissible for enemies of the United States to do to captured American soldiers. The commentary concludes by arguing that Sagan and Valentino's findings do not, as they argue, support the fear that is sometimes expressed that a wider acceptance of revisionist just war theory, and in particular its incorporation into the law, would make the practice of war even more barbarous than it already is.

scholarly journals War and post-truth: Moral equality of combatants and inculpable ignorance in just war theory

2021 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
pp. 111-122
Author(s):  
Dragan Stanar
Keyword(s):  
Moral Status ◽  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Jus In Bello ◽  
Moral Equality ◽  
Jus Ad Bellum ◽  
Moral Equality Of Combatants

This paper aims to explain the effect of the post-truth on revisionism in Just War Theory. Revisionism in JWT is based on the claim that Jus ad Bellum and Jus in Bello cannot be separated and that only combatants who fight on the just side are morally justified in killing. Presupposition of this argument is that combatants can and ought to know the moral status of their side. This paper will demonstrate that it is impossible to demand combatants to know whether their side is just by investigating the implications of post-truth in modern conflicts. By demonstrating the practical impossibility of combatants to know whether their side is just, author will show that the assumption of inculpable ignorance in war must remain the essence of JWT. Posttruth phenomenon only fortifies the necessity of separating Jus ad Bellum from Jus in Bello and upholding the principle of moral equality of combatants in contemporary wars.

scholarly journals Contemporary Issues in Jus in Bello: Some Problems Raised by Jeff McMahan's Killing in War

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Simon William Bunckenburg
Keyword(s):  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Collective Responsibility ◽  
Jus In Bello ◽  
Moral Equality ◽  
Jeff Mcmahan ◽  
Intentional Attack ◽  
Moral Equality Of Combatants

<p>The work of Jeff McMahan has revitalised discussion of just war theory with its rejection of the moral equality of combatants. The main aim of this thesis is to explore and develop McMahan’s work and recent challenges to it. I do this in four chapters. First, I outline McMahan’s account of liability to attack which subsequently shows why the moral equality of combatants is false. I defend his account of liability to attack from problems raised by Yitzhak Benbaji and Thomas Hurka. Second, I discuss developments by McMahan to the in bello condition of proportionality. I suggest that the features McMahan introduces, though innovative, do not go far enough and ultimately argue for David Rodin’s multi-factor account. Third, I defend Seth Lazar’s responsibility dilemma from objections by McMahan and Bradley Strawser. Fourth, I combine McMahan’s understanding of responsibility with Tony Honoré’s outcome responsibility and after establishing an account of collective responsibility argue that unjust noncombatants can be liable to intentional attack due to being collectively outcome responsible for the threat their state poses in war.</p>

scholarly journals Contemporary Issues in Jus in Bello: Some Problems Raised by Jeff McMahan's Killing in War

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Simon William Bunckenburg
Keyword(s):  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Collective Responsibility ◽  
Jus In Bello ◽  
Moral Equality ◽  
Jeff Mcmahan ◽  
Intentional Attack ◽  
Moral Equality Of Combatants

<p>The work of Jeff McMahan has revitalised discussion of just war theory with its rejection of the moral equality of combatants. The main aim of this thesis is to explore and develop McMahan’s work and recent challenges to it. I do this in four chapters. First, I outline McMahan’s account of liability to attack which subsequently shows why the moral equality of combatants is false. I defend his account of liability to attack from problems raised by Yitzhak Benbaji and Thomas Hurka. Second, I discuss developments by McMahan to the in bello condition of proportionality. I suggest that the features McMahan introduces, though innovative, do not go far enough and ultimately argue for David Rodin’s multi-factor account. Third, I defend Seth Lazar’s responsibility dilemma from objections by McMahan and Bradley Strawser. Fourth, I combine McMahan’s understanding of responsibility with Tony Honoré’s outcome responsibility and after establishing an account of collective responsibility argue that unjust noncombatants can be liable to intentional attack due to being collectively outcome responsible for the threat their state poses in war.</p>

Late Scholastic Just War Theory

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Schwartz
Keyword(s):  
Side Effect ◽  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Legitimate Authority ◽  
Just Cause ◽  
Moral Equality ◽  
Direct Targeting ◽  
Moral Rules ◽  
Francisco De Vitoria ◽  
Right Intention

This chapter addresses some of the major just war questions engaged by late scholastic theologians such as Francisco de Vitoria, Gabriel Vázquez, Francisco Suárez, and Luis de Molina. The chapter starts by presenting their favored judicial model of war and then focuses on three ius ad bellum requirements: just cause, legitimate authority, and right intention. This section also discusses the positions of the late scholastics on the possibility of wars that are just on both sides, the moral equality of soldiers, and the moral gravity of the subject’s refusal to fight in his country’s morally doubtful wars. The following section explores ius in bello. It examines the principle that innocents in war are immune from direct targeting and exceptions to this principle, the moral rules governing the side-effect killing of innocents in war, and the morally permitted defensive means available to potential victims of such side-effect harms.

Historiography of Just War Theory

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory M. Reichberg
Keyword(s):  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Moral Equality ◽  
Historical Methodology ◽  
Just War Tradition ◽  
Historical Reflection ◽  
Principal Task ◽  
Moral Equality Of Combatants

This chapter examines the historiography of just war theory. It starts off by showing how the concept of war has remained far from constant from one period to another and why recognition of these shifts in meaning is a prerequisite for historical reflection in this domain. Proceeding afterwards to explain why histories of the just war ‘tradition’ have been written, in what historical contexts and in view of what aims, it is shown how few of these histories have been recounted as purely descriptive exercises. Displaying the normative options that have oriented historical methodology in this field is thus a principal task of this chapter. Finally, to exhibit the salience of just war historiography for contemporary theorising, this chapter concludes with a reflection on the antecedents to our present debate on the moral equality of combatants.

On Reciprocity, Revenge, and Replication: A Rejoinder to Walzer, McMahan, and Keohane

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 473-479 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott D. Sagan ◽  
Benjamin A. Valentino
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Michael Walzer ◽  
Just Cause ◽  
Noncombatant Immunity ◽  
Jeff Mcmahan ◽  
Just War Doctrine ◽  
Moral Philosophers

AbstractIn their contributions to the symposium “Just War and Unjust Soldiers,” Michael Walzer, Jeff McMahan, and Robert O. Keohane add greatly to our understanding of how best to study and apply just war doctrine to real-world conflicts. We argue, however, that they underestimate both the degree to which the American public seeks revenge, rather than just reciprocity, and the extent of popular acceptance of violations of noncombatant immunity by soldiers perceived to be fighting for a just cause. We call on empirical political scientists, lawyers, psychologists, and historians to engage with moral philosophers and political theorists in debates about the influence of just war theory and the laws of armed conflict.

Civil War and Revolution

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Parry
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Just Cause ◽  
Popular Support ◽  
Civil Conflicts ◽  
Ethics Of War ◽  
National Defence

The vast majority of work on the ethics of war focuses on traditional wars between states. This chapter aims to show that this is an oversight worth rectifying. The strategy is largely comparative, assessing whether certain claims often defended in discussions of interstate wars stand up in the context of civil conflicts and whether there are principled moral differences between the two types of case. Firstly, the chapter argues that thinking about intrastate wars may help us make progress on important theoretical debates in recent just war theory. Secondly, it considers whether certain kinds of civil wars are subject to a more demanding standard of just cause, compared to interstate wars of national defence. Finally, it assesses the extent to which having popular support is an independent requirement of permissible war and whether this renders insurgencies harder to justify than wars fought by functioning states.

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