Moral Theory and the Idea of a Just War

2005 ◽  
pp. 2-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Evans
Keyword(s):  
Moral Theory ◽  
Just War

Proportionality and Necessity in Jus in Bello

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeff McMahan
Keyword(s):  
Moral Theory ◽  
Just War ◽  
Traditional Theory ◽  
General Notion ◽  
Jus In Bello ◽  
Work First

In this chapter, the author explores the requirement of proportionality in the killing of civilians in war. The work first examines the general notion of proportionality in defensive harming. It then explores proportionality in the resort to war and explains why the traditional theory of just war claims that proportionality in individual acts of war must be different. The author argues that the traditional theory’s claim is a mistake and that when a war lacks just aims, individual acts of harming can seldom be proportionate. Finally, the author considers proportionality as a constraint on violence in a war with just aims, claiming that, in some instances, judgments of proportionality in the conduct of war can be surprisingly precise, though much depends on assumptions about certain fundamental issues in moral theory, such as whether there is an ‘agent-relative permission’ to give some degree of priority to one’s own life.

The Pragmatic Approach

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Pattison
Keyword(s):  
Moral Theory ◽  
Just War ◽  
International System ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Pragmatic Approach ◽  
Jus Ad Bellum ◽  
Alternative Approaches

This chapter explicates the Pragmatic Approach, which is used to assess the ethics of the alternatives to war. This approach is pragmatic in that it is significantly instrumentalist and takes seriously the nonideal and contingent features of the contemporary international system. The chapter first outlines a series of tests any moral theory should meet, before going on to present the central features of the Pragmatic Approach. The chapter then defends this approach, showing how it meets the four tests outlined and is superior to alternative approaches. It also delineates the links to Just War Theory, and especially the jus ad bellum principles of necessity and proportionality. The end of the chapter considers how the values on the Pragmatic Approach should be weighed.

Basic Premises and Method

2019 ◽  
pp. 21-42
Author(s):  
Alec D. Walen
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Just War ◽  
Causal Structure ◽  
Reflective Equilibrium ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Test Cases ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
High Level

The reigning method in moral philosophy is the search for reflective equilibrium. An interesting feature of contemporary moral philosophy is how much weight most theorists put on matching intuitions in test cases, rather than finding plausible, relevant, high-level moral principles that can be used to generate mid-level principles and judgments in particular situations. This chapter covers four themes in two groups. The first group concerns the author’s general approach to moral theory. It includes the role of theory and cases in the author’s own work and the role of evidence and facts in justification. The second group concerns two topics specifically relevant to just war theory: reductive individualism and the distinctive causal structure of eliminative killing.

Postscript

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeff McMahan
Keyword(s):  
Moral Theory ◽  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory

Military ethicists have largely abandoned the claim that whether a person is liable to harm in war depends on whether he or she belongs to a category, such as soldiers or civilians. This is especially because these categories can be independent of what a person actually does. This may be a result of attributing to each member of a group some feature that is characteristic of the group as a whole, which is a crucial mistake in moral theory. This doctrine of liability by association is of the same kind favored by terrorists. Instead, what is most important in these cases is what an individual does, for example, whether he or she is morally responsible for a threat of unjust harm. While traditional just war theory has failed to offer an adequate defense of the criterion of liability to harm, constructing a new one is a formidable task.

Just war

2000 ◽  
Vol 46 ◽  
pp. 137-151
Author(s):  
Nicholas Denyer
Keyword(s):  
Moral Theory ◽  
Just War ◽  
Violent Attack ◽  
Further Development

The innocent are immune. We must never, that is, make the object of any violent attack those who bear no responsibility for doing wrong to others; and only with grave reason and in extreme circumstances should we be prepared to cause them any incidental harm as we press home a violent attack against those who are its legitimate objects. This principle of the immunity of the innocent seems almost self-evidently true. This is not to say that the principle is incapable of further development and articulation, unsusceptible of marginal qualification, or underivable from deeper principles. It does however mean that any moral theory which denies this principle altogether will be something that only a fool or a knave could accept.

Deterrence and Moral Theory

1986 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 161-193
Author(s):  
Russell Hardin
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Just War ◽  
Ethical Reasoning ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Doctrine Of Double Effect ◽  
Moral Theories ◽  
Cast Doubt ◽  
Individual Choices

IntroductionIssues in public policy have been challenging and remaking moral theory for two centuries. Such issues force us to question fundamental principles of ethics while they cast doubt on our ability to generalize from traditional intuitions. No issue poses more remarkable difficulties for moral theory than nuclear weapons policy. Because the consequences of their deployment and therefore possible use could be grievous beyond those of any previously conceivable human action, these weapons frame the conflict between outcome-based, especially utilitarian, and action-based deontological moral theories more acutely than perhaps any other we have faced. Just because nuclear weapons may bring about the most grievous outcome imaginable, they elevate concern with outcomes over concern with actions. More generally, they wreak havoc with the focus on the morality of individual choices and actions, set limits to the notion of intention and the doctrine of double effect, call into question the so-called just-war theory, and overwhelm the intuitionist basis of much of ethical reasoning.

The Just War Revisited

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver O'Donovan
Keyword(s):  
Just War
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