Risking Aggression: Toleration of Threat and Preventive War

Generally speaking, just war theory (JWT) holds that there are two just causes for war: self‐defence and ‘other‐defence’. The most common type of the latter is popularly known as ‘humanitarian intervention’. There is debate, however, as to whether these can serve as just causes for preventive war. Those who subscribe to JWT tend to be unified in treating so‐called preventive war with a high degree of suspicion on the grounds that it fails to satisfy conventional criteria for jus ad bello; – particularly the just cause and last resort criteria. Francisco di Vitoria held that the only just cause for war was ‘a wrong received’, which renders impossible any justification for preventive war. There are assumptions implicit in recent military practice, however – most notably, the US‐led invasion of Iraq in 2003 – that challenge this ban on preventive war. Interestingly, both supporters and critics attempt to justify their views through the broader logic of JWT; viz., through a conception of what is good for both political communities and individuals, and through a legitimate defence of these goods. Supporters point to situations where so‐called rogue states represent ‘grave and imminent risk’ of committing acts of aggression as grounds that justify preventive war; critics argue that to attack another political community on the basis of crimes not yet committed is a breach of the very rights JWT was created to defend. The advocate of preventive war does not appreciate important aspects concerning the morality of war. In the ongoing tension between Iran and The United States and her allies – if the rhetoric is to be believed – I am asked to tolerate a threat to my security and liberty, and to risk suffering aggression in defence of the rights of the antagonistic, but not yet aggressive, state. The crucial question is how such tolerance and risk fit in with the logic of just war: at what point, if any, does the risk of being attacked become great enough to justify declaring war in anticipation? In this paper I highlight some of the theoretical and practical difficulties in determining what counts as a grave and imminent threat, focusing especially on the complicated case of ‘imminence’ in the face of so‐called ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’. Secondly, I will argue that not only is the notion of preventive war inconsistent with the defence of the rights of political communities that JWT requires; it is also forbidden by the proportionality requirement of jus ad bellum. A risk of being subjected to aggression is the price for global peace. Whilst political communities can do much to prevent aggression and prepare themselves in case it occurs, the conditions for just war require that this prevention and preparation stop short of declaring war. We must live with a certain degree of risk in this area.     

Self-Determination, Wellbeing, and Threats of Harm

David Rodin argues that the right of national‐defence as conceived in international law cannot be grounded in the end of defending the lives of individuals. Firstly, having this end is not necessary because there is a right of defence against an invasion that threatens no lives. However, in this context we are to understand that ‘defending lives’ includes defending against certain non‐lethal threats. I will argue that threats to national‐self determination and self‐government are significant non‐lethal threats to the wellbeing of individuals that can justify lethal defensive force. Therefore the end of defending individuals can ground a right of national‐defence against a ‘bloodless invasion’. Secondly, Rodin argues that defending lives is not a sufficient condition for military action to be national self‐defence, because humanitarian intervention is military action to defend individuals, and such action is in deep tension with national self‐defence. I will argue that a reductive account, grounded in claims of need and threats of harm, can justify principles of both intervention and non‐intervention on the same grounds; that is, protecting the wellbeing of individuals.     

The effects of counterfactual defences on social judgements

Research on counterfactuals (‘If only…’) has seldom considered the effects of counterfactual communication, especially in a defensive context. In three studies, we investigated the effects of counterfactual defences employed by politicians. We assumed that self‐focused upward counterfactuals (‘If only I…, the outcome would have been better’) are a form of concession, other‐focused upward counterfactuals (‘If only they…, the outcome would have been better’) are a form of excuse, and self‐focused downward counterfactuals (‘If only I…, the outcome would have been worse’) are a form of justification. In Study 1, a counterfactual defence led to a more positive evaluation of the politician than a corresponding factual defence. Of the two types of defence, the counterfactual defence reduced the extent to which the politician was held responsible for the past event and was perceived as more convincing. In Study 2, counterfactual excuse and counterfactual justification were equally effective and led to a more positive evaluation of the politician than counterfactual concession. In Study 3, the higher effectiveness of counterfactual justification was independent from perceived ideological similarity with the politician, supporting the strength of this defence. These results show that counterfactual defences provide subtle communication strategies that effectively influence social judgements. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Buddhism in war: A study of cause and effect from Sri Lanka

In this article, I explore two attitudes towards war present among Buddhists in contemporary Sri Lanka: support for an all‐out military victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and support for a ceasefire followed by a negotiated settlement. After a phenomenological presentation of the two approaches, I turn to the factors that have conditioned them. I argue that canonical narrative is drawn on both to support the war and to reject it and then look at more recent colonial history to provide further data, particularly to the dynamic undergirding Buddhist support for war. In the nineteenth century, under British rule, one significant ‘other’ for Sri Lankan Buddhists was the Christian. A pattern of spirited defence developed in the face of what was seen as humiliation and betrayal at the hands of Christians. This pattern, the paper suggests, can throw light on responses in the present to the very different ‘other’, the LITE.     

Upsetting others and provoking ridicule: Children's reasoning about the self‐presentational consequences of rule violation

This study examined children's understanding of the distinctive ‘self‐presentational’ impacts of moral and social‐conventional rule violations. A sample of 80 children aged 7–8 and 9–10 years generated examples of interpersonal events that would upset others and events that would elicit social attention to the self. As expected, both age groups consistently identified moral violations as leading to the former, and deviations from social norms as leading to the latter. Crucially, when children were asked to identify the social‐evaluative consequences of those breaches, they exhibited a significant increase with age in recognizing the self‐presentational risks of social‐conventional deviations.     

Group socialization and prejudice: the social transmission of intergroup attitudes and beliefs

In order to examine the social transmission of prejudice in the military, attitudes and beliefs of Francophone (minority) and Anglophone (majority) prospective military officers toward their own and other groups were assessed at the beginning and at the end of a four‐year officer‐training program. Consistent with social dominance theory and system justification theory, majority group members become significantly more negative toward outgroups (e.g. Francophones, civilians and immigrants) and more likely to internalize beliefs that legitimize the economic gap between Francophones and Anglophones in Canada. Moreover, as predicted on the basis of self‐categorization theory, the results show that identification with the category ‘Canadian Forces Officers’ assessed at the midpoint in the program, moderates the change in intergroup attitudes and beliefs. Finally, minority group members did not internalize negative stereotypes of their own group. These results provide important evidence for the role of group socialization in the explanation of intergroup attitudes and beliefs and suggest that social identification is a key factor in group socialization, consistent with self‐categorization theory. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Paradise Lost and the Question of Legitimacy

This paper reconstructs the deficiencies of formal democracies to explain the internal injustices of the modern state, the self‐righteous swaggering foreign policy of Western powers, and the dangerously over‐simplified, polar logic characterizing the war rhetoric of the modern era. In a brief tour through the non‐liberal tradition of democratic thought, drawing connections between the tragic mythological origins of Western understandings of self and world, the paper attempts to demonstrate that a failure to find alternate, healthier means of value‐creation has caused Westerners, in their constructive identity work, to adhere themselves to their systems with a ritualized, ‘religious’ fervour. Legitimacy in the world becomes, in the final analysis, a simple matter of might. The possession of firearms and bread render self‐sanctifying myths legitimating aggressions on the argument of ‘good’ powers fighting the battle against ‘evil’ contaminants.     

Prosocial and antisocial children's perceptions of peers' motives for prosocial behaviours

This study investigated whether peer‐nominated prosocial and antisocial children have different perceptions of the motives underlying peers' prosocial actions. Eighty‐seven children, aged 10–12 years old, completed peer‐nomination measures of social behaviour. On the basis of numbers of social nominations received, a subsample of 51 children (32 who were peer‐nominated as ‘prosocial’, and 18 who were peer‐nominated as ‘antisocial’) then recorded their perceptions of peers' motives for prosocial behaviours. Expressed motives were categorized predominantly into three categories, coinciding with Turiel's (1978) ‘moral’, ‘conventional’, and ‘personal domains’. Results indicate that children's social reputation is associated with the extent to which they perceive peers' prosocial motives as ‘personal’ or ‘moral’, with more prosocial children attributing moral motives, and more antisocial children attributing personal motives. Although traditionally Turiel's domain theory has been used to understand ‘antisocial’ children's behaviour, the current findings suggest that ‘prosocial’ children's behaviour may also be related to domains of judgment.     

On human needs and moral appraisals

For a large and important range of cases the connection between ‘X needs y’ and ‘X ought to have y’, though not an entailment, is still non‐contingent. Sentences in which ‘needs’ occurs have several uses) one of which is normative; when such sentences are used to make statements, the statements constitute a good reason for asserting that what is needed ought to be done. It must, however, be recognized that such a reason may not be a sufficient reason for the moral appraisal that what is needed ought to be done. It is not self‐contradictory to assert ‘He needs it but he ought not to have it’, though in moral contexts if it is stated that someone needs something or that something is needed we are entitled to infer that, everything else being equal, he should have it or that it should be done. But often there are countervailing considerations which defeat that initial presumption. I attempt to support these contentions by 1) describing several key uses of “need sentences” and 2) by elucidating the relations between the uses of such sentences and moral judgments.     

From Self‐Respect to Respect for Others

The leading accounts of respect for others usually assume that persons have a rational nature, which is a marvelous thing, so they should be respected like other objects of ‘awesome’ value. Kant's views about the ‘value’ of humanity, which have inspired contemporary discussions of respect, have been interpreted in this way. I propose an alternative interpretation in which Kant proceeds from our own rational self‐regard, through our willingness to reciprocate with others, to duties of respect for others. This strategy, which shares some similarities with moral contractualism, offers a way to justify other‐regarding moral requirements from self‐regarding rational dispositions.     

Friendship Work on Facebook: Young Adults' Understandings and Practices of Friendship

Young adults use social networking sites (SNSs) such as Facebook to engage as friends, yet there has been little systematic research that has investigated their sense‐making of friendship in relation to their uses of Facebook, as well as how Facebook as a socio‐technical system interacts with their friendship practices. Twelve friendship discussion groups were conducted in urban and non‐urban New Zealand, with 26 women and 25 men aged 18–25 years, in same and mixed‐gender groups. Our social constructionist thematic analysis showed the young adults made sense of friendship through themes of ‘fun times together’, an ‘investment’, ‘protection’ and ‘self‐authenticity’, and these meanings were enacted in particular ways within Facebook. This SNS was used primarily for enjoying friendship and ‘investing in’ friendships, and friendship protection was required to maintain friends' online privacy. Facebook provided a way to demonstrate self‐authenticity within friendship relationships through censored ‘show off’ self‐displays and favoured friendship activities. Facebook supported, disrupted and modified these particular friendship understandings by broadening the audience for friendship actions and intensifying friends' responses through 24/7 accessibility and instantaneous activity notifications. These interactions between friendship understandings and Facebook as a socio‐technical system demonstrate how friendship was reinforced, negotiated and re‐worked through this online context. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Can the doctrine of just military intervention survive Iraq?

The disastrous consequences of the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 appear to discredit just war theories that justify military intervention in sovereign states in the name of human rights. It is possible, however, to identify factors that distinguish a defensible military intervention from the kind pursued in Iraq, and to incorporate these into a doctrine of humanitarian military intervention that would not have permitted the Iraq invasion. This improved doctrine stands in contrast to the militant interventionist doctrine that endorsed the invasion – a variant referred to here as the doctrine of just anti-totalitarian war (JAW). In order to critique the JAW doctrine and distinguish it from the improved doctrine, I examine critically the JAW-supporters' attempt to make sense of what went wrong in Iraq, and propose an alternative diagnosis. It is this alternative diagnosis that grounds a defense of moderate versions of the doctrine of just military intervention, which I seek in turn to render ‘Iraq-proof’. My Iraq-proof refinement is expressed in a list of injunctions. These require, among other things, critical interrogation of the moral standing of intervening powers and greater attention to the legitimate grievances of adversaries in regions targeted for intervention. They would also permit military intervention only in moral emergencies, and usually only to establish safe havens and protect relief supplies.     

Climate Change is Unjust War: Geoengineering and the Rising Tides of War

Climate change is undeniably a global problem, but the situation is especially dire for countries whose territory is comprised entirely or primarily of low‐lying land. While geoengineering might offer an opportunity to protect these states, international consensus on the particulars of any geoengineering proposal seems unlikely. To consider the moral complexities created by unilateral deployment of geoengineering technologies, we turn to a moral convention with a rich history of assessing interference in the sovereign affairs of foreign states: the just war tradition. We argue that the just war framework demonstrates that, for these nations, geoengineering offers a justified form of self‐defense from an unwarranted, albeit unintentional, aggression. This startling result places our own carbon‐emitting activities in a stark new light: in perpetrating climate change, we are, in fact, waging war on the most vulnerable.     

Are ‘Machiavellian’ Chinese children well‐adapted in the peer group? The relationship between resource acquisition strategies and social functioning and status

The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between resource acquisition strategies, social functioning and social status in Chinese children. A sample of nearly 500 Chinese children in elementary schools in Shanghai, China, participated in this study. The authors divided the sample into five resource acquisition strategies; based on self‐reported use of coercive and pro‐social strategies of resource control, they were ‘bistrategic controllers’ (Machiavellians), ‘coercive controllers’, ‘pro‐social controllers’, ‘non‐controllers’, or ‘typicals’. The results revealed that bistrategic controllers were the most effective in resource control, followed by pro‐social and coercive controllers: non‐controllers were the least effective. It also indicated that bistrategic and coercive controllers exhibited poor social functioning and low peer status; in contrast, ‘typical’ controllers emerged as possessing positive social functioning and high peer status. In addition, non‐controllers were not at risk with regard to social competence. The results indicate specific cultural ‘meanings’ of different resource acquisition strategies in Chinese children.     

Criminalising Unknowing Defence

Should a legal plea of self‐ or third‐party defence include an ‘awareness component’ that requires that the actor was aware of the justificatory facts at the time of action? Some theorists argue that in cases of so‐called unknowing defence, where an actor in fact averts an otherwise unavoidable danger to himself or another person although unaware at the time of action that this is what he is doing, the objective facts alone should allow a plea of self‐ or third‐party defence. Cases of unknowing defence raise issues that are highly significant to the nature of justification and liability. In this article I reject some common approaches to this issue and I offer an account of why acts of unknowing defence are appropriately subject to criminal liability for the complete offence (e.g. murder).     

The moral orientations of Finnish peacekeepers

This article examines the moral orientation of Finnish peacekeepers in the field of civil and military cooperation. This aim is studied through identifying different voices in peacekeepers’ narratives. Following previously published research on the ethics of justice, the ethics of care and the ethics of empowerment related to moral orientation, peacekeepers’ ethical and religious voices are identified. Religious beliefs are introduced as important values that contribute to moral orientation. The method is qualitative and the approach is narrative. The data include in‐depth interviews of six key interviewees, with whom I served as a peacekeeper in Bosnia in 2000 and 2001. The data analysis concentrates on identifying the voices of moral orientation through narratives that create a logical narrative synthesis. The study reveals three types of moral orientations and three types of empowerment: (1) justice orientation and challenge‐empowerment; (2) care orientation and community‐empowerment; (3) voices of self‐empowerment connected with ethical and religious contemplation. Peacekeeping intensifies interconnections with religion and ethics and self‐empowerment.     

CHARACTER,PSYCHOANALYTIC IDENTIFICATION,AND NUMERICAL IDENTITY

Identification figures prominently in moral psychological explanations. I argue that in identification the subject has an ‘identity‐thought’, which is a thought about her numerical identity with the figure she identifies with. In Freud's psychoanalytic psychology character is founded on unconscious identification with parental figures. Moral philosophers have drawn on psychoanalysis to explain how undesirable or disadvantageous character dispositions are resistant to insight through being unconscious. According to Richard Wollheim's analysis of Freud's theory, identification is the subject's disposition to imagine, unconsciously, her bodily merging with the figure she identifies with. I argue that this explanation of identification is not adequate. Human character is held to be capable of change when self‐reflection brings unconscious identifications to conscious self‐knowledge. I argue that for self‐knowledge these identifications must be an intelligible part of the subject's self‐conception, and that Wollheim's ‘merging phantasy’ is not intelligible to the subject in this way. By contrast, the subject's thought that she is numerically identical to the figure she identifies with does provide an intelligible starting‐point for reflecting on this identification. This psychoanalytic account provides a clear conception of identification with which to investigate puzzle cases in the moral psychology of character.     

Moral Relativism and Moral Expressivism

Though moral relativism has had its supporters over the years, it is not a dominant position in philosophy. I will argue here, though, that the view is an attractive position. It evades some hardcore challenges that face absolutism, and it is reconcilable with an appealing emotivist approach to moral attitudes. In previous work, I have offered considerations in favor of a version of moral relativism that I call “perspectivalism.” These considerations are primarily grounded in linguistic data. Here I offer a self‐standing argument for perspectivalism. I begin with an argument against moral absolutism. I then argue that moral terms, such as ‘wrong’ and ‘right’, require for their application that the moral judge instantiate particular affective states, and I use this claim to provide further defense of moral relativism.     

Millennial teens design and redesign themselves in online social networks

In less than a decade, online social networks (OSN) have revolutionised social communications worldwide. Nowhere is this more evident than amongst today's young consumers, so called millennial teens, who have snapped up these identity‐making digital social spaces claiming them as their own. This article examines the range of strategies and resources employed by UK millennials for self‐presentation in OSNs and the resultant implications on teenage identity construction in the postmodern era. An in‐depth qualitative content analysis of 20 teen OSN profiles was conducted and analysed against extant theories of impression management, self‐identity and self‐presentation. Our analysis revealed that millennials were deeply immersed in self‐presentation activities. They employed a wide range of ‘intentional’ self‐presentation strategies and drew on colour, design and symbolism to create complex, elaborate and decorative versions of self, which we have termed the ‘aesthetic self’. OSNs satisfy teen needs for intense social interaction with their peers, offer potential for copious identity experimentation and reduce the need to consume physical symbolic items in order to convey meaning, thus acting as an accelerator in the teen identity‐making process. Our findings extend existing frameworks for teenage self‐identity theory and moreover have significant implications for future marketing practice, particularly sourcing consumer behaviour data, brand management and marketing communications strategies. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Probability of reciprocation in repeated prisoner's dilemma games

Both social cooperation and self‐control require reciprocation. In social cooperation situations a single person's cooperative act, if not reciprocated by others, would be unreinforced both immediately and in the long term. Similarly, a single act of self‐control (refusing a single cigarette, for example), if not followed up by other such acts, would also be unreinforced immediately and in the long term. The present experiments varied probability of reciprocation in a prisoner's dilemma‐like game that could resemble a social cooperation or a self‐control situation. Participants earned points by playing against a computer. The computer offered the participant a choice between 5 or 6 points (‘cooperation’ by the computer) or between 1 or 2 points (‘defection’ by the computer). The participant's choice of the lesser alternative (‘cooperation’) or the greater alternative (‘defection’) on the current trial led, respectively, to cooperation or defection by the computer on the next trial with a probability (probability of reciprocation, PR) which could vary. When PR was greater than 63%, consistent cooperation maximized the participant's earnings. When PR was less than 63%, defection maximized earnings. Three conditions were studied: PR signaled by spinners; PR unsignaled; PR unsignaled with participants believing that they were playing with another person, not the computer. With PR = 100% (‘tit‐for‐tat’) and PR = 50%, the modal participant maximized earnings under all three conditions. With PR = 75%, participants maximized earnings only when PR was signaled. These results indicate that differences between people's tendency to cooperate with other people (social cooperation) and their tendency to cooperate with their own future interests (self‐control) may lie in differences in subjective PR. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.