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Switch to: References
Citations of:
The Just War and the Gulf War
Canadian Journal of Philosophy 23 (4):501 - 541 (1993)
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The principle of proportionality demands that a war (or action in war) achieve more goods than bads. In the philosophical literature there has been a wealth of work examining precisely which goods and bads may count toward this evaluation. However, in all of these discussions there is no mention of one of the most certain bads of war, namely the psychological harm(s) likely to be suffered by the combatants who ultimately must fight and kill for the purposes of winning in (...) No categories |
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Do innocent civilians who will be killed in a justified attack on a nearby military target have a right to defend themselves by shooting down the bomber pilot? I argue that they do not, and that Jeff McMahan's view that they do have such a right—that there is a moral equivalence between pilot and civilian—is flawed in much the same way that Michael Walzer's moral equivalence of combatants—a position that McMahan has so persuasively refuted—is flawed. |
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Because the poorest people tend to die from easily preventable diseases, addressing poverty is a relatively cheap way to save lives. War, by contrast, is extremely expensive. This article argues that, since states that wage war could alleviate poverty instead, poverty can render war unjust. Two just war theory conditions prove relevant: proportionality and last resort. Proportionality requires that war does not yield excessive costs in relation to the benefits. Standardly, just war theorists count only the direct costs: the death (...) No categories |
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This article addresses a previously overlooked problem in the ethics of defensive killing. Everyone agrees that defensive killing can only be justified when it is necessary. But necessary for what? That seemingly simple question turns out to be surprisingly difficult to answer. Imagine Attacker is trying to kill Victim, and the only way one could save Victim is by killing Attacker. It would seem that, in such a case, killing is necessary. But now suppose there is some other innocent person, (...) No categories |
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Innocence is a notion that can prove controversial. Claims of innocence typically support not imposing burdens on the innocent when their conduct is relevantly unobjectionable. This paper examines innocence in the context of violent conflict between states or groups. Many thinkers about the morality of such violence want to establish a principle that would protect innocent civilians. Yet the common view in just war theory does not affirm the moral innocence of civilians. Similarly, the common view that soldiers have an (...) |
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The traditional theory of the just war comprises two sets of principles, one governing the resort to war ( jus ad bellum) and the other governing the conduct of war ( jus in bello). The two sets of principles are regarded, in Michael Walzer’s words, as “logically independent. It is perfectly possible for a just war to be fought unjustly and for an unjust war to be fought in strict accordance with the rules.”1 Let us say that those who fight (...) |
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This paper argues that certain central tenets of the traditional theory of the just war cannot be correct. It then advances an alternative account grounded in the same considerations of justice that govern self-defense at the individual level. The implications of this account are unorthodox. It implies that, with few exceptions, combatants who fight for an unjust cause act impermissibly when they attack enemy combatants, and that combatants who fight in a just war may, in certain circumstances, legitimately target noncombatants (...) |
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This paper argues that certain central tenets of the traditional theory of the just war cannot be correct. It then advances an alternative account grounded in the same considerations of justice that govern self-defense at the individual level. The implications of this account are unorthodox. It implies that, with few exceptions, combatants who fight for an unjust cause act impermissibly when they attack enemy combatants, and that combatants who fight in a just war may, in certain circumstances, legitimately target noncombatants (...) |
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A just cause for war is a type of wrong that may make those responsible for it morally liable to military attack as a means of preventing or rectifying it. This claim has implications that conflict with assumptions of the current theory of just war. |
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McMahan challenges the assumption that respect for self-determination requires an almost exceptionless doctrine of nonintervention by first defining the notions of "intervention" and "self-determination," and then analyzing Walzer's doctrine of nonintervention. |
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This article is a response to commentaries on my book, Killing in War, by Cécile Fabre, Alex Leveringhaus and Victor Tadros. It discusses the implications of the approach I have defended for the morality of war for such issues as internecine killing in war, humanitarian intervention and the bases of individual liability to attack in war. |
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The categories of "civilian" or "soldier,” “combatant" or “noncombatant,” are thought to be stable. Yet, the case of the naked soldier taking a bath challenges such stability in a way that illustrates the serious conceptual and normative problems with identifying such social groups. |
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According to just war theory, a resort to war is justified only if it satisfies the right intention condition. This article offers a critical examination of this condition, defending the thesis that, despite its venerable history as part of the just war tradition, it ought to be jettisoned. When properly understood, it turns out to be an unnecessary element of jus ad bellum, adding nothing essential to our assessments of the justice of armed conflict. |
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This paper discusses the novel versions of the right intention and proportionality conditions in the ius ad bellum proposed in Chapter 3 of Frances Kamm’s Ethics for Enemies. It argues that Kamm is right to weaken the right intention condition to require, not positively intending a war’s just cause, but only having that cause’s presence be a necessary condition for war, but wrong to place no limits on why one makes a just cause necessary. It then argues that the weakening (...) |
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Which harms and benefits should be viewed as relevant when considering whether to launch cyber-measures? In this article, we consider this question, which matters because it is central to determining whether cyber-measures should be launched. Several just war theorists hold a version of what we call the ‘Restrictive View’, according to which there are restrictions on the sorts of harms and benefits that should be included in proportionality assessments about the justifiability of going to war (whether cyber or kinetic). We (...) |
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Just wars are supposed to be proportional responses to aggression: the costs of war must not greatly exceed the benefits. This proportionality principle raises a corresponding ‘interpretation problem’: what are the costs and benefits of war, how are they to be determined, and a ‘measurement problem’: how are costs and benefits to be balanced? And it raises a problem about scope: how far into the future do the states of affairs to be measured stretch? It is argued here that weapons (...) |
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If people have a right to rebel against domestic tyranny, wrongful foreign occupation, or colonial rule, then the normative principles commonly invoked to deal with civil conflicts present a problem. While rebels in some cases might justifiably try to secure human rights by resort to violence, the three normative pillars dealing with armed force provide at best only a partial reflection of the ethics of armed revolt. This article argues that the concept of “terrorism” and the ongoing attempt to define (...) |
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Most of us believe that partiality applies in a broad range of relationships. One relationship on which there is much disagreement is co-nationality. Some writers argue that co-national partiality is not justified in certain cases, like killing in war, since killing in defense of co-nationals is intuitively impermissible in other contexts. I argue that this approach overlooks an important structural feature of partiality—namely, that its scope is sometimes restricted. In this essay, I show how some relationships that generate reasons of (...) |
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Journal of Political Philosophy, EarlyView. |
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In this article we focus on the jus in bello principle of necessity for guiding the use of autonomous weapons systems (AWS). We begin our analysis with an account of the principle of necessity as entailing the requirement of minimal force found in Just War Theory, before highlighting the absence of this principle in existing work on AWS. Overlooking this principle means discounting the obligations that combatants have towards one another in times of war. We argue that the requirement of (...) |
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This paper surveys the most important recent debates within the ethics of war. Sections 2 and 3 examine the principles governing the resort to war (jus ad bellum) and the principles governing conduct in war (jus in bello). In Section 4, we turn to the moral guidelines governing the ending and aftermath of war (jus post bellum). Finally, in Section 5 we look at recent debates on whether the jus ad bellum and the jus in bello can be evaluated independently (...) |
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According to “epistemic-based contingent pacifism” a) there are virtually no wars which we know to be just, and b) it is morally impermissible to wage a war unless we know that the war is just. Thus it follows that there is no war which we are morally permitted to wage. The first claim (a) seems to follow from widespread disagreement among just war theorists over which wars, historically, have been just. I will argue, however, that a source of our inability (...) |
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War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political communities. Thus, fisticuffs between individual persons do not count as a war, nor does a gang fight, nor does a feud on the order of the Hatfields versus the McCoys. War is a phenomenon which occurs only between political communities, defined as those entities which either are states or intend to become states (in order to allow for civil war). Classical war is international war, a war (...) |
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