I did a search on this forum looking for Just War, but could not find any threads regarding this. I apologize if this has previously been posted, but this is a timely issue.
The words “proportionate” response are currently being bandied about, but from previous philosophy classes I understood proportionate to mean avoiding uneccessary loss of civilian life and creating unecessary damage. How on earth are we to combat terrorist when they hide among civilians which is a defacto use of human shields.
Also, there is a debate regarding the preemptive attacks as unjust. Apparently, this is according to the UN, not a previous philosophy concept regarding preemptive attacks.
Also, it appears that an attack on a state religion and a trade embargo can cause a just war.
Okay, what is the state religion calls for maiming and huge violations in human rights such as discrimination against other faiths, or other religious groups.
Nasser’s trade embargo cause the 1967 Egypt Israel War. The UN created a trade embargo against Iraq. We are planning to do the same with Iran.
Do we only war if it is winable? Can we win against terrorists? Can terrorists win against us? Did our founders really believe they could win, or simply win terms to vote in government? Can people simply fight regardless if the conflict is winnable or not?
Are civilians just of guilty of waging a war as their military or leaders? Do we hold ourselves guilty for Bush’s actions as he is the LEGALLY elected president? Are the Lebanese guilty of aiding and abetting Hizbollah?
Comments, thoughts, but please no ad homs.
"A Just War will have benefits that outweight the destruction of war. Protecting our freedoms our human made rights do outweigh the expense . Many decry this and claim the militants are just blowhards. I doubt this and often read the claim from peaceful “moderate” Muslims that all humanity should submit to Sharia Law.
Introduction
The just war theory is a largely Christian philosophy that attempts to reconcile three things:
• taking human life is seriously wrong
• states have a duty to defend their citizens, and defend justice
• protecting innocent human life and defending important moral values sometimes requires willingness to use force and violence
The theory specifies conditions for judging if it is just to go to war, and conditions for how the war should be fought.
Although it was extensively developed by Christian theologians, it can be used by people of every faith and none.
Purpose
The aim of Just War Theory is to provide a guide to the right way for states to act in potential conflict situations. It only applies to states, and not to individuals (although an individual can use the theory to help them decide whether it is morally right to take part in a particular war).
Just War Theory provides a useful framework for individuals and political groups to use for their discussions of possible wars.
The theory is not intended to justify wars but to prevent them, by showing that going to war except in certain limited circumstances is wrong, and thus motivate states to find other ways of resolving conflicts.
‘Just’, or merely ‘Permissible’?
The doctrine of the Just War can deceive a person into thinking that because a war is just, it’s actually a good thing.
But behind contemporary war theory lies the idea that war is always bad. A just war is permissible because it’s a lesser evil, but it’s still an evil.
Origins
The principles of a Just War originated with classical Greek and Roman philosophers like Plato and Cicero and were added to by Christian theologians like Augustine and Thomas Aquinas.
(Read more about the history of just war)
Elements
There are two parts to Just War theory, both with Latin names:
• Jus ad bellum:
The conditions under which the use of military force is justified.
• Jus in bello:
How to conduct a war in an ethical manner.
A war is only a Just War if it is both justified, and carried out in the right way. Some wars fought for noble causes have been rendered unjust because of the way in which they were fought.
What is a Just War?
Six conditions must be satisfied for a war to be considered just (each condition is linked to more information):
• The war must be for a just cause.
• The war must be lawfully declared by a lawful authority.
• The intention behind the war must be good.
• All other ways of resolving the problem should have been tried first.
• There must be a reasonable chance of success.
• The means used must be in proportion to the end that the war seeks to achieve.
How should a Just War be Fought?
A war that starts as a Just War may stop being a Just War if the means used to wage it are inappropriate.
• Innocent people and non-combatants should not be harmed.
• Only appropriate force should be used.
o This applies to both the sort of force, and how much force is used.
• Internationally agreed conventions regulating war must be obeyed.
What is a ‘Just Cause’?
A war is only just if it is fought for a reason that is justified, and that carries sufficient moral weight. The country that wishes to use military force must demonstrate that there is a just cause to do so.
The main just cause is to put right a wrong. Sometimes a war fought to prevent a wrong from happening may be considered a just war.
In modern times wars to defend the innocent are increasingly regarded as just (which fits with the idea in some religious literature that it is better to defend an innocent than to defend oneself).
Just causes:
• Self-Defence:
o invasion: The clearest example of a just cause is self-defence against an aggressor. For example when an enemy has crossed your borders and invaded your territory.
But an actual invasion is not required. The self-defence cases below are less obviously just causes for war - whether they are or not depends on how severe a particular case is:
o assassination of a prominent person - a monarch or president
o attack on national honour (e.g. burning the flag, attacking an embassy)
o attack on state religion
o economic attack (trade embargo or sanctions)
o attack on a neighbour or ally
o preemptive strike: attacking the enemy to prevent an anticipated attack by them
Preemptive strikes may no longer be acceptable by UN members, since the Charter says that short of actual attack, “all Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means” (Article 2:3)
• Assisting an invaded friendly nation.
• Human rights violations:
Another common example is putting right a violation of human rights so severe that force is the only sensible response.
• To punish an act of aggression.
This is not accepted by everyone. Some people would say that a war of punishment can never be a just war.
Ethics > The Ethics of War
What is a Just Cause?
St. Augustine’s view
St. Augustine said there were three just causes:
• defending against attack
• recapturing things taken
• punishing people who have done wrong
Each of these can be seen as an act of justice: they harm someone who deserves to be harmed because they have done wrong.
A Modern Definition:
In 1993 the US Catholic Conference defined just cause like this:
“Just Cause: force may be used only to correct a grave, public evil, i.e., aggression or massive violation of the basic rights of whole populations.”
Punishment
There are three groups of people that might be in line for punishment:
• The whole people of another country.
• The leaders of another courntry.
• Private individuals in another country.
A war of punishment would only be just if it was in proportion to the crime and was the only way to achieve the desired end.
“Consequences
But there is another sort of proportionality to consider - whether the benefits of the war outweigh the harm it will do.
The aim here is to make sure that states don’t go to war if the harm done by the use of force is more than the good that would be achieved by going to war.
Proportionate means
Not just the aim of the war, but the means used to fight it must be in proportion to the wrong to be righted.
So destroying an enemy city with a nuclear weapon in retaliation for the invasion of an uninhabited island would make that war unethical, even though the cause of the war was just.â€
Violation of Human Rights
Let’s look at a couple of ways of expanding this idea…
A war is just if force is the only way to stop the triumph of evil.
This appears helpful, but the difficulty is deciding on what is ‘evil’, since not all potential enemies are as obviously evil as the Hitler regime in World War II.
A war is just in order to put right acts “that shock the moral conscience of mankind.”
This formula is perhaps more helpful, because it says that war is just in order to deal with things that would shock almost everyone.
Ethics > The Ethics of War
Lawfully declared
Only a war lawfully declared, by a government with the authority to declare war, can be a just war.
This rule enormously restricts the number of groups that can ethically wage war. For example, it stops wars declared by rebels who’ve overthrown a legal government being considered ethical.
It also prevents sneaky attacks in advance of a declaration of war being ethically acceptable as part of a Just War.
• The example usually quoted of an attack before a declaration of war is the Japanese attack on the Americans at Pearl Harbour.
Pre-emptive strikes
There are circumstances where an advance declaration of war would be inappropriate.
Lawful authority
This means the legal government of the state concerned. In some states - monarchies, dictatorships - this may be a single person, but it will usually be a government.
Most countries have established procedures for legally declaring a war, and these must be followed for a war to be a Just War.
There are two obvious problems with this, first: there can sometimes be doubt as to which group is the lawful government of a country, and second: if a government behaves in a way that is arbitrary and unjust does its ‘lawful’ authority have the necessary ethical force for it to be entitled to wage a Just War?
The UN as the lawful authority
From the middle years of the twentieth century people have often said that the appropriate authority should be the United Nations, rather than individual states.
• While the UN doesn’t declare war, there have been several recent cases of UN actions that can be regarded as ‘lawful authorisation’.
o There were UN resolutions to use force to expel Iraq from Kuwait; to preserve the no-fly zones in Bosnia; for the United States to act under Article 51 (the right of self defence) in Afghanistan and so on.
Some people have argued that because the UN is now the highest authority in the world, only a war authorised by the UN should count as a just war.
• For example, they say that the US and the UK could not claim that an attack on Iraq was ethically acceptable as a just war if they had not obtained a specific UN resolution to authorise it.
Against the UN as the lawful authority
Other people disagree with this view, because there is no universal agreement as to how far sovereign states have surrendered to the UN their authority to wage war.
From a strictly legal point of view UN member states actually have given up their right to wage war, since they are bound by Article 2.4 of the Charter which says that “all members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force”.
The idea of the UN as the final authority is very legalistic since in practice the actual power to do things such as wage war remains with individual states (or more usually alliances of states) rather than with the United Nations.
Ethics > The Ethics of War
Good intention
A war is only a Just War if it is waged from the right motives.
Good intentions could include:
• creating, restoring or keeping a just peace
• righting a wrong
• assisting the innocent
Bad intentions could include:
• seeking power
• demonstrating the power of a state
• grabbing land or goods, or enslaving people
• hatred of the enemy
• genocide
• personal or national glory
• revenge
• preserving colonial power
Bad intentions and atrocities
If a war is motivated by hatred of the enemy or revenge or some of the other motives above it becomes easy to regard the enemy as less than human and this makes it much more likely that atrocities and war crimes will be committed.
Problems
In real life a good intention may be bound up with a bad one!
If the only way to secure peace, or the only way to pay for a war to help the innocent is to capture some of the enemy’s territory, does a country’s intention to capture territory make the war an unjust one?
Origins
This is one of the Just War conditions that is primarily religious in origin. If a person (or the people making up a state) wages war from the wrong motives they endanger their soul, because God will know that they’ve done wrong and will punish them appropriately.
The good intentions condition survives in secular argument for two reasons:
• most people think motives are relevant to the moral quality of an action
• wars fought from bad motives often lead to an unjust peace which leads to further conflict
Ethics > The Ethics of War
War must be the last resort
The traditional view
A state should only go to war if it has tried every sensible, non-violent alternative first.
This is because a state should not put lives at risk unless it’s tried other remedies first.
The alternatives might include diplomacy, economic sanctions, political pressure from other nations, withdrawal of financial aid, condemnation in the United Nations, and so on.
These alternatives should be tried exhaustively and sincerely before violence is used.
Another view
Some writers don’t think that ‘last’ in last resort refers to the sequence of time. They argue that last resort means that the use of force is ethical only when it is really necessary and when no reasonable alternative is left.
They say that that war should be the least preferred course of action, but not necessarily the course of action that isn’t tried until after every other course of action has failed.
They argue that sometimes it will be morally better to go to war sooner rather than later.
This might be because waiting too long would allow the enemy to do much more damage, or kill more people than an early war would have done; or may allow the enemy to become so established in another country’s territory than far greater force will have to be used to remove him than would have been needed earlier.
Only winnable wars are just
A State should only go to war if it has a reasonable chance of winning. Going to war for a hopeless cause may be a noble act, but it is an unethical one.
This comes from the idea that war is a great evil, and that it is wrong to cause suffering, pain, and death with no chance of success.
So it would be unethical for a state to sacrifice the lives of its people (and the lives of its enemy’s people) in a futile gesture that would not change anything.
However, this condition can be dealt with by forming alliances with other countries in order to make an unwinnable war winnable by ganging up on a common enemy.
Problems
This condition is seen as particularly problematic because:
• it is sometimes morally necessary to fight against a much larger force, either for the sake of national self-esteem or to protect a threatened minority.
• this condition could be a bullies’ charter, in that it means that big powerful countries can trample on little ones, and the little ones can’t ethically retaliate, because they can’t win.
• an apparently undefeatable enemy may back down if a weak country seems determined to wage war if attacked, but warlike behaviour by a weak country would be unconvincing if that country subscribed to the just war doctrine.
• it may cause a weak country to surrender on ethical grounds a war that in fact it might actually win (for example the United Kingdom in the early days of the second world war when it was faced with the apparently overwhelming might of Germany).
What is success?
The idea of ‘winning’ is not a simple one. It’s probably better to rephrase the condition like this; “a war is only a just war if there is a reasonable chance of success”.
This way of putting it makes it clear that there has to be an absolutely clear idea of what will count as success before any decision can be taken about the moral rightness of a particular conflict. Thus the aims of a war must be set out in advance.
A just war must be proportionate
Goal
There are two ways of looking at this:
-
The goal of the war should be in proportion to the offence. Thus a state should not set itself a goal that is out of scale to the wrong to be righted.
o So if country A invades part of country B, it is ethical for B to go to war to get the captured territory back, but it would not be ethical for B to go to war to conquer country A and take over all of it. -
The benefits of waging the war must be in proportion to the costs, so:
o it must prevent more evil than it causes
o it must prevent more human suffering than it causes
Consequences
But there is another sort of proportionality to consider - whether the benefits of the war outweigh the harm it will do.
The aim here is to make sure that states don’t go to war if the harm done by the use of force is more than the good that would be achieved by going to war.
Proportionate means
Not just the aim of the war, but the means used to fight it must be in proportion to the wrong to be righted.
So destroying an enemy city with a nuclear weapon in retaliation for the invasion of an uninhabited island would make that war unethical, even though the cause of the war was just.
The conduct of war
This is the issue of how a war should be fought, rather than why or if it should be fought.
For a war to be a just war it must be fought according to certain rules - a war which is just in cause can be unjust in the way it is fought, or the other way around.
The concept of the just conduct of war has the latin name of Jus In Bello.
The principle topics concerned are:
• whom it is ethical to fight
• how much force it is ethical to use
• is the use of certain weapons always wrong?
• the role of international conventions on war
While the issues of when is it right to go to war are high level issues for governments, the issues of the conduct of war often end up on the desk of military commanders, or fall to the instant decision of individual soldiers.
Whom can you fight?
Is it immoral to involve civilians in a war? Who is, and who isn’t, a combatant?
How much force can be used?
The force used should be ‘proportional’ or ‘appropriate’: the force needed to win, and no more.
So it is probably unethical to use a flame-thrower or a machine gun against an enemy who is armed only with clubs (although if these were the only weapons available and the alternative was surrendering and being killed, what then?).
It is certainly unethical to kill the soldiers of an army that has surrendered.
Weapons that are intrinsically evil
These are usually taken to be chemical and biological weapons. These were banned by the Geneva Protocol in 1925.
Many writers argue that nuclear weapons are inherently evil.
There is a growing view that landmines, because they are indiscriminate weapons which cause great harm to civilians, are inherently evil.
Certain military methods are also regarded as intrinsically evil such as genocide, mass rape, torture and so on.
The Hague Convention of 1907 bans:
• poison or poisoned weapons
• killing or wounding treacherously
• killing or wounding an enemy who, having laid down his arms, or having no longer means of defence, has surrendered at discretion
• declaring that no mercy will be given to defeated opponents
• using arms, projectiles, or material calculated to cause unnecessary suffering
International conventions
Where countries have signed a convention governing warfare, soldiers are considered to merit punishment if they break any of the rules in that convention.
The conduct of war - Whom can you fight?
The practical question is this: “Is it immoral to kill civilians in war?”
An issue of growing importance
This question has become more important during the last 100 years because a century ago most people killed in wars were professionals.
• At the beginning of the twentieth century only 10%-15% of those who died in war were civilians.
• In World War 2 more than 50% of those who died were civilians.
• By the end of the century over 75% of those killed in war were civilians.
The general rule
The general rule is that only those people fighting you are legitimate targets of attack. Those who are not fighting should not be attacked as this would violate their human rights.
The Geneva Convention lays down that civilians are not to be subject to attack. This includes direct attacks on civilians and indiscriminate attacks against areas in which civilians are present.
This can be developed into two principles:
• it is unjust to attack non-combatants
• it is unjust to attack indiscriminately, as non-combatants may be killed
Who is, and who is not a combatant?
While there is general agreement that only combatants are legitimate targets, the issue of who actually is a combatant is much less clear.
• Definitely combatants:
o members of military forces
o members of guerrilla forces (even though not in uniform)
o anyone who takes up arms in the conflict, other than in direct self-defence
• Definitely non-combatants
o all citizens of neutral countries
unless they do something incompatible with their neutral status - like fighting for one of the armies involved in the conflict as a mercenary soldier
o the old and the sick
o children
but children were historically used as combatants, e.g. the “powder monkeys” in warships in the days of sail
child soldiers are becoming more common in terrorist conflicts and third world armies
International conventions specify that countries should not allow children under 15 to participate in hostilities or to be recruited into the armed forces.
• Probably non-combatants
o soldiers who have been wounded or who have surrendered
this hasn’t always been so - armies used to make a point of butchering enemy wounded or those who surrendered
although soldiers who surrender shouldn’t be killed, it’s quite legitimate to make them prisoners so that they can’t attack you again
o military personnel clearly identified as having specifically non-combatant roles such as medical staff and chaplains
such personnel are often injured or killed because their job takes them into the most dangerous parts of the battle
• Probably non-combatants, but…
o Civilians whose work keeps the country alive - farmers, miners, transport workers, and so on should not be treated as combatants, even though their work also supports those who are involved in waging war.
• May well be regarded as combatants
o civilians who are helping the war effort - these are people working to supply the troops and to provide them with weapons or helping in other ways.
They aren’t combatants in the sense of bearing arms, but they are an essential part of the war machine and constitute a threat to the other side.
Some philosophers say that there are no non-combatants in war, and that every citizen of an enemy state is a legitimate target.
Implications for weapons of mass destruction
The principle of not targetting non-combatants is the reason most people think the use of mass bombing or nuclear weapons is unethical. There is still a great deal of controversy about the morality of the atom bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the fire bombing of Dresden and Berlin.
When civilians do get hurt
In modern warfare it’s difficult to ensure that only soldiers get hurt, for despite the effectiveness of precision weapons civilians are often hurt and killed.
The “doctrine of double effect” is sometimes put forward as a defense.
For example if an army base in the middle of a city is bombed and a few civilians living nearby are killed as well, nothing unethical has been done, because the army base was a legitimate target and the death of civilians was not the intention of the bombing (even though their death could be predicted).
The doctrine of double effect can’t be used to defend the use of weapons of mass destruction, such as non-precision nuclear weapons, area bombing, or chemical or biological weapons used against a population in general, since these are so indiscriminate in effect that civilian casualties can’t be regarded as a secondary result.
Are all civilians a legitimate target?
Some people answer the question: “Is it immoral to kill civilians in war?” with an unequivocal “no”. They say that all the citizens of the enemy country should be regarded as combatants.
As modern wars are fought by the resources of a whole country, they argue, it doesn’t make sense to distinguish the citizens who contribute directly to the war effort from those who don’t. The whole nation is at war, and every citizen is a combatant.
A supporting argument was that if the whole nation was supporting the war effort, then every member of that nation was responsible for the acts carried out by that country’s armed forces and could be regarded as a combatant.
These ideas became popular from the writings of Giulio Douhet, an Italian General in the early part of the twentieth century, who was one of the first strategists to understand the true potential of air power.
Douhet thought that all future wars would be total wars and that there should be no distinction between combatants and non-combatants: when a nation is at war, everyone is involved.
Douhet argued that the best way to win a war was to crush the enemy by attacking its weakest points: its cities and civilians. This should be done by air:
“A complete breakdown of the social structure cannot but take place in a country subjected to this kind of merciless pounding from the air. The time will soon come when, to put an end to the horror and suffering, the people themselves, driven by the instinct of self-preservation, would rise up and demand an end to the war.”
The Command of the Air
During World War 2 the RAF used a mass bombing strategy over Germany for a period, but their aim was not Drouhet’s of so distressing the civilian population that they rebelled against their leaders, but to cause so much fear and distress that morale collapsed, and the war effort with it.
Implications for military personnel
If a country wishes to wage war ethically it has the responsibility to impose certain obligations on its soldiers:
• Soldiers must be instructed to avoid injuring civilians whenever possible
o and this means that soldiers must be prepared to put their own lives at risk in order to limit civilian casualties
• Soldiers must be taught the rules of war, and the reasons behind them
• Orders must be unambiguously given so as to comply with the rules of war
o For example, a USA training programme points out that an order to ‘get rid of the prisoners’ might be intended to mean ‘send the prisoners out of the battle zone’, but could be interpreted as ‘kill the prisoners’
• The rules of war must be enforced; this involves:
o training soldiers in the rules of war so that they become an automatic part of their attitudes and thinking
o punishing for breaches of the rules of war
Against the Theory of the Just War
Some people argue that the Just War doctrine is inherently immoral, while others suggest that there is no place for ethics in war. Still others argue that the doctrine doesn’t apply in the conditions of modern conflicts.
Here are some of the arguments that have been put forward:
• all war is unjust and has no place in any ethical theory
o morality must always oppose deliberate violence
o just war ideas tend to make violence OK, rather than restrain it
• war so disrupts the normal rules of society that morality goes out of the window.
• the just war theory is unrealistic and pointless
o in a conflict “the strong do what they will, and the weak do what they must”
o the decision to wage war is governed by realism and relative strength, not ethics
o morality thus has no use in war
• if God “requires us to make war” it would be wrong to disobey him, regardless of the requirements of the Just War theory
o in the Bible God is frequently on the side of those waging wars that don’t conform to just war theory
• The overriding aim of war should be to achieve victory as quickly and cheaply as possible
o if the cause is just, then no restrictions should be placed on achieving it
o the rules of conduct of war are mere camouflage because they are always over-ruled by ‘military necessity’
• the existence of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons of mass destruction requires a different approach to the problem
o these weapons can only be used for unrestricted war and so the condition of proportionality can’t be met if they are used
o using these weapons guarantees civilian casualties, and thus breaks a basic rule of the conduct of war
o since these weapons can’t be uninvented they render just war theory pointless
o in recent times it has become possible to target such weapons quite precisely, so the problems above only apply to indiscriminate versions of such weapons
o the ethics of weapons of mass destruction are a different topic
o
• terrorists are inherently uninterested in morality, so following any ethical theory of war handicaps those whom terrorists attack - thus a different approach is needed
History
The discussion of the ethics of war goes back to the Greeks and Romans, although neither civilisation behaved particularly well in war.
In the Christian tradition war ethics were developed by St Augustine, and later by St Thomas Aquinas and others.
Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), a Dutch philosopher and author of De Jure Belli Ac Pacis (The Rights of War and Peace), wrote down the conditions for a just war that are accepted today.
The Romans
Cicero argued that there was no acceptable reason for war outside of just vengeance or self defence - in which he included the defence of honour.
He also argued that a war could not be just unless it was publicly declared and unless compensation for the enemy’s offence had first been demanded.
Cicero based his argument on the assumption that nature and human reason biased a society against war, and that there was a fundamental code of behaviour for nations.
St Augustine
St Augustine was a 4th century Christian who lived in Algeria and Italy. He believed that the only just reason to go to war was the desire for peace.
“We do not seek peace in order to be at war, but we go to war that we may have peace. Be peaceful, therefore, in warring, so that you may vanquish those whom you war against, and bring them to the prosperity of peace.”
Augustine tried to reconcile Christian pacifism with the world as it actually was; to bring together the pacifist teachings of Jesus Christ with the obligations of Roman citizens - including Christians - to fight for their country when required to.
Augustine accepted that there would always be wars. He thought that war was always a sin, and if there had to be a war, it should be waged with sadness.
But Augustine said that war was always the result of sin, and that war was also the remedy for sin. And if war was the remedy for sin, then war could sometimes be justifiable - but only if it was a remedy for sin.
Augustine made it clear that individuals and states (or the rulers of states) have different obligations when it came to war or violence.
He stated that Christians did not have the right to defend themselves from violence, however they could use violence if it was necessary to defend the innocent against evil.
The rulers of states, he said, had an obligation to maintain peace, and this obligation gave them the right to wage war in order to maintain peace. It also gave them the right to wage war in order to ensure justice and even impose punishment - something that would not be accepted nowadays.
“A just war is wont to be described as one that avenges wrongs, when a nation or state has to be punished, for refusing to make amends for the wrongs inflicted by its subjects, or to restore what it has seized unjustly.”
This was because injustice was a greater evil than war, and it was proper to carry out a lesser evil if it would prevent a greater evil.
But a war is only just if those waging it do so with the intention of doing good. Punishing the enemy is not a sufficient motive on its own.
“True religion looks upon as peaceful those wars that are waged not for motives of aggrandisement, or cruelty, but with the object of securing peace, of punishing evil-doers, and of uplifting the good.”
Augustine was much less concerned with how people should be treated during a war, because to him, physical death was not a particularly important thing.
With regards,
aspacia 