The Challenge

2019 ◽  
pp. 9-36
Author(s):  
Yitzhak Benbaji ◽  
Daniel Statman
Keyword(s):  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Traditional View ◽  
Law Of War ◽  
Moral Equality ◽  
Enemy Combatants ◽  
Main Ideas ◽  
Individual Self ◽  
Morality Of War ◽  
Self Defence

The chapter presents the main ideas of traditional just war theory; the separation between the principles governing the resort to war (ad bellum) and those governing its conduct (in bello); the wide permission granted to combatants of both sides to target enemy combatants (‘moral equality of soldiers’); and the almost absolute prohibition on the intentional targeting of enemy civilians. It then introduces Individualism, which is the view that underlies the critique levelled by philosophers known as ‘revisionists’ against the traditional view, on both the ad bellum and the in bello levels. According to this critique, the attempt to anchor the morality of war in the principles of individual self-defence fails. The problem with the revisionist view is that it is unable to offer an alternative to traditional just war theory and to provide a satisfactory justification for the rules that govern the ethics (and law) of war, on both the ad bellum and the in bello levels.

The Real Costs of War

2017 ◽  
pp. 155-170
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Ethical Considerations ◽  
The Real ◽  
Morality Of War ◽  
Real Costs

While Just War Theory is the best account of the morality of war, along with many others, the author does not believe that actual decisions by states to go to war are often, or at all, informed by such ethical considerations. A much more plausible view is given by the doctrine of realism, familiar in international relations. This chapter discusses realism as a basis for evaluating weapons research in wartime, and here the author refers to Clausewitz views of war and politics. His conclusion, in a nutshell, is that since states on this account are only concerned with their own interests, there can be no assurance that the products of weapons design will not be used for aggression.

A Semi-Kantian Just War Theory

2021 ◽  
pp. 13-31
Author(s):  
Yitzhak Benbaji
Keyword(s):  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
Law Of War ◽  
The Law ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Kantian Philosophy

The chapter explores the Kantian philosophy of the law of war and how it is based on two normative claims. First, states are independent of each other in virtue of their duty to provide a legal order in a territory that they rule. Second, any use of non-defensive force by a state in a territory that it does not actually rule is illegal. Benbaji shows that there is a deep tension between these claims, and he sets out to offer a contractarian theory of the crime of aggression, which he characterizes as semi-Kantian: states are fully legitimate only if their right to rule over their territory is recognized by all other states. Semi-Kantians argue that Ripstein’s Kant misconstrues the standing of states vis-à-vis the territories over which they rule.

scholarly journals Evaluating the Revisionist Critique of Just War Theory

Daedalus ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 146 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seth Lazar
Keyword(s):  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Laws Of War ◽  
Noncombatant Immunity ◽  
Jeff Mcmahan ◽  
Military Objective ◽  
The Military ◽  
Morality Of War ◽  
Modern Analytical

Modern analytical just war theory starts with Michael Walzer's defense of key tenets of the laws of war in his Just and Unjust Wars. Walzer advocates noncombatant immunity, proportionality, and combatant equality: combatants in war must target only combatants; unintentional harms that they inflict on noncombatants must be proportionate to the military objective secured; and combatants who abide by these principles fight permissibly, regardless of their aims. In recent years, the revisionist school of just war theory, led by Jeff McMahan, has radically undermined Walzer's defense of these principles. This essay situates Walzer's and the revisionists’ arguments, before illustrating the disturbing vision of the morality of war that results from revisionist premises. It concludes by showing how broadly Walzerian conclusions can be defended using more reliable foundations.

scholarly journals The Case for the Nonideal Morality of War: Beyond Revisionism versus Traditionalism in Just War Theory

2016 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 242-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Pattison
Keyword(s):  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Comprehensive Account ◽  
Ethics Of War ◽  
Morality Of War

Recent discussions in Just War Theory have been framed by a polarising debate between “traditionalist” and “revisionist” approaches. This debate has largely overlooked the importance of an applied account of Just War Theory. The main aim of this essay is to defend the importance of this applied account and, in particular, a nonideal account of the ethics of war. I argue that the applied, nonideal morality of war is vital for a plausible and comprehensive account of Just War Theory. A subsidiary aim of the essay is to show that once we appreciate the importance of the applied, nonideal account, it becomes clear that the positions proposed by revisionists and traditionalists are, in fact, much closer than often presumed.

Just War Theory & the Conduct of Asymmetric Warfare

Daedalus ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 146 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-70
Author(s):  
Allen S. Weiner
Keyword(s):  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Just War ◽  
Central Element ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
The State ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Laws Of War ◽  
Equal Rights ◽  
Moral Equality ◽  
Asymmetric Warfare

A central element of the dominant view of just war theory is the moral equality of soldiers: combatants have equal rights to wage war against one another and are entitled to certain protections if captured, without regard to which side's cause of war is just. But whether and how this principle should apply in asymmetric armed conflicts between states and nonstate groups is profoundly unsettled. I argue that we should confer war rights on fighters for nonstate groups when they are engaged in violence that has risen to the level of armed conflict, and when the state against which the war is being waged is not entitled to assert its monopoly on the legitimate exercise of force, either because 1) the nonstate group has established sufficient control over territory to assert its own governing authority; or 2) because the group is located abroad. Conferring war rights on nonstate fighters does not, however, permit them to engage in acts that violate the laws of war. Fighters who commit such violations are individually subject to prosecution without regard to their group's entitlement to war rights.

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.

scholarly journals The Morality of War: A Review and Research Agenda

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-249
Author(s):  
Hanne M. Watkins
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Intergroup Conflict ◽  
Psychological Study ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Morality Of War

What is judged as morally right and wrong in war? I argue that despite many decades of research on moral psychology and the psychology of intergroup conflict, social psychology does not yet have a good answer to this question. However, it is a question of great importance because its answer has implications for decision-making in war, public policy, and international law. I therefore suggest a new way for psychology researchers to study the morality of war that combines the strengths of philosophical just-war theory with experimental techniques and theories developed for the psychological study of morality more generally. This novel approach has already begun to elucidate the moral judgments third-party observers make in war, and I demonstrate that these early findings have important implications for moral psychology, just-war theory, and the understanding of the morality of war.

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.

Internecine War Killings

Utilitas ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 214-236 ◽  
Author(s):  
CÉCILE FABRE
Keyword(s):  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Interesting Issue ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Military ◽  
Self Defence

In his recent bookKilling in War, McMahan develops a powerful argument for the view that soldiers on opposite sides of a conflict are not morally on a par once the war has started: whether they have the right to kill depends on the justness of their war. In line with just war theory in general, McMahan scrutinizes the ethics of killing the enemy. In this article, I accept McMahan's account, but bring it to bear on the entirely neglected, but nevertheless interesting, issue of what the military call ‘blue-on-blue’ killings or, as I refer to such acts here, internecine war killings. I focus on the case of the soldier who is ordered by his officer, at gunpoint, to go into action or to kill innocent civilians, and who kills his officer in self-defence. I argue that, at the bar of McMahan's account of the right to kill in self-defence, the officer lacks a justification for attacking the soldier as a means of enforcing his order, and the soldier thus sometimes (but not always) has the right to kill his officer should the latter so act.

scholarly journals The morality of war: A review and research agenda

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanne M Watkins
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Intergroup Conflict ◽  
Psychological Study ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Morality Of War

What is judged as morally right and wrong in war? In the present paper I argue that despite many decades of research on moral psychology, and on the psychology of intergroup conflict, social psychology does not yet have a good answer to this question. However, it is a question of great importance, as its answer has implications for decision making in war, public policy, and international law. I therefore suggest a new way for psychology to study the morality of war, which combines the strengths of philosophical just war theory with experimental techniques and theories developed for the psychological study of morality more generally. This novel approach has already begun to elucidate the moral judgments we make in war, and I demonstrate that these early findings have important implications for moral psychology, just war theory, and our understanding of the morality of war.

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