Abstract

In the course of commenting on the third chapter of Frances Kamm’s Ethics for Enemies, this article proposes an analysis of the notion of a just cause for war, according to which there is a just cause only when those whom it is necessary to attack as a means of achieving some aim are potentially morally liable to be attacked. The remainder of the article then discusses issues of proportionality, particularly in relation to several distinct forms of moral justification for harming or killing people. Among the central questions addressed is what the conditions are in which good effects of a war that are independent of the achievement of the just cause may count in determining whether the war would be proportionate.