Just assassinations

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 347-381 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eamon Aloyo
Keyword(s):  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Economic Sanctions ◽  
Lethal Force ◽  
Violent Action

I argue that widely accepted just war theory precepts morally allow and require the assassination of politically powerful individuals under some circumstances instead of waging a just war or implementing any other policy such as non-targeted economic sanctions that would very likely severely harm more innocents. While all just war theory precepts permit just assassinations under certain circumstances, proportionality, necessity, and last resort make just assassinations required whenever they would cause severe harm to the fewest innocents. There are several implications of my argument. First, there are fewer circumstances when wars and other policies that foreseeably but unintentionally harm innocents are just than is commonly thought. Second, the realm of morally permissible violent and non-violent action for powerful individuals is more limited than many presume and politicians are more often morally liable to actions that would mitigate or end objectively unjust serious threats for which they are culpable, although this does not always include lethal force.

The Mechanics of Claims and Permissible Killing in War

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alec D. Walen
Keyword(s):  
Side Effect ◽  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Central Problem ◽  
Lethal Force ◽  
Practical Level

This book operates on two levels. On the more practical level, its overarching concern is to answer the question, When is it permissible to use lethal force to defend people against threats? The deeper concern of the book, however, is to lay out and defend a new account of rights, the mechanics of claims. This framework constructs rights from the premise that rights provide a normative space in which people can pursue their own ends while treating each other as free and equal fellow-agents whose welfare morally matters. According to the mechanics of claims, rights result from first weighing competing patient-claims on an agent, then determining if the agent has a strong enough agent-claim to act contrary to the balance of patient-claims on her, and then looking to see if special claims limit her freedom. The strength of claims in this framework reflects not just the interest in play but the nature of the claims. Threats who have no right to threaten have weaker claims not to be harmed than bystanders who might be harmed as a side effect, all else equal. With this model, a central problem in just war theory can be pushed to the margins: determining when people have forfeited their rights and are liable to harm. Threats may lack a right not to be killed even if they have done nothing to forfeit it.

The Alternatives to War

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Pattison
Keyword(s):  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Economic Sanctions ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
Military Action ◽  
Comprehensive Account ◽  
The Face ◽  
Normative Issues ◽  
Better Than

If states are not to go to war, what should they do instead? In The Alternatives to War: From Sanctions to Non-violence, James Pattison considers the case for the alternatives to military action to address mass atrocities and aggression. He covers the normative issues raised by measures ranging from comprehensive economic sanctions, diplomacy, and positive incentives, to criminal prosecutions, non-violent resistance, accepting refugees, and arming rebels. For instance, given the indiscriminateness of many sanctions regimes, are sanctions any better than war? Should states avoid ‘megaphone diplomacy’ and adopt more subtle measures? What, if anything, can non-violent methods such as civilian defence and civilian peacekeeping do in the face of a ruthless opponent? Is it a serious concern that positive incentives can appear to reward aggressors? Overall, Pattison provides a comprehensive account of the ethics of the alternatives to war. In doing so, he argues that the case for war is weaker and the case for many of the alternatives is stronger than commonly thought. The upshot is that, when reacting to mass atrocities and aggression, states are generally required to pursue the alternatives to war rather than military action. Pattison concludes that this has significant implications for pacifism, Just War Theory, and the responsibility to protect doctrine.

Territorial Rights and National Defence

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Stilz
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Territorial Integrity ◽  
Lethal Force ◽  
Political Cooperation ◽  
The Common ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
National Defence

Both just war theory and international law recognize the defence of one’s own state and its territory as the core example of just cause for war. Yet just war theorists have done little to explore what might give the state a territorial right of this kind. This chapter argues that a state has a right to territorial integrity when it meets three conditions: (1) its citizens have a right to occupy its territory, (2) its scheme of law is minimally just, and (3) the relationship of political cooperation that supports its institutions is reasonably and widely affirmed. This chapter then considers whether a state that satisfies these conditions may defend its territorial integrity with lethal force. This account does not support the common-sense conviction that defending one’s state against aggression is always morally permitted or even required. But it can establish a defensive privilege in a central range of cases.

scholarly journals The Ethics of Economic Sanctions: Why Just War Theory is Not the Answer

Res Publica ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Ellis
Keyword(s):  
Financial Services ◽  
North Korea ◽  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Economic Sanctions ◽  
Moral Issues ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Straightforward Application ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Critical Scrutiny

Abstract On 24 December 2017, the UN Security Council imposed its toughest sanctions yet on North Korea. The measures, intended to thwart nuclear ambitions, are some of the most extensive sanctions imposed in recent times. They place severe restrictions on the export of crude oil and refined petroleum to that state, ban the export of arms, dual use equipment, rocket fuel, natural gas, luxury goods and financial services, ban the import of coal, iron, gold, seafood and textiles from North Korea, and include asset freezes and travel bans for targeted individuals. Economic sanctions raise serious moral issues, not least because if properly enforced they can cause significant harm to their targets. How should we assess their moral permissibility? Several authors have pointed out analogies between economic sanctions and war and then applied the just war principles (just cause, proportionality, etc.) to the problem. This approach has faced little critical scrutiny. I argue that the straightforward application of just war principles to sanctions is misguided. There is a significant difference between war and economic sanctions: war is constituted by bombing, shooting or stabbing but economic sanctions are constituted by refusing to trade. While there is a strong pro tanto duty to not bomb, shoot or stab individuals, there is no comparable pro tanto duty to trade. That does not mean sanctions are always morally permissible, only that the moral issues involved are very different. We have no reason to believe that moral principles developed to govern war are also appropriate for governing sanctions. This approach to the ethics of economic sanctions ought to be abandoned.

Kantian Project of Perpetual Peace in the Context of Modern Ethical and Political Concepts of War

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-100
Author(s):  
Arseniy D. Kumankov
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Democratic Peace ◽  
Peace Treaty ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Democratic Peace Theory ◽  
Perpetual Peace

The article considers the modern meaning of Kant’s doctrine of war. The author examines the context and content of the key provisions of Kant’s concept of perpetual peace. The author also reviews the ideological affinity between Kant and previous authors who proposed to build alliances of states as a means of preventing wars. It is noted that the French revolution and the wars caused by it, the peace treaty between France and Prussia served as the historical background for the conceptualization of Kant’s project. In the second half of the 20th century, there is a growing attention to Kant’s ethical and political philosophy. Theorists of a wide variety of political and ethical schools, (cosmopolitanism, internationalism, and liberalism) pay attention to Kant’s legacy and relate their own concepts to it. Kant’s idea of war is reconsidered by Michael Doyle, Jürgen Habermas, Ulrich Beck, Mary Kaldor, Brian Orend. Thus, Doyle tracks democratic peace theory back to Kant’s idea of the spread of republicanism. According to democratic peace theory, liberal democracies do not solve conflict among themselves by non-military methods. Habermas, Beck, Kaldor appreciate Kant as a key proponent of cosmopolitanism. For them, Kant’s project is important due to notion of supranational forms of cooperation. They share an understanding that peace will be promoted by an allied authority, which will be “governing without government” and will take responsibility for the functioning of the principles of pacification of international relations. Orend’s proves that Kant should be considered as a proponent of the just war theory. In addition, Orend develops a new area in just war theory – the concept of ius post bellum – and justifies regime change as the goal of just war.

The Possibility To Intervene In Syria Relying On Just War Theory Assumptions

2019 ◽  
pp. 338
Author(s):  
عامر سلامة القرالة ◽  
أيمن صالح البراسنة
Keyword(s):  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory

Weighing Lives in War

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
First Principles ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
Just War ◽  
Collateral Damage ◽  
The Past ◽  
A Value ◽  
Lethal Force ◽  
Military Necessity ◽  
Military Commanders ◽  
Descriptive Theory

This volume combines philosophical analysis with normative legal theory. Although both disciplines have spent the past fifty years investigating the nature of the principles of necessity and proportionality, these discussions were all too often walled off from each other. However, the boundaries of these disciplinary conversations have recently broken down, and this volume continues the cross-disciplinary effort by bringing together philosophers concerned with the real-world military implications of their theories and legal scholars who frequently build doctrinal arguments from first principles, many of which herald from the historical just war tradition or from the contemporary just war literature. What unites the chapters into a singular conversation is their common skepticism regarding whether the traditional doctrines, in both law and philosophy, have correctly valued the lives of civilians and combatants at war. The arguments outlined in this volume reveal a set of principles, including necessity and proportionality, whose core essence remains essentially contested. What does military necessity mean and are soldiers always subject to lethal force? What is proportionality and how should military commanders attach a value to a military target and weigh it against collateral damage? Do these valuations remain the same for both sides of the conflict? From the secure viewpoint of the purely descriptive, lawyers might confidently describe some of these questions as settled. But many others, even from the vantage point of descriptive theory, remain under-analyzed and radically lacking in clarity and certainty.

Shakespeare and the ‘Military Revolution’

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paola Pugliatti
Keyword(s):  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Ethics Of War ◽  
Technical Advances ◽  
Military Revolution ◽  
The Military

This chapter recounts how developments in the technology of battle had by Shakespeare’s time caught up with even the relatively resistant, cavalry-oriented English nobility. Outlining these technical advances, it discovers numerous moments in Shakespeare indicative of popular responsiveness to war and its new face. Alone among English writers, it was Shakespeare who (repeatedly) termed cannon-fire ‘devilish’; and the chapter demonstrates how different characters in 1Henry IV are on the turn in the long evolution from (equestrian) medieval chivalry, through (treacherous, infantry-deployed) gunpowder weapons, to the perfumed post-militarist courtier. It notes Shakespeare’s staged presentation of conscription as farcically at odds with the official theory of a voluntarism for able-bodied adults. Two soldiers miserably questioning the ethics of war the night before Agincourt prove well apprised of the Christian just war theory—yet Williams shrewdly contests its exculpation of royal leaders from responsibility for their subjects’ deaths.

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