The Moral Problem of War

Abstract

Anyone who has read anything about the ethics of war will have come across references to and discussion of just war theory.¹ This is a long tradition of religious, philosophical, and legal thinking that began in the ancient Western world concerning the justification(s) for the use of force by a state or leader against another state or leader. It has become convenient for ethicists, jurists, and political leaders today to simply appeal to the tenets of the just war doctrine as the basis for either justifying or criticizing particular wars. The language of just war was evoked at the beginning of the twenty-first century in the debate about the doctrine of preventive war that was the basis for the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. It is fair to say that many of those who appeal to or reject the principles of just war do not fully appreciate the historical evolution of the just war doctrine and the many divergent viewpoints that have been included in the tradition. It is the purpose of this chapter to flesh out the important details of just war theory as succinctly as possible and to track the differences between the main versions of the theory, before I embark on a critique of the theory in the next chapter. For even someone who wants to bring a fresh approach to the ethics of war cannot ignore what has been written by just war theorists who have been so influential in the course of the last two millennia.