The Ethics of War

1
The Ethics of War

• 2.forelesning

2
Approaches to war

• Just war
• Political realism
• Pacifism
• Contingent pacifism
• Perpetual peace

3
Just War theory as an in-between?

• Common assumptionJust war theory between
  pacifism and realism
• Justifies/constrains
• Separate normative from descriptive approaches!

4
Alternative categories

• Militarism
• Crusading
• Defencism
• Pacificism
• Pacifism

5
Just War in political theory

• A form of idealism state leaders make (moral)
  choices
• A form of realism unlikely (and undesirable?)
  that war can be abandoned
• Presumption against war or presumption against
  unjust war?
• Just war as crusading or defencism?

6
Just war crusading or defencism?

• Anscombe defencism is false. Question is who is
  right! (p 52)
• Turner Johnson on Just War and defencism
• (Just cause)
• - the duty to protect and assist.
• - the problem of defining aggression (Israel
  1967)
• - Simultanous ostensible justice

7
Realism

• Ad bellum Raison d état
• In bello Morality in war is impossible (cf.
  ought-implies-can principle)

8
Realism (in bello)

• War is an act of force which theoretically can
  have no limits (Clausewitz)
• Inter arma silent leges (the laws are silent in
  war.)
• All is fair in love and war

9
Realism (ad bellum)

• 1) Descriptive realism
• Power politics and national self-interest
• Assumptions about human nature
• The state of nature between states (Hobbes)
• 2) Prescriptive realism

10
Walzer on the moral reality of war

• In bello Strategic talk is meaningful and
  normative (ought-) talk!
• Ad bellum War is about making choices and
  justifying them

11
Pacifism

• Personal (Stevenson Individualistic) pacifism
• Universal (Stevenson political or
  collectivistic) pacifism

12
Anscombe on pacifism

• P. is Utopian warning against high principles!
• P. misconstrues the use of coercive power to be a
  bad thing (i.e., there can be no society without
  coercive power)
• P. makes no distinction between shedding innocent
  blood and shedding any human blood.

13
Analysing Anscombe

• The critique against Utopianism
• The critique against non-violence philosophy
• The critique against not distinguishing betw.
  innocent and non-innocent

14
Justifications for pacifism

• Consequentialist pacifism
• Deontological pacifism

15
Anscombes reply

• We have a right to kill those engaged in an
  objectively wrongful proceeding
• To be innocent is to not be engaged in harming
• Discriminate between leg and illeg targets
• Only wrong to kill the innocent!

16
Contingent pacifism

1. rarely, if ever, is it morally permissible to
   kill the innocent
2. all wars involve killing, or the risk of killing,
   the innocent
3. rarely, if ever, are wars morally justified

17
The Doctrine of Double Effect

• The act is good in itself or at least indifferent
  (legitimate act of war)
• The direct effect is morally acceptable (e.g.,
  destruction of military supplies or killing of
  enemy soldiers)
• The intention of the actor is good, that is, he
  aims only at the acceptable effect the evil
  effect is not one of his ends or a means to his
  ends
• The good effect is sufficiently good to
  compensate for allowing the evil effect
  (proportionality)
• (the agent seeks to minimise the evil effect,
  accepting cost to himself) (Wars, 153-155)

18
Democratic Peace Theory

• Democratic peace theory Democracies do not go to
  war against each other.
• Opposed to realism as dominant theory of
  international relations
• Empirically supported from the 1960s. So far
  verified?
• Institutional constraints citizens do not
  consent to war unless attacked..
• Promising, but several methodological
  difficulties

19
Preliminary articles of perpetual peace

• No conclusion of peace shall be valid if such was
  made with a secret reservation of the material
  future of a war
• No independently existing state (..)may be
  aquired by another state
• Standing armies will gradually be abolished
  altogether
• No mational debt shall be contracted in
  conncetion with the internal affairs of a state
• No state shall forcibly interfere in the
  constitution and government of another state
• No state at war with another should permit such
  act of hostility as would make mutual confidence
  impossible during a future time of peace

20
Definite articles of Perpetual peace

• Every state should have a republican constitution
• The right of nations should be based on a
  federation of free states
• Cosmopolitan right shall be limited to conditions
  of universal hospitality
• 
  

21
Pacifism summarised

• Pacifism
• - Individual
• - Political
• Individual pacifism
• - Non-violence
• - Anti-war-ism
• Political pacifism
• - Universal perpetual peace/pacificism
• - particular Appeasement

22
Cont.

• Justifications for pacifism
• - Consequentialist
• - deontological
• Deontological pacifism
• - Radical Killing human beings is always
  wrong (war killing gt intrinsically wrong)
• - Contingent Killing innocent human beings is
  always wrong (war (almost) always killing
  innocents gt war is (almost) always wrong)

23
Just war reply

• Intentional killing of the innocent is always
  wrong!
• Only soldiers can be intentionally killed in war,
  and soldiers are not innocent.
• Innocence is a term of art which means that one
  is not harming
• But does it work?