Abstract

In his provocative book War and Self-Defense, David Rodin criticizes attempts to justify national defense based on an analogy between the individual and the state. In doing so, he treats state personality as an analogy to the personality of the individual. Yet the state possesses the key attributes of moral personality, including a conception of the good life and a sense of justice. The state's unobservable — but nevertheless real — moral personality means that it also possessed the right to defend the continued existence of that personality against an attack. Subject to the same constraints that are placed on individuals, such as necessity and proportionality, the state possesses the right to national defense based on its own personality.