The Automation of Authority: Discrepancies with Jus Ad Bellum Principles

This chapter considers how the adoption of autonomous weapons systems (AWS) may affect jus ad bellum principles of warfare. In particular, it focuses on the use of AWS in non-international armed conflicts (NIAC). Given the proliferation of NIAC, the development and use of AWS will most likely be attuned to this specific theater of war. As warfare waged by modernized liberal democracies (those most likely to develop and employ AWS at present) increasingly moves toward a model of individualized warfare, how, if at all, will the principles by which we measure the justness of the commencement of such hostilities be affected by the introduction of AWS, and how will such hostilities stack up to current legal agreements surrounding their more traditional engagement? This chapter claims that such considerations give us reason to question the moral and legal necessity of ad bellum proper authority.

The Historical Just War Tradition

In what circumstances, if any, would the recourse to war be justified? What restraints should be binding on any such use of force? The pre-eminent framework for addressing these questions is the just war tradition. Boasting a history that can be traced back to ancient Rome, this corpus has been distilled over time into a set of principles that bear on two poles, the jus ad bellum, the norms that govern the resort to war, and the jus in bello, the constraints binding on its prosecution. Scholars dispute the composition of these poles, but all concur that the former turns on “just cause,” “proper authority,” and “right intention,” while the latter includes “proportionality” and “discrimination.” This chapter discusses the prizes and pitfalls that attend the study of the ethics of war in light of the historical just war tradition.

Dying for the state: the missing just war question?

This article introduces the problem of having to risk one's life for the state in war, asking first why this question is no longer asked in the just war literature and then suggesting five issues that relate to this question: 1) that of individual consent, 2) whether or not any state can be justified in obliging its citizens in this regard and whether or not the type of government is important, 3) whether or not the problem of the obligation differs between conscript and volunteer armies, 4) the problem of political obligation and how any individual could be justifiably obliged to risk his or her life for the state in war, and 5) the question of whether a citizen may be obliged to go into any war. The argument is that these questions are no longer given much attention in the just war literature because of the way that the concept of proper authority has come to be understood. The article concludes by suggesting that the problem of the ‘obligation to die’ should be included in our understanding and use of just war theory and the ethics of war.

The Whore of Babylon and the Abomination of Abominations: Nineteenth-Century Catholic and Mormon Mutual Perceptions and Religious Identity

In 1846, Oran Brownson, the older brother of the famed Catholic convert Orestes A. Brownson, penned a letter to his brother recounting a dream Orestes had shared with him much earlier. In the dream, Orestes, Oran, and a third brother, Daniel, were “traveling a road together.” “You first left the road then myself and it remains to be seen whether Daniel will turn out of the road (change his opinion),” Oran wrote. At approximately the same period in which Orestes converted to Catholicism “because no other church possessed proper authority,” Oran joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because he believed that “proper authority rests among the Mormons.” Indeed, in an era characterized by denominational proliferation, democratization, and competition, Catholic and Mormon claims to divine authority proved appealing to some Americans, like the Brownsons, wearied by the diversity and disunity of the Protestant world. Oran cautioned Orestes to not trust polemical literature against Mormonism, but to “get your information from friends and not enemies.” Orestes could have repeated the same warning about Catholicism, given the number and intensity of nineteenth-century attacks on both Catholics and Mormons. Leaving mainstream Christianity to join the most despised religions in nineteenth-century America, the Brownson brothers embarked on spiritual quests that few contemporary Americans would have understood, much less approved.

The Four-Shilling Grant

We observe that the important question of the Government Grant has been again before the Lancashire Asylums Board. It would appear that the resolutions of the County Councils' Association were in favour of extending the four-shilling grant to chronic pauper lunatics maintained in workhouse wards under special regulations, and to idiots maintained in public institutions. It was pointed out, however, that there was a material departure from the resolution adopted by the Lancashire Board, which prescribed that, before the grant was to be extended in that manner, the patients must have been treated in an asylum—a period of two years having been mentioned, thereupon a deputation to the Local Government Board was appointed, and the Lancashire Asylum authorities are to be congratulated upon having made a stand for their own opinion. The treatment of acute insanity cannot be effective under workhouse regulations. An asylum is a hospital, and should receive the mentally-afflicted in the first instance. A workhouse may, under proper authority, be fitted to accommodate harmless dements; and, in the interest of the ratepayers as well as of the insane, such a rearrangement is highly desirable. It is, however, of essential importance that the cases selected for the cheaper, simpler, and less specialised care of workhouse officials should have passed through the local asylum and under the review of the Commissioners. We are not inclined to fix any term of residence in asylums, preferring to leave their physicians unfettered by such a regulation as the two-year limit spoken of at Lancaster. It is quite probable that a very much shorter period of observation would suffice to determine the propriety of passing a hopeless, easily-managed case from an overcrowded asylum to the lunatic ward of the neighbouring workhouse. We need not support these views by lengthy reference to the results obtained in Scotland under such a system as is now recommended, but must congratulate Dr. J. A. Campbell on the eminent success attending the proposal which he brought forward at our Annual Meeting of 1893.