JUST WAR

Jus ad bellum (“having a just cause for war”)

Jus in bello (“just conduct of war”)

Jus post bellum (“a just peace”)

A. JUST CAUSES FOR WAR

1. Self-defense

2. Defense of others (compare Mill’s “harm principle”)

3. (Controversially) establishment of political ends (e.g., nation-building, democracy): the end justifies the means

B. JUST CONDUCT DURING WAR

1. Minimization of civilian (“non-combatant”) casualties

2. Proper treatment of prisoners

C. JUST CONCLUSION OF HOSTILITIES

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Are there moral constraints on cost/benefit analyses? That is, why might an end be incapable of justifying a means?

Intrinsic value vs. instrumental value. (Utilitarians such as Mill count pleasure and happiness as intrinsically valuable and pain and suffering as intrinsically evil.)

Overall value as a function of intrinsic and instrumental value.

For example, athletic training in producing pain counts as intrinsically negative in value, but the training has instrumental value in helping to bring about health and fitness that are themselves great goods (intrinsically and instrumentally to other goods). So, the overall value of athletic training is (generally speaking) positive.

Gandhi and John Dewey:

Means and ends form continua. There is no end that is not itself a causal factor (an instrument) for some further happening.

Puzzles in utilitarian theory. Mill’s libertarianism revisited.

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Preëmptive vs. preventive war.

Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary: preempt vt to seize upon to the exclusion of others: take for oneself <the movement was preempted by by a lunatic fringe>; to take the place of: REPLACE <the program did not appear, having been preempted by a baseball game>.

Preëmptive war occurs when one party fearing imminent attack by another attacks first, seizing the initiative, presumably for tactical advantage.

Preventive war requires no such judgment of impending attack.

Gary Wills’ quotation of Francisco de Vitoria (1486-1546) on preventive war (footnote 17 in his book review in the course packet):

“It is quite unacceptable that a person be killed for a sin he has yet to commit.”

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Problems in the democratic process in deciding to go to war and to desist, etc.

1. The need for all relevant information to make an informed decision versus the secrecy needed for security.

2. Criticism easily misinterpreted as disloyality in times of war or impending conflict.

3. Secrecy often preëmpts accountability, but accountability is crucial to democracy.