Causal Contribution in War

Journal of Applied Philosophy 37 (3):364-377 (2020)
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Abstract

Revisionist approaches to the ethics of war seem to imply that civilians on the unjust side of a conflict can be legitimate targets of defensive attack. In response, some authors have argued that although civilians do often causally contribute to unjustified global threats – by voting for war, writing propaganda articles, or manufacturing munitions, for example – their contributions are usually too ‘small’, or ‘remote’, to make them liable to be intentionally killed to avert the threat. What defenders of this view lack, however, is a theory of causal contribution. This article sketches and defends a theory of causal contribution. We then apply it to the kinds of situation that defenders of the view are interested in. We argue, however, that since degrees of causal contribution turn out to be sensitive to particular features of the situation that are extrinsic to the agent's action, whether an agent makes a small or a large contribution to a threat may not only be very difficult to discern but in many cases may not line up very well with the kinds of intuition about liability that defenders of the view want to uphold.

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Author Profiles

Alex Kaiserman
University of Oxford
Helen Beebee
University of Leeds

Citations of this work

Self-Defense.Helen Frowe & Jonathan Parry - 2021 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 2021.
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Moore on Degrees of Responsibility.Alex Kaiserman - 2023 - Criminal Law and Philosophy 18 (1):151-166.

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References found in this work

The responsibility dilemma for killing in war: A review essay.Seth Lazar - 2010 - Philosophy and Public Affairs 38 (2):180-213.
More of a Cause?Carolina Sartorio - 2020 - Journal of Applied Philosophy 37 (3):346-363.
Complicitous liability in war.Saba Bazargan - 2013 - Philosophical Studies 165 (1):177-195.

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