The Ethics of War 2 forelesning Approaches to

The Ethics of War 2. forelesning

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

Just War theory as an in-between? • Common assumption: Just war theory between pacifism and realism • Justifies/constrains • Separate normative from descriptive approaches!

Alternative categories - Militarism Crusading Defencism Pacifism

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?

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

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

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”

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

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

Pacifism • Personal (=Stevenson: Individualistic) pacifism • Universal (=Stevenson: political or collectivistic) pacifism

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.

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

Justifications for pacifism • Consequentialist pacifism • Deontological pacifism

Anscombe’s 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!

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

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)

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 1960’s. So far verified? • Institutional constraints; citizens do not consent to war unless attacked. . • Promising, but several methodological difficulties

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

Definite articles of Perpetual peace 1) Every state should have a republican constitution 2) The right of nations should be based on a federation of free states 3) Cosmopolitan right shall be limited to conditions of universal hospitality

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

Cont. Justifications for pacifism: - Consequentialist - deontological Deontological pacifism: - Radical: Killing human beings is always wrong (war = killing => intrinsically wrong) - Contingent: Killing innocent human beings is always wrong (war = (almost) always killing innocents => war is (almost) always wrong)

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?