1. The Ethics of War
2.forelesning

2. Approaches to war Just war Political realism Pacifism
Contingent pacifism
Perpetual peace

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

4. Alternative categories
Militarism
Crusading
Defencism
Pacificism
Pacifism

5. 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?

6. 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

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

8. 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”

9. 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

10. 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

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

12. 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.

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

14. Justifications for pacifism
Consequentialist pacifism
Deontological pacifism

15. 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!

16. Contingent pacifism
rarely, if ever, is it morally permissible to kill the innocent;
all wars involve killing, or the risk of killing, the innocent;
rarely, if ever, are wars morally justified

17. 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, )

18. 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

19. 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

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

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

22. 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)

23. 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?