Abstract

This review essay examines Benbaji and Statman's _War by Agreemen__t_. It raises two challenges to their contractarian account of war, which seeks to show that considerations of mutual advantage can generate novel permissions. First, if such a robust justification for participation in unjust wars is available, it is not clear that any kind of agreement between states is even required; if a state can make otherwise unjustified killings permissible, it would seem to be able to do so without the participation of other states. Second, more generally, I doubt that any such agreement could make otherwise unjustified killings permissible.