The Ethics of Killing in War

This paper argues that certain central tenets of the traditional theory of the just war cannot be correct. It then advances an alternative account grounded in the same considerations of justice that govern self-defense at the individual level. The implications of this account are unorthodox. It implies that, with few exceptions, combatants who fight for an unjust cause act impermissibly when they attack enemy combatants, and that combatants who fight in a just war may, in certain circumstances, legitimately target noncombatants who bear a significant degree of moral responsibility for a wrong, when the prevention or rectification of that wrong constitutes a just cause for war.

UNJUST WAR AND THE CATHOLIC SOLDIER

Roman Catholic teaching holds both that wars must conform to certain criteria in order to be considered morally justifiable, and that individuals are accountable for the moral content of their actions. Are Catholics serving in the armed forces therefore required to refuse to serve in unjust wars? Are they entitled—or obligated—to defer to the judgments of others as to whether a war is just? If so, whose judgment? I suggest that there are exceptional characteristics of military service that may factor in the formation of conscience as it is described in Catholic teaching. Specifically, just as the Church sees the indispensable role of the armed forces in protecting society as reconciling the use of force with the Catholic injunction to seek peace, so too may the indispensable role of obedience and deference to authority in the armed forces—while never supplanting the responsibilities of individual discernment—reconcile fighting in an unjust war with the obligations of conscience.     

Assuming a Position: Women and Men as Moral Critics in Their Own War Zone

In their search for an authentic moral self, women and men may at some time in their lives assume a position of resistance. Men are most likely to assume this position in the sphere of war. It is not clear, however, where or when women would be expected to assume such a position or what the nature of that position might be, and how far it could be likened to that of the resisting man. This paper explores the idea that choosing to be a single mother can be a position by and from which women can voice their moral criticism. Such position is comparable to the (known and well-studied) position taken by men who show their moral criticism by refusing to participate in a specific battle during a morally controversial war. The paper begins with an examination of the philosophical and psychological concepts of separate and connected moral positions available to resisting men and women in the spheres of war and family. The conclusions are based on data from two samples of resisters in the spheres of war and the family: 36 soldiers (30 years old on average) who decided to take a stand as selective conscientious objectors (SCOs) during a morally controversial war and 50 (biologically) mature single women (over age 30) who chose to become pregnant and to remain unwed mothers. The conceptual and methodological questions regarding this comparison are discussed.     

Objecting Morally

Just war theory entails that some wars may be morally unjustifiable, and hence citizens may be right to object morally to their government's waging of a war and to their being compelled to serve in it. Given the evils attendant upon even justified war, this fact sharply restricts any obligation to die for the state, and raises important questions about the appropriate state response to selective conscientious objectors. This paper argues that such people should be legally accommodated, and discusses objections to doing so, in particular, the possible erosion of the state's capacity to wage justified war, the unfairness of granting such exemptions from military service, and the impossibility of determining genuinely conscientious objection.     

Turning psychology against militarism

This paper draws on material, mostly from outside psychology, which illustrates the deep rootedness of militarisation in modern culture and the numerous ways in which it permeates civic society. Children, boys especially, learn to value armed conflict. War games are now more realistic, and the distinction between gaming and military training has become blurred. War and deadly weapons are portrayed in unrealistic ways that hide their actual effects. Just war theory, widely subscribed to, justifies armed conflict by proposing that under certain conditions, war can be just with moral rules that apply to the fighting. Many psychologists have worked for the military in one way or another, implicitly or explicitly promoting militarism, and the changing nature of war and armaments is providing further temptations for psychologists to do so. Psychology has been ambivalent about militarism. Peace psychology has not taken an unambiguous position on it, often speaking disparagingly of the absence of war in the absence of social justice, referring to it as “negative peace.” Feminists, often very clear in their opposition to militarism, have sometimes advocated for women to have greater acceptance in the armed forces. The paper concludes by arguing for a more clearly identified Psychology Against Militarism. Community psychology should take a lead in advocating for Psychology Against Militarism because militarism is a good example of how the exercise of power, wreaking widespread harm on us all but especially on those who are already relatively powerless, is collectively legitimised, and hence how we become complicit in supporting it.     

WHETHER SPIES TOO CAN BE SAVED

Spies, like soldiers, do a job and employ tactics that need justifying. I offer an argument for how Christian ethics may handle the moral problems of spying and do so by looking at the morally troubling tactics used by spies through the eyes of those who played an important role in shaping Christian theology and philosophy and have become normative in Christian moral thinking on the use of force. I argue that spying may be justifiable when we conceive the profession as a kind of use of force that is governed by the just war criteria. Spying is a particular kind of use of force that takes its moral character from those who authorize it, with what justification, to what ends, and with what methods. Particular attention is given to the tactics of disregarding the rules of war, the telling and living of lies, running covert operations, and assassinating military and political leaders.     

Where Have All the Critics Gone? Moral Psychology and the Question of Selective Resistance to War: From Vietnam, to an Israeli Vietnam, to the Intifada

War has been particularly a world apart for the vast majority of psychological studies on morality which for the most part were conducted in university settings among first-year psychology students. Combatant soldiers, their moral dilemmas, and their critical narrative of criticism and position of moral resistance are missing from the formative stages of our psychological theories. This paper discusses Kohlberg's pioneering and only attempt to understand moral criticism in the battlefield. In what follows it will be argued that from Kohlberg's perspective, Bernhard's case is analyzed as a case of moral separateness and thus provides limited view on the narrative of moral resistance. It will be further argued that the narrative of moral resistance, particularly as involving a detachment from one's own community, might as well be seen as a narrative of moral connectedness. This thesis will further be supported with the analysis of a narrative of moral criticism of an Israeli combatant during the Intifada.     

The Metaethical Paradox of Just War Theory

The traditional requirements upon the waging of a just war are ostensibly independent, but in actual practice each tenet is subject ultimately to the interpretation of a legitimate authority, whose declaration becomes the necessary and sufficient condition. While just war theory presupposes that some acts are absolutely wrong, it also implies that the killing of innocents can be rendered permissible through human decree. Nations are conventionally delimited, and leaders are conventionally appointed. Any group of people could band together to form a nation, and any person could, in principle, be appointed the leader of any nation. Because the just war approach assumes absolutism while implying relativism, the stance is paradoxical and hence rationally untenable.     

Mediums and messages: an argument against biotechnical enhancement of soldiers in the armies of liberal democracies

Assuming that one believes that individuals and states can morally defend values, beliefs, and institutions with force (in short, that just wars are morally possible), one logically wants just combatants to possess the physical, mental, and spiritual capacities that will enable them to win the war. On the other hand, being a just combatant in a just war does not morally entitle that combatant to do anything to win that war. The moral requirement for just combatants to fight justly is codified in international law of war and in state-specific legal documents such as the United States Uniform Code of Military Justice. While it is almost unequivocally clear to soldiers and civilians who soldiers cannot harm in the performance of their duties, and why these people are exempt from harm, it is less clear what the state itself (assuming throughout the discussion that the state is a just combatant in a just war) can morally do to its own soldiers to enhance their chances of victory: can the state do anything to soldiers to give them an advantage on the field of battle? For United States soldiers and their counterparts in most Western liberal democracies, the answer is obviously no. Deeply embedded social and cultural norms in Western democracies mandate that the state set and enforce rigid lines which drill sergeants and earnest commanders cannot cross, even in the name of combat readiness, grounding these norms in notion of basic rights appealed to in the U.S. Constitution. In this essay, I argue against some types of drug-induced internal biotechnical enhancement of soldiers on the grounds that, in the present state of technology, it is not reasonable to suppose that the military can perform such enhancement operations on soldiers without causing irrevocable psychological damage that would certainly and unjustifiably alienate the soldiers from the very society they serve.     

Moral Dilemma in the War against Terror: Political Attitudes and Regular Versus Reserve Military Service

The current study examines moral dilemmas related to the war against terror: the amounts of force used to arrest or harm a “most wanted” terrorist: the greater the use of force, the higher the risk for harming civilians and the lower the risk to the soldiers and vice versa. The study focuses on the association between moral decisions, confidence, and level of difficulty in making the decisions and political attitudes among Israeli Defense Forces soldiers. In addition, the study examines the differences between regular (202) and reserve (144) combat infantry soldiers regarding these variables. According to study hypotheses results indicate (a) more right-wing political attitudes predicted greater use of force and fewer difficulties in making moral decisions, and (b) reserve soldiers reported higher use of fire, higher confidence, and lower level of difficulty in making moral decisions compared with regular soldiers.     

Just War Moralities

This essay discusses four recent books on the Western, and one book on the classical Chinese, traditions of just war. It concentrates on the jus ad bellum moral criteria (legitimate authority, just cause, and right intention), giving attention to the centrality of the state in just war morality, to some challenges in reconceptualizing the jus ad bellum in the context of non‐state agents, and to controversies over a “presumption against war.”     

JUST WAR THEORY,HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION,AND THE NEED FOR A DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION

The primary purpose of government is to secure public goods that cannot be achieved by free markets. The Coordination Principle tells us to consolidate sovereign power in a single institution to overcome collective action problems that otherwise prevent secure provision of the relevant public goods. There are several public goods that require such coordination at the global level, chief among them being basic human rights. The claim that human rights require global coordination is supported in three main steps. First, I consider Pogge's and Habermas's analyses as alternatives to Hobbesian conceptions of justice. Second, I consider the core conventions of international law, which are in tension with the primacy of state sovereignty in the UN system. Third, I argue that the just war tradition does not limit just causes for war to self‐defense; it supports saving innocent third parties from crimes against humanity as a just reason for war. While classical authors focused less on this issue, the point is especially clear in twentieth‐century just war theories, such as those offered by the American Catholic bishops, Jean Elshtain, Brian Orend, and Michael Walzer. Against Walzer, I argue that we add intractable military tyranny to the list of horrors meriting intervention if other ad bellum conditions are met. But these results require us to reexamine the “just authority” of first resort to govern such interventions. The Coordination Principle implies that we should create a transnational federation with consolidated powers in place of a treaty organization requiring near‐unanimity. But to be legitimate, such a global institution must also be directly answerable to the citizens of its member states. While the UN Security Council is inadequate on both counts, a federation of democracies with a directly elected executive and legislature could meet both conditions.     

Remote Weaponry: The Ethical Implications

The nature of warfare is changing. Increasingly, developments in military technology are removing soldiers from the battlefield, enabling war to be waged from afar. Bombs can be dropped from unmanned drones flying above the range of retaliation. Missiles can be launched, at minimal cost, from ships 200 miles to sea. Micro Air Vehicles, or ‘WASPS’, will soon be able to lethally attack enemy soldiers. Though still in the developmental stage, progress is rapidly being made towards autonomous weaponry capable of selecting, pursuing, and destroying targets without the necessity for human instruction. These developments have a profound — and as yet under‐analysed — impact on just war theory. I argue that a state under attack from remote weaponry is unable to respond in the traditional, just war sanctioned, method of targeting combatants on the battlefield. This restriction of options potentially creates a situation whereby a state is either coerced into surrender, or it must transgress civilian immunity. Just war theory in conditions of remote warfare therefore either serves the interests of the technologically advanced by demanding the surrender of targeted states, or else it becomes redundant.     

Complicitous liability in war

Jeff McMahan has argued against the moral equivalence of combatants (MEC) by developing a liability-based account of killing in warfare. On this account, a combatant is morally liable to be killed only if doing so is an effective means of reducing or eliminating an unjust threat to which that combatant is contributing. Since combatants fighting for a just cause generally do not contribute to unjust threats, they are not morally liable to be killed; thus MEC is mistaken. The problem, however, is that many unjust combatants contribute very little to the war in which they participate—often no more than the typical civilian. Thus either the typical civilian is morally liable to be killed, or many unjust combatants are not morally liable to be killed. That is, the liability based account seems to force us to choose between a version of pacifism, and total war. Seth Lazar has called this “The Responsibility Dilemma”. But I will argue that we can salvage a liability-based account of war—one which rejects MEC—by grounding the moral liability of unjust combatants not only in their individual contributions but also in their complicit participation in that war. On this view, all enlistees, regardless of the degree to which they contribute to an unjust war, are complicitously liable to be killed if it is necessary to avert an unjust threat posed by their side. This collectivized liability based account I develop avoids the Responsibility Dilemma unlike individualized liability-based accounts of the sort developed by McMahan.     

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)-derived psychopathology subtypes among former prisoners of war (POWs): Replication and extension

Psychopathology and symptom patterns identified among former prisoners of war (POWs) by Sutker, Winstead, Goist, Malow, and Allain (1986) were replicated in an independent sample of 51 former POWs with similar personal backgrounds and military experiences. Data collection instruments included the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), self-report measures of anxiety and depression, and a structured clinical interview including a POW Trauma Index. Two prototypic MMPI profile patterns were identified using modal profile analysis (Skinner & Lei, 1980). Both were highly similar in shape and elevation to those reported in the previous investigation. Multiprofile-multisample analysis produced prototypic profile patterns which were accurate representations of profiles identified in separate analyses of the derivation and replication samples (r's .96). Representing unique constellations of clinical features, profile subtypes were associated differentially with confinement stress severity, postservice adjustment, and nature and extent of stress-induced symptomatology.     

GRATIAN AND MENGZI

In this essay, I compare two pioneer thinkers of the “just war” tradition across cultures: Gratian in the Christian tradition, and Mengzi (Mencius) in the Confucian tradition. I examine their historical-cultural contexts and the need for both to discuss just war, introduce the nature of their treatises and the rudimentary theories of just war therein, and trace the influence both thinkers’ theories have had on subsequent just war ethics. Both deemed just cause, proper authority, and right intention to be necessary conditions for initiating a just war. However, Gratian’s theory has a presumption against injustice whereas Mengzi’s theory has a presumption against war. As a jurist of the Church, Gratian sought to discriminate just from unjust wars, while Mengzi, a moral-political advisor to rulers, was more concerned with avoiding bloodshed and building lasting peace. In addition to examining these thinkers’ respective historical influences, I submit that Gratian’s Decretum and the Mengzi are pioneering in two more senses. First, they offer important clues to understanding how just war ideas were developed very differently in medieval Europe and in premodern China. Second, both embodied features that helped shape their subsequent intellectual tradition, which in turn molded the different legacies of these two works.     

Thomas Aquinas on Virtuous Warfare

Thomas Aquinas, one of the "founding fathers" of just war theory, offers an account of virtuous warfare in practice. The author argues that Aquinas's approach to warfare, with its emphasis on justice and charity, is helpful in providing a coherent moral account of war to which Christians can subscribe. Particular attention is given to the role of charity, since this virtue is the distinguishing characteristic of the Christian soldier. Charity compels him to soldier justly, and by fighting justly, he is elevated by God to friendship with God. Notable features of this approach are its emphasis on the criteria for judging whether a war is just and its relativizing of the criteria for proper combat behavior.     

Civilian Immunity,Supreme Emergency,and Moral Disaster

Any plausible position in the ethics of war and political violence in general will include the requirement of protection of civilians (non-combatants, common citizens) against lethal violence. This requirement is particularly prominent, and particularly strong, in just war theory. Some adherents of the theory see civilian immunity as absolute, not to be overridden in any circumstances whatsoever. Others allow that it may be overridden, but only in extremis. The latter position has been advanced by Michael Walzer under the heading of “supreme emergency.” In this paper, I look into some of the issues of interpretation and application of Walzer’s “supreme emergency” view and some of the criticisms that have been levelled against it. I argue that Walzer’s view is vague and unacceptable as it stands, but that the alternatives proposed by critics such as Brian Orend, C.A.J. Coady, and Stephen Nathanson are also unattractive. I go on to construct a position that is structurally similar to Walzer’s, but more specific and much less permissive, which I term the “moral disaster” view. According to this view, deliberate killing of civilians is almost absolutely wrong.     

Forgotten Victims of Military Humanitarian Intervention: A Case for the Principle of Reparation?

The purpose of this article is briefly to present a case for the principle of reparation as a new jus in bello principle for just humanitarian intervention. The article is divided into three sections. In “Restorative Justice and Civilian Protection”, I investigate the idea of restorative justice in order to consider whether or not it can complement the shortcomings of the just war tradition in civilian protection. In “The Legal Framework on Reparation: Its Scope and Limitations”, I examine the scope of the law of armed conflict on reparatory measures in order to consider whether and how ideas of and measures for restorative justice might be incorporated in the jus in bello framework for military humanitarian intervention. In “The Issue of Civilian Victims: A Case for Reparation”, I explore the implications of reparatory measures for victims in order to suggest that these measures are not only beneficial to civilian victims but also imperative to be taken by the interveners if they undertake military intervention within the jus in bello framework and claim its moral justifiability.     

GOD, WAR, AND CONSCIENCE

Many military officers believe that they morally ought to obey legal orders to fight even in unjust wars: they have a moral obligation to exercise indiscriminate obedience to legal orders to fight. I argue that officers should not be required to exercise indiscriminate obedience: certain theistic commitments to which many citizens and officers adhere prohibit indiscriminate obedience to legal orders to fight. This theistic argument constitutes adequate reason not to require officers to exercise indiscriminate obedience. However, this raises a further question: namely, whether it is appropriate to rely on such a theistic argument when shaping the moral requirements of military officership. I argue that citizens and officers have good reason to make public decisions solely on religious grounds and so are free to follow my theistic argument when shaping the requirements of military officership.