Abstract
In the previous chapter principle P1 was formulated : “Whenever C is fighting a just war, then it is morally permissible for S to engage in WWR to support C”. This principle can be used to construct justifications of S’s participation in WWR on behalf of C, who (we assume) is fighting a just war. However, the idea of a just war needs clarification – we at least need to know what a just war is – and also P1 itself requires support: why is it that fighting a just war is such as to make WWR morally permissible, if indeed it does? We said that it will be necessary to turn to Just War Theory (JWT) to answer these questions, and it is now time to do so. To begin with we should note that there has a been a good deal said about the idea of a just war and there is not just one single just war theory. There is in fact a just war tradition that has grown up over many centuries, with some even dating its beginnings to ancient Greece. It is not surprising that there has been a long-standing tradition of thinking about how war can be just, given that war has been such a perennial feature of human history. Surely all wars cannot be bad, for, if they are, then does this not condemn all the societies and states that have fought wars, comprising virtually all of human civilisation? This was a pressing problem for the early Christian fathers, like St Augustine, who were anxious to show that the teaching of Christ was compatible with the killing and destruction wrought by war, though clearly not all war could be just. JWT has in fact been informed by different perspectives and viewpoints, ranging from Catholic theology to international law to moral and political philosophy. While this need not result in radically different versions of modern JWT, it will best to use a version of the theory that is most congenial for present purposes, and for this reason I will make use of what I will call the ‘Walzer-Orend’ formulation. Finally, we should be aware that JWT is by no means a secure and uncontroversial theory that commands universal assent: there are problems associated with it, especially as regards the interpretation of certain of the conditions for just war and about verifying that these are satisfied. There is, however, no other viable normative theory about war and it will not be necessary, for our purposes, to accept all its principles and conditions.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
It is interesting from our perspective that the earliest suggestions that there can be justice in war emerged at around the same time as the early engineers were designing tension catapults in Syracuse, namely during the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. Orend notes that Aristotle (384–322) has been credited with coining the term “just war”, so maybe he was familiar with both tension and torsion machines, but I take it that this is just a coincidence and that JWT had nothing directly to do with the beginnings of WR.
- 2.
I have already talked about the significance of Walzer’s book Just and Unjust Wars as milestone in contemporary writing on JWT. Orend gives a clear and up-to-date exposition of Walzer and so for the most part I will refer to Orend – though Orend is more than just an exposition of Walzer. The Walzer-Orend version is suitable for our purposes, as it is informed by political and moral philosophy, as opposed to law or theology. A minority of other philosophers, such as Fiala (2008), are not enamoured of JWT, whereas Rodin even doubts whether self-defence constitutes just cause.
- 3.
I mentioned above that there are (slightly) different versions of JWT, and so one may ask if these have implication different from those of Walzer-Orend for WWR. Not only this, one may also ask if there are not other accounts of the morality of war, other normative theories about war, besides JWT. By restricting attention to Walzer-Orend, and to JWT, are we not neglecting other theories that could provide justificatory principles for WWR? I claim not. I will claim that any adequate theory about the morality of war must contain ad bellum proportionality or a principle that is equivalent to it, so although I begin with Walzer-Orend, my argument against WWR is supported by every adequate theory about the morality of war, and hence is fully general. Moreover, some of the problems associated with JWT, which I outline here, are not only not problems for the case to be made against WWR, but help strengthen this case.
- 4.
It should be clear that at most one side can have just cause for war.
- 5.
Orend writes “…rigorous contemplation of the justice of war – in all its phases – must be given before the decision to go to war is made…the best aid to contemplation of these issues is just war theory” (Orend 2006: 267).
- 6.
In the American Civil War, the North believed it had just cause for war but exercised little restraint in fighting, with Sherman and Grant in particular distaining jus in bello.
- 7.
This can be seen as follows: The activities that constitute C’s fighting the war can be expressed as a conjunction of the form J = Q&R&S&T&…where Q stands for mobilising troops, etc. The proposition “Whenever C is fighting a just war, then C is justified in mobilising troops” therefore has the form “Whenever J = Q&R&S&T&…, then Q”, which entails “Whenever Q, then Q”.
- 8.
On the assumption that JWT is not a self-contradiction and hence entails both Q and not Q.
- 9.
By this I mean if we are to demonstrate beyond doubt that WWR cannot be justified, rather than refuting all attempts to justify WWR – in practice there will not be a great deal of difference between these two approaches to the case against WWR.
- 10.
What this means is that the state, or other collectivity, cannot act unless some human agent acts, presumably, in the capacity of a legal representative. What it means to say that A supervenes on P is that if it is impossible for A to act without P acting.
- 11.
Intention is a difficult and controversial topic in philosophy, and those who write on JWT do not usually discuss it in any depth. Orend, who is one of the more careful of the modern commentators on JWT, for instance, seems to conflate motivation with intention, Orend (2006: 47), though Fotion at least makes an attempt to distinguish these concepts, half-hearted though it is, Fotion (2007: 17). We have seen that intentions are both the causes of action and the reasons that the agent gives for what she did – this is the classical Davidsonian account. Thus intentions are tied to particular actions, which the agent performs. Motivation may appear similar, in that, for instance, one can cite the agent’s motivation as the reason why she did what she did. However, there are important differences. The agent can have a motive for doing something or be motivated to do it, and not do anything. And motivation has to do with overall goal-setting and generalised causes for action as opposed to particular actions.
- 12.
Orend concedes that this condition is hard to apply and that there have been some highly improbable successes, such as the Greeks defeat of the Persians in the fifth century BCE.
- 13.
This would be a kind of ahistorical denial of the justification of using certain weapons, a kind of converse argument to that given in Chap. 8.
- 14.
What this entails, for instance, is that if proportionality is incompatible with WR – or any other measures undertaken in wartime that introduces major and unknowable costs – then if C was formally fighting a just war and starts to engage in WWR, then C is no longer a just combatant.
- 15.
A close discussion and analysis of both positions if given by Francis Kamm, in Kamm (2011: 132–157). This does not bear directly on our interest with proportionality and WWR.
- 16.
These questions surely arise for anyone who would make some rational assessment about the decision to go to war, including those who are concerned exclusively with their own interests. Looking at the matter from the realist perspective, the problems are less difficult because it is only C’s costs and benefits that are at issue, and not those of everyone else.
- 17.
Walzer himself is certainly upset by the idea of calculations in which deaths are weighed in the balance, and judgements and comparisons are made about acts such as the bombing of Hiroshima vs. the planned invasion of Japan, see for instance, Walzer (1978: 263–268). Walzer is, quite rightly, critical of utilitarian calculation in which numbers of dead are compared and decisions made solely on that basis.
- 18.
Fotion is willing to conflate proportionality with probability of success, and spends a little over a page discussing both principles, Fotion (2007: 15–16). Perhaps the reason why Just War Theorists spend such a small amount of time discussing proportionality is that they are unable to deal with the problems with the principle identified here, or perhaps they simply do not realise its significance. I find the latter suggestion hard to understand.
- 19.
To be entirely clear on this point, notice that there are three possibilities as regards costs and benefits and proportionality: either these are seen to be proportional and hence the condition is seen to be satisfied, they are seen to disproportional and it is seen not be satisfied, or they are unknown and it is not known whether the condition is satisfied. It is only the first possibility that justifies WWR. WWR requires moral justification in order to be permissible. A wrongful action is not permissible on condition that it is not known that it is not justified.
- 20.
And, we may note, removing proportionality would even lead to some strange retrospective judgements about war: perhaps the 30 Years War would turn out to be just war from the perspective of Spain, or of Austria, or France or Sweden? That would fly in the face of all evidence and commonsense. Compared with the costs of the war, the intentions of Philip of Spain, Cardinal Richelieu and Gustavus Adophus are of very minor importance.
- 21.
Which is a reason to be a contingent pacifist.
- 22.
I’m grateful to a referee for raising this issue.
- 23.
This has not been discussed in the literature as an example of a supreme emergency, and, of course, WR has not been considered before as a supreme emergency measure.
- 24.
References
Fiala, A. 2008. The just war myth. Latham: Rowman and Littlefield.
Forge, J. 2009. Proportionality, just war theory and weapons innovation. Science and Engineering Ethics 15: 25–38.
Fotion, N. 2007. Military ethics. Stanford: Hoover Press.
Hurka, T. 2005. Proportionality and the morality of war. Philosophy and Public Affairs 33: 34–66.
Kamm, F. 2011. Ethics for enemies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
McMahan, J., and R. McKim. 1993. The just war and the Gulf war. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 23: 501–542.
Orend, B. 2006. The morality of war. Peterborough: Broadview.
Walzer, M. 1978. Just and unjust wars. London: Allen Lane.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Forge, J. (2013). Just War Theory and Wartime Weapons Research. In: Designed to Kill: The Case Against Weapons Research. Research Ethics Forum, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5736-3_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5736-3_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-007-5735-6
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-5736-3
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawPhilosophy and Religion (R0)