A Response

1997 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 99-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Walzer
Keyword(s):  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Noncombatant Immunity ◽  
Moral Decisions ◽  
Theory Of War

Responding to the critiques of the four previous authors, Walzer opens with a statement of the inherent imperfection of any theory of war. He reminds us that theories are merely frameworks for decisions and cannot provide answers in and of themselves. Moral decisions in war are especially difficult, for it is often necessary to choose between equally valid claims. Walzer continues the discussion of sieges initiated by both Koontz and Boyle and concedes the validity of Koontz's criticism of inconsistency in his theory of noncombatant immunity. Addressing the different authors' moral doctrines–Hendrickson's consequentialism and Koontz's and Boyle's deontology–Walzer argues that it is better to judge each case individually, weighing both the consequences and principles, rather than strictly adhere to one moral doctrine, an approach commended by Smith. Finally, in the search for a perfect just war theory, Walzer issues a realist reminder that there can be no such thing as a morally perfect war.

Moral Victories

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Moral Status ◽  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
The Political ◽  
Clear Understanding ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Humanitarian Interventions ◽  
Theory Of War ◽  
Military Relations

What does it mean to win a moral victory? In the history, practice, and theory of war, this question yields few clear answers. Wars often begin with ideals about just and decisive triumphs but descend into quagmires. In the just war and strategic studies traditions, assumptions about victory underpin legitimations for war but become problematic in discussions about its conduct and conclusion. After centuries of conflict, we still lack a clear understanding of victory or reliable resources for discerning its moral status, its implications for conduct in war, or its relationship to changing ways of war. This book brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars to tackle such issues. It is organized in two parts. After a synoptic introduction, Part I, ‘Traditions: The Changing Character of Victory’, charts the historically variable notion of victory and the dialogues and fissures this opens in the just war and strategic canons. Individual chapters analyse the importance of victory in the Bible, Clausewitz’s strategy, the political uses of defeat, arguments for unlimited war, revisionist just war theory, and contemporary norms against fights to the finish. Part II, ‘Challenges: The Problem of Victory in Contemporary Warfare’, shows how changing security contexts exacerbate these issues. Individual chapters discuss ethics in unwinnable wars, the political scars of victory, whether we can ‘win’ humanitarian interventions, contemporary civil–military relations, victory in privatized war, and operations short of war. In both parts, contributors work towards a clearer understanding of victory, forwarding several shared themes discussed in a critical conclusion.

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.

War in Political Philosophy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Frowe
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Moral Status ◽  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Ordinary Life ◽  
Unconventional Warfare ◽  
Noncombatant Immunity ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Just War Tradition ◽  
Changing Attitudes

We can distinguish between three moral approaches to war: pacifism, realism, and just war theory. There are various theoretical approaches to war within the just war tradition. One of the central disputes between these approaches concerns whether war is morally exceptional (as held by exceptionalists), or morally continuous with ordinary life (as held by reductive individualists). There are also significant debates concerning key substantive issues in the ethics of war, such as reductivist challenges to the thesis that combatants fighting an unjust war are the moral equals of those fighting a just war, and the challenge to reductivism that it undermines the principle of noncombatant immunity. There are also changing attitudes to wars of humanitarian intervention. One under-explored challenge to the permissibility of such wars lies in the better outcomes of alternative ways of alleviating suffering. The notion of unconventional warfare has also come to recent prominence, not least with respect to the moral status of human shields.

scholarly journals Just War and Just Battle: North Korea’s Attack against the ROKS Cheonan and its Unexplored Discourse of an Unjustified Military Action

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-25
Author(s):  
Kil Joo Ban
Keyword(s):  
North Korea ◽  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
International Order ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Grand Theory ◽  
South Korean ◽  
Theory Of War ◽  
Limited Warfare ◽  
Post War

In March 2010, a North Korean submarine fired a torpedo against the South Korean ship Cheonan, which resulted in the deaths of 46 sailors. Is its surprise attack justified? The academic examination has rarely been made over whether North Korea’s use of military force is justified in this battle. As the just war theory to date has dealt mostly with major wars, it also can guide us to judge whether this limited warfare is just or not. The just war principles are composed of three axes: before, in and after wars. First, North Korea’s provocation had neither right cause nor right intension because it attacked the Cheonan preventively, not preemptively, and was intended to achieve its domestic objective, the stable succession of the Kim regime. Second, North Korea also did not observe in-war principles in the sense that it attacked and sank the Cheonan unproportionally to maximize the effectiveness of revenge. Third, North Korea was not interested in post-battle settlements but intended to aggravate tensions in the region, which is not compliant with post-war principles. The examination sheds some light on the need to expand the scope of just war principles from war to limited warfare and battles particularly in the sense that it helps restrain unethical warfare and maintain the rules-based international order. This expansion also will contribute to not only the richness of the just war theory but also further leading it to evolve into a grand theory of war.

Justice in Asymmetric Wars: A Contractarian Analysis

2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 172-200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yitzhak Benbaji
Keyword(s):  
Just War ◽  
Personal Responsibility ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
The Other ◽  
Civic Life ◽  
War Of Independence ◽  
Noncombatant Immunity ◽  
Weak Part ◽  
Asymmetric War ◽  
Freedom Fighters

Abstract This Article aims to extend contractarianism in just war theory to the case of asymmetric war of independence. Its main thesis is that within asymmetric wars, the traditional rule of noncombatant immunity has no contractarian justification: It systematically discriminates against the weak part to the conflict, and thus it is unfair. On the other hand, a rule that allows those who take themselves to be freedom fighters to threaten civic life, yet prohibits deliberately targeting individuals, is fair and mutually beneficial. The branch of the war convention I called “justice in asymmetric war” instructs militants to treat civilians as if they bear no personal responsibility for the evil that their society causes.

scholarly journals Orthodox Christianity and War

2021 ◽  
Vol 63 (11) ◽  
pp. 39-57
Author(s):  
Jovan Babić
Keyword(s):  
Just War ◽  
Essential Feature ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Orthodox Christianity ◽  
Vast Literature ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Per Se ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Theory Of War ◽  
The Right

The subject of this article is the Orthodox Christianity’s approach to war. Christians of other denomination have developed an elaborate theory of war, so-called “Just War Theory” (JWT), which has also been accepted by non-Christians and even secular thinkers regarding the nature and justification of war. A vast literature has been produced in a dire attempt to render perfect the world by insisting on the claim that war is the act of punishment for breaking the law. The result is an epistemological ease from which everything seems evident in advance including who is right and who at fault, who is and who is not favored by God. By removing from war an essential feature – that it is a form of conflict – JWT takes away the concept of reciprocity and introduces an in advance declared inequality which enables removal of uncertainty about the war’s outcome. In Orthodox Christianity, the situation is different. With still live debate whether to persevere or abandon original Christian pacifism, for Orthodox Christianity, war is always a combination of cataclysm and temptation and far less Manichean than anything present in JWT. The aim of war is peace; but, however necessary, justice is an insufficient condition for justification. The difference between “justness” and “justification” is preserved through the uncertainty whom God, at war’s end, loves more, because both victors and vanquished remain and continue to be in His grace. Losing a war, as such, does not turn the vanquished into criminals, nor does victory give the vanquisher the right of revenge for defending oneself. The latter approach to war has significant potentialities: preserving the distinction of ius ad bellum and ius in bello, preserving reciprocity, mutual respect and trust, impossibility of incrimination of war per se, the possibility of honorable defeat, etc.

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.

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.

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