Assuming an international commitment to intervene in severe and urgent humanitarian emergencies, as expressed by the doctrine ‘The Responsibility to Protect’, I discuss two objections that the duty to intervene is nonetheless a duty that is easily limited by other moral considerations. One objection is that this duty will exceed the reasonable limits of any obligation given the high personal cost of intervention. The other objection is that any duty to intervene will be an imperfect (...) class='Hi'>duty, and therefore not a duty that is ascribed to and demandable of any specific actor. I will argue that these objections do not undermine the principle of the responsibility to protect. (shrink)

I argue here that certain species of war, namely humanitarian military interventions (HMIs), can be obligatory within particular contexts. Specifically, I look at the notion of HMIs through the lens of just war theory and argue that when a minimal account of jus ad bellum implies that an intervention is permissible, it also implies that it is obligatory. I begin by clarifying the jus ad bellum conditions (such as just cause, right intentions, etc.) under (...) which an intervention is permissible. I then turn to the claim that permissibility necessitates obligation, by first showing that whenever an intervention is permissible, it is also minimally decent. Second, I show that minimally decent actions are morally obligatory by arguing that the notion of minimal decency is a conceptual bridge between negative and positive duties. Third, I argue that performing minimally decent actions is necessary for a state to be just. Ultimately, my conclusion arises from the following observation: if a humanitarian crisis is bad enough for one to hold that it is permissible to breach sovereignty of a nation, then it is bad enough to hold that there is an obligation to intervene. (shrink)

Debates on humanitarian intervention have focused on the permissibility question. In this paper, I ask whether intervention can be a moral duty, and if it is a moral duty, how this duty is to be distributed and assigned. With respect to the first question, I contemplate whether an intervention that has met the "permissibility" condition is also for this reason necessary and obligatory. If so, the gap between permission and obligation closes in the case of humanitarian (...) intervention. On the second question, I propose 'institutionalizing" the duty to intervene. In this way, an otherwise imperfect obligation to intervene can be made "perfect" and specific to some agent. (shrink)

Just war theorists who argue that war is morally justified under certain circumstances infer implicitly that establishing the military institutions needed to wage war is also morally justified. In this paper, I mount a case in favor of a standing military establishment: to the extent that going to war is a way to discharge duties to protect fellow citizens and distant strangers from grievous harms, we have a duty to set up the institutions that enable us (...) to discharge that duty. I then respond to four objections drawn from Ned Dobos's recent book Ethics, Security, and the War-Machine. (shrink)

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 . 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. (shrink)

The goal of military medicine is to conserve the fighting force necessary to prosecute just wars. Just wars are defensive or humanitarian. A defensive war protects one's people or nation. A humanitarian war rescues a foreign, persecuted people or nation from grave human rights abuse. To provide medical care during armed conflict, military medical ethics supplements civilian medical ethics with two principles: military-medical necessity and broad beneficence. Military-medical necessity designates the medical means required to (...) pursue national self-defense or humanitarian intervention. While clinical-medical necessity directs care to satisfy urgent medical needs, military-medical necessity utilizes medical care to satisfy the just aims of war. Military medicine may therefore attend the lightly wounded before the critically wounded or use medical care to win hearts and minds. The underlying principle is broad, not narrow, beneficence. The latter addresses private interests, while broad beneficence responds to the collective welfare of the political community. (shrink)

Both trolleys and war leave innocent victims to suffer death and injury. Trolley problems accounting for the injured, and not only the dead, tease out intuitions about liability that enhance our understanding of the obligation to provide compensation and medical care to civilian victims of war. Like many trolley victims, civilians in war may suffer justifiable, excusable, or negligent harms that demand compensation. Chief among these is collateral harm befalling civilians. Collateral harm is endemic to war and comprises permissible (...) but unavoidable death or injury following necessary and proportionate military operations. Although state armies sometimes offer condolence payments for civilian death, injury, and property loss, they deny liability. Instead, they use compensation to enhance counterinsurgency efforts and assuage feelings of agent regret. As part of the medical rules of eligibility, Coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan also provided medical care to victims of collateral harm. However, they denied care to similarly sick or injured civilians. While compensation is often justified to cure the harm civilians suffer, the differential use of medical resources is not. Rather, medical care remains subject to the principle of beneficence and medical need. The duty to provide civilian healthcare in war, particularly in wars of humanitarian intervention, is far-reaching and imposes significant costs that military and medical ethics are yet to recognize. (shrink)

This book analyses the problems of current just war theory, and offers a more stable justificatory framework for non-intervention in international relations. The primary purpose of just war theory is to provide a language and a framework by which decision makers and citizens can organize and articulate arguments about the justice of particular wars. Given that the majority of conflicts that threaten human security are now intra-state conflicts, just war theory is often called on to make judgments (...) about wars of intervention. This book aims to critically examine the tenets of just war theory in light of these changes, and formulate a new theory of intervention and just cause. For Michael Walzer, the leading scholar of just war theory, armed humanitarian intervention is permissible only in cases of genocide, ethnic cleansing, widespread massacres, or enslavement. This book shows why this threshold is too restrictive in light of the progressive shift away from interstate conflict as well as the emerging norms of 'sovereignty as responsibility' and the 'responsibility to protect'. _Justice, Intervention and Force in International Relations_ aims to establish a new, stable foundation for non-intervention and a revised threshold for 'just cause'. In addition, this book demonstrates that over-reliance on the just cause category distorts understanding, analysis, and public discussion of the justice or injustice of resorting to war. This new book will be of much interest to students of ethics, security studies, international relations and international law. Kimberley Hudson is Assistant Professor of Political Science at American International College, and has a Phd in International Relations from Brown University. (shrink)

This presentation discusses why just war theory is in need of just military preparedness (jus ante bellum) as a new category of just war thinking and it articulates six principles of just military preparedness. The paper concludes that the United States fails to satisfy any of these principles and addresses how this bears on the application of jus ad bellum, jus in bello, and jus post bellum norms to possible future American military interventions.

There are strong moral and legal pressures against harming civilians in times of conflict, yet neither just war theory nor international law is clear about what responsibilities belligerents have to correct harm once it has been inflicted. In this book, Marcus Schulzke argues that military powers have a duty to provide assistance to the civilians they attack during wars, and that this duty is entailed by civilians' right to life. Schulzke develops new just war principles (...) requiring belligerents to provide medical treatment and financial compensation to civilian victims, and then shows how these principles can be implemented in governmental, military, and international practice. He calls for a more individual-focused conception of international law and post-war justice for victims - as opposed to current state- or group-based reconstruction and reparation programs - which will provide a framework for protecting civilian rights. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

Traditionally, the just war principle of last resort requires that, before resorting to war, every reasonable alternative measure must be attempted. My view is that traditional just war principles should be generalized, so as to be applicable to military actions of all sorts—for example, armed humanitarian interventions and counterinsurgency operations. In this paper, such a generalized just war theory is presupposed. In particular, I shall presuppose a generalized last resort principle that requires that, before using (...) class='Hi'>military force, every reasonable alternative measure must be attempted. My thesis is that among these alternative measures is nonviolent action. For concreteness, the new U.S. counterinsurgency field manual is examined. The generalized last resort principle morally obligates a U.S. counterinsurgency operation to use the means of nonviolent action, whenever it is reasonable to do so. Pacifism and just war theory are often portrayed as rivals, but this paper explores one way in which just war theory could benefit from the tradition of nonviolence. (shrink)

Although the use of military force for humanitarian ends seems utterly divorced from the use of such force to combat terrorism, both uses answer to similar descriptions. Both appear to encourage nations that are not necessarily themselves under attack to set aside the reigning conventions of national sovereignty and territorial integrity for the overriding purposes of international law enforcement and protection of vulnerable noncombatants. Both involve offensive rather than purely defensive uses of military force. Both answer to criteria (...) of justification that can be derived more readily from the normative moral principles of the classical just war tradition than from purely descriptive revisions of the 'legalist paradigm' in international relations, because the latter is deeply wedded by precedent to notions of sovereignty, territorial integrity, and a purely defensive use of military force. Most significantly, the justification for both kinds of military action depends essentially upon a notion of 'the international community' that is inchoate and urgently in need of rigorous reformulation. In this paper, I attempt to formulate criteria for the justifiable use of military force for these non-defensive purposes, with attention to the nuances of internationalism that several of the resulting criteria entail. Challenges to the de facto role of the United Nations as the sole authoritative representative of this community, and alternatives to its authority in legitimating the use of military force for purposes of international law enforcement, are considered. (shrink)

Most individuals realise that we have a moral obligation to avoid the evils of war. But this realization raises a host of difficult questions when we, as responsible individuals, witness harrowing injustices such as ""ethnic cleansing"" in Bosnia or starvation in Somalia. With millions of lives at stake, is war ever justified? And, if so, for what purpose? In this book, Richard J. Regan confronts these controversial questions by first considering the basic principles of just-war theory and then applying (...) those principles to historical and ongoing conflicts. Part One presents two opposing viewpoints: first, that war is not subject to moral norms and, second, that war is never morally permissible. The author rejects both perspectives, and moves to define the principles of just-war theory. He evaluates the roles of the president, Congress and, most importantly, the UN Security Council in determining when long-term US military involvement is justified. The moral limits of war conduct and the moral problem of using, or threatening to use, nuclear weapons are also discussed. On the just cause to wage war, Regan argues that defense of nations and nationals - whether in self-defense or in defense of others - remains the ""only"" classical cause that in the modern world would justify resorting to war. With respect to military intervention in secessionist and revolutionary wars, he contends that such intervention might be justified, but that prudence dictates extreme caution. In considering acceptable war conduct, Regan elaborates the specific principle of discrimination and proportionality; he maintains that civilians uninvolved in the enemy's war should not be directly targeted and that the costs of military action must be proportionate to the anticipated benefits of destroying military targets. The second part of the book presents case studies of eight historical wars - World War I, the Vietnam War, the Falklands War, the revolution and civil war in Nicaragua, the civil war in El Salvador, the Gulf War, the intervention in Somalia, and the Bosnian War - and poses several provocative questions about each. It invites readers and students to apply just-war principles to complex war-related situations and to understand the factual contingencies involved in moral judgements about war decisions. The book should be of particular interest to students of the moral issues of international relations and to readers interested more generally in philosophy, theology and political science. (shrink)

In the article, I examine the relevance of Just War Doctrine to contemporary conflicts. Just War Doctrine, which grew out of Western Christian thinking, presupposes that evil might be confronted with force, if there is no alternative way to restore a just order. But modern trends call into question the certainty and universality of this doctrine. On the one hand, ideas of moral relativism and comparative justice have become more widespread, potentially undermining the use of the notions (...) “just” and “justified” in relation to military conflicts. On the other hand, the nature of war is changing, as warfare is no longer only kinetic in character. I offer examples of how the evolving character of warfare challenges the traditional understanding of Just War Doctrine. For example, there is the growing threat of cyber warfare, but the ethical criteria for its use are not defined. In relation to Just War Doctrine, questions of whether and when pre-emptive cyber attack is permissible arise, what should constitute legitimate targets of cyber warfare and to what degree collateral damage could be acceptable. Another challenge to the traditional understanding of Just of War Doctrine was the putative doctrine of humanitarian intervention.Prima facie,humanitarian interventions do not comply withius ad bellumcriteria of Just War Doctrine, because of the absence of a direct military threat to the intervening state. The justification of humanitarian intervention is based on the assertion of an intolerable violation of accepted values. The weakness of such approach, as discussed in the article, is that it implicitly assumes that one protagonist’s values are superior to others. A further example of emerging challenges to Just War Doctrine is the phenomenon of hybrid war, a term used to describe a type of conflict that is multi-faceted and in which kinetic warfare is not dominant. The orchestration of several strands of conflict, each designed to be below the threshold to provoke a military response, exploits the absence of legal and ethical norms regulating such activity. I conclude the article by suggesting that, firstly, for Just War Doctrine to remain relevant, it should be expanded to include harms caused by non-kinetic actions, and, secondly, the distinctions between the states of war and peace should be redefined to reflect the changing character of war more accurately. (shrink)

Wars are large-scale conflicts between organized groups of belligerents, which involve suffering, devastation, and brutality unlike almost anything else in human experience. Whatever one’s other beliefs about morality, all should agree that the horrors of war are all but unconscionable, and that warfare can be justified only if we have some compel- ling account of what is worth fighting for, which can justify contributing, as individu- als and as groups, to this calamitous endeavour. Although this question should obviously be central (...) to both philosophical and politi- cal discussion about war, it is at the forefront of neither. In recent years, philosophical discussion of warfare has bloomed, but the debate has focused on whom we may kill, on the assumption that our aims are justified.1 Political debate, meanwhile, is more concerned with matters of prudence, international law, and public justification, than with reassessing what is worth fighting for. For wars of intervention to halt or prevent massive humanitarian crises, this gap is not so troubling. When warfare is the only means to prevent the mass killing or enslavement of the innocent, the purposes of military force are clear enough (though undoubtedly many other problems remain). The problem is more pressing, how- ever, for the justification of national defence.3 Although common-sense morality and international law view national defence as the paradigm case of justified warfare, grounding this consensus is surprisingly difficult.4 We typically believe that any state is justified in using lethal force to protect its territory against any form of uninvited military incursion by any other state. And yet we lack a good argument to explain why this should be so. In this chapter, I explain why one familiar and otherwise plausible approach to the justification of killing in war cannot adequately ground common-sense views of permissible national defence.5 Reductionists believe that justified warfare reduces to an aggregation of acts that are justified under ordinary principles of interpersonal morality.6 The standard form of reductionism focuses on the principles governing killing in ordinary life, specifically those that justify intentional killing in self- and other-defence, and unintended but foreseen (for short, collateral) killing as a lesser evil. Justified warfare, on this view, is no more than the coextension of multiple acts justified under these two principles. Reductionism is the default philosophical approach to thinking through the ethics of killing in war. It makes perfect sense to ask what principles govern permissible kill- ing in general, before applying them to the particular context of war. If it cannot deliver a plausible set of conclusions about when national defence is permitted, then we must either revise our beliefs about which conclusions count as plausible, or else face the significant challenge of developing a different theoretical model for justifying war- fare—an exceptionalist model, which views war as an exception to the regular moral landscape, to which principles apply which apply to nothing else but war.7 We must show, in other words, that there is something worth fighting for in wars of national defence, which is not engaged when we use force in any other context. The chapter proceeds as follows. Section 2.2 sets out the argument against reduc- tionism.8 Section 2.3 considers and rebuts one common response to the argument, which has often been thought sufficient grounds to disregard its conclusion. Section 2.4 then asks whether a modified reductionism would survive unscathed by the argu- ment. Finally, section 2.5 sets out some desiderata on a plausible exceptionalist alterna- tive. Section 2.6 concludes. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is briefly to present a case for the principle of reparation as a new jus in bello principle for just humanitarian intervention. The article is divided into three sections. In “Restorative Justice and Civilian Protection”, I investigate the idea of restorative justice in order to consider whether or not it can complement the shortcomings of the just war tradition in civilian protection. In “The Legal Framework on Reparation: Its Scope and Limitations”, I examine (...) the scope of the law of armed conflict on reparatory measures in order to consider whether and how ideas of and measures for restorative justice might be incorporated in the jus in bello framework for military humanitarian intervention. In “The Issue of Civilian Victims: A Case for Reparation”, I explore the implications of reparatory measures for victims in order to suggest that these measures are not only beneficial to civilian victims but also imperative to be taken by the interveners if they undertake military intervention within the jus in bello framework and claim its moral justifiability. (shrink)

A current topic of global justice is the debate over the right of humanitarian military intervention or, as some style it, the “responsibility to protect” the “human security” of all, especially where that security is threatened by the very sovereign power charged to defend it. Such intervention came into its own only in the decade of the Nineties. This essay analyzes the factors that favored that outcome and sketches the difficulties to which humanitarian intervention proved to be exposed. There (...) can be no doubt that the rhetoric supporting such a policy has expanded greatly during the past generation. But what of the reality? Is the “responsibility to protect” likely to prove the wave of the future, or merely that of the (still very recent) past? (shrink)

Just-war theory has a long and distinguished history that stretches back to the Christian theologians of medieval Europe. Yet principles of just war must develop alongside social norms, standards of military practice and technology, and civilian-military relationships. Since World War II, and especially since American involvement in Vietnam, military ethics has developed into an academic cottage industry. As commonly taught to undergraduates and military practitioners, contemporary just-war theory seeks to ensure the political sovereignty (...) and territorial integrity of nation-states. The theory insists that the only just wars are defensive ones and forbids wars of national aggrandizement. On this view, because of the right to collective self-determination, wars must not seek to remake the world order, as that would undermine state sovereignty.In recent decades, however, cosmopolitan philosophers have challenged various aspects of the traditional edifice in an attempt to use just-war theory to enhance the protection of human rights around the world. Scholars have argued for greater scope for humanitarian intervention to protect individuals against their own government, for principles of justice after war to ensure that all states are legitimate, and most radically, for the responsibility of ordinary combatants to assess for themselves the justice of their military's cause. On this last argument, because combatants whose cause is just have done nothing to lose their immunity from harm, attacking them is unjust, and combatants whose cause is unjust cannot fight with discrimination.This publication surveys these recent developments, and it finds that they provide a radical challenge to both the theory and the practice of contemporary warfare. Of particular importance is its insistence on the need to strengthen international institutions, so as to provide combatants with an impartial perspective on their side's cause, and to strengthen military ethics education; and its suggestion that policies on dishonorable discharge be rethought. However, this monograph also challenges certain aspects of the new approach, suggesting important connections between military ethics and democratic theory and practice. (shrink)

Suppose that state A attacks state D without warrant. The ensuing military conflict threatens international peace and security. State D (I assume) has a justification for defending itself by means of military force. Do third parties have a justification for intervening in that conflict by such means? To international public lawyers, the well-rehearsed and obvious answer is “yes.” Threats to international peace and security provide one of two exceptions to the legal and moral prohibition (as set out in (...) Article 2[4] of the UN Charter) on using force as a means for resolving interstate disputes. Just war theorists are not as verdictive. Compared to the ethics of humanitarian intervention and the ethics of national self-defense, the ethics of third-party military involvement in interstate conflicts remains underdeveloped in contemporary just war theory. This essay begins to fill that gap. I argue that to defend such interventions is tantamount to defending preventive military force, deterrent military force, and the resort to force in more cases than standardly thought. I then provide an account and limited defense of the deterrence argument. I show that deterrence is morally justified in relatively few cases and examine two problems with the argument: deterrence failures and the level of uncertainty under which leaders who use deterrent force operate. I conclude that we should take seriously the possibility that nonintervention, construed as the rejection of the direct use of military force, is the morally correct response to the most serious threats to international peace and security. (shrink)

Given certain well-known empirical facts–including the Bush II administration’s motivations and its actions initiating the war – the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 (and its continuing war of occupation) is not just (i.e., is not morally justified), on any standard interpretation of Just War Theory criteria for jus ad bellum. Since there was no imminent threat of attack by Iraq against the U.S., the U.S. invasion of Iraq was a Preventative or Merely Precautionary War (which is notrecognized (...) by either Just War Theory or international law as a legitimate basis for initiating a war) rather than a Preemptive War (which may sometimes be justified, if there is a real threat of imminent attack) or a Reactive War (responding to an unjustified attack from an aggressor, which is always justified). Moreover, the neo-conservative program for perpetual U.S. world domination by the weakening of other nations and the invasions of weaker nations for purposes of U.S. economic and geopolitical advantage (behind the facade of “spreading democracy and freedom”) is not morally justified. However, the moral status of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan is much less clear. Many argue that is was morally justified according to both Just War Theory and international law, given certain well-established empirical facts; particularly, al-Qaeda’s involvement with the events of 9-11 and the Taliban government’s protection of al-Qaeda and its terrorist infrastructure within Afghanistan. On this analysis, the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan was justified as both a Reactive War (responding to an unjustified attack against primarily civilian targets) and a Preemptive War (to try to make sure that al-Qaeda did not have the opportunity to use its infrastructure in Afghanistan to arrange other attacks on civilian targets in the U.S. or other nations). But the cogency of this analysis depends on whether there were any realistic alternatives fordisrupting al-Qaeda and bringing its leaders to justice; and some argue that such alternatives did exist. Moreover, even if U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan was morally justified it is arguable that the amount and type of force used – e.g. intensive, wide-spread bombing campaigns that killed many civilians – were not justified. (shrink)

Michael Walzer argues that the just cause for humanitarian intervention is not met if there are only “ordinary” levels of human rights abuses within a state because he believes that respecting the right to collective self-determination is more morally important than protecting other individual rights. Several prominent critics of Walzer advocate for a more permissive account of a just cause. They argue that protecting individuals’ human rights is more morally important than respecting a right to collective self-determination. I (...) argue that these two accounts are far more similar than either Walzer or his critics realize because collective self-determination requires the protection of some human rights in order to allow each person the opportunity to participate in collective choices. Consequently, the just cause for intervention is met whenever at least some important human rights of one person are violated and others are being credibly threatened. The counter intuitive conclusion of my argument is that justified interventions can actually promote rather than undermine collective self-determination because just interventions allow innocents, who otherwise would have excluded from this process, the opportunity to contribute to collective choices. Of course, a just cause is insufficient in itself for intervention to be permissible because other just war precepts must also be met. (shrink)

Issues of moral well-being among soldiers, such as morale and moral injury, are predominantly approached as individual and psychological concerns. Current interventions tend to emphasize bolstering soldiers’ individual resilience by instilling a sense of justification and purpose. Yet, paradoxically, such an approach can foster behavior in soldiers that later results in deep regrets and a sense of betrayal toward military and political leaders. This article starts from the contention that issues of morale and moral injury should also be addressed (...) at the political decision-making level. It explores the significance of macro-level political-philosophical traditions such as Just War Theory for morale and moral injury at the micro-level, and, consequently, its implications for our understanding of resilience. Just War Theory, understood as a balance between Weber’s ethics of conviction and ethics of responsibility, is shown to hold the potential for informing morally responsible political decision-making and protecting soldiers’ well-being. However, this depends on using Just War criteria as genuine guiding principles, viewing them as interconnected criteria rather than checkboxes, and involving all relevant stakeholders. Also, low morale should not be readily approached in negative terms. Rather, resilience should be recognized as having complex ethical and contextual dimensions. (shrink)

Just War Thinking reconsiders the intersection between morality and pragmatics in foreign policy and modern warfare. The book argues that a political ethic of responsibility should motivate the contemporary application of military force by states in order to protect international security and human life, considering the challenges posed by today's new wars: targeted killing, humanitarian intervention, terrorism, jus post bellum, and the influences of public opinion and supranational institutions.

Just war theory has traditionally focused onjus ad bellum(the justiceofwar) andjus in bello(justiceinwar). What has been neglected is the question ofjus ante bellum, or justicebeforewar. In particular: Under what circumstances is it justifiable for a polity topreparefor war by militarizing? When (if ever) and why (if at all) is it morally permissible or even obligatory to create and maintain the potential to wage war? What are the alternatives to the military? And if we do have militaries, (...) how should they be arranged, trained, and equipped? These considerations are not about whether warmakingis justified, but about whether warbuildingis justified.InEthics, Security, and the War-Machine, Ned Dobos argues that we have not sufficiently calculated the true (noneconomic) costs of the military, and that if we did, having a standing defense force would not seem like as good an idea. Dobos pushes us to reflect on something we have taken for granted: that one of the biggest institutions in our society, which is supposed to keep us safe and allow us to lead our own lives, may in fact pose great dangers and risks to us physically, morally, and culturally. The essays in this symposium take Dobos's work as a starting point and show the importance, complexity, and richness of this new strand of ethical inquiry. (shrink)

Issues of moral well-being among soldiers, such as morale and moral injury, are predominantly approached as individual and psychological concerns. Current interventions tend to emphasize bolstering soldiers’ individual resilience by instilling a sense of justification and purpose. Yet, paradoxically, such an approach can foster behavior in soldiers that later results in deep regrets and a sense of betrayal toward military and political leaders. This article starts from the contention that issues of morale and moral injury should also be addressed (...) at the political decision-making level. It explores the significance of macro-level political-philosophical traditions such as Just War Theory for morale and moral injury at the micro-level, and, consequently, its implications for our understanding of resilience. Just War Theory, understood as a balance between Weber’s ethics of conviction and ethics of responsibility, is shown to hold the potential for informing morally responsible political decision-making and protecting soldiers’ well-being. However, this depends on using Just War criteria as genuine guiding principles, viewing them as interconnected criteria rather than checkboxes, and involving all relevant stakeholders. Also, low morale should not be readily approached in negative terms. Rather, resilience should be recognized as having complex ethical and contextual dimensions. (shrink)

This article presents an analytic critique of the predominant revisionist theoretical paradigm of just war (henceforth: revisionism). This is accomplished by means of a precise description and explanation of the practicability problem that confronts it, namely that soldiers that revisionism would deem “unjust” are bound to fail to fulfil the duties that revisionism imposes on them, because these duties are overdemanding. The article locates the origin of the practicability problem in revisionism’s overidealized conception of a soldier as an individual (...) rational agent analogous to the aggressor or defender in a case of lethal self-defense, who is capable of reflecting on the morality of his status in war and of the killing he performs and thus of recognizing his revisionist duties. Revisionism, however, ignores the following fact: Killing in war is not a natural human behavior. This is why training soldiers to kill is—and arguably always has been—a necessity for the existence of war and the killing that occurs in it. Moreover, this training involves a certain level of moral desensitization to violence whose goal is to prevent soldiers from thoroughly reflecting on the morality of the killing they engage in. Hence, war and killing can only exist if soldiers are trained in such a way that they do not reflect on whether they could be addressees of revisionist duties in the first place. This means that military training is a “constitutive condition” of soldiers and war, which is why it cannot excuse their noncompliance with revisionist duties, thus making these duties categorically overdemanding. The argument here draws on the paradigmatic example of modern US military killing conditioning (MC), but embeds it into a broader military-historical perspective that describes how soldiers have always needed to be mentally and morally influenced in order to enable war and killing. The article’s explanation of revisionism’s practicability problem has a constructive consequence for future theory-building in the ethics of war: It implies that a potentially revised ethical theory of war must necessarily analyze the institutions that allocate belligerent resources, if it aims to morally assess battlefield behavior in a practicable manner. (shrink)

Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo. All are examples where humanitarian intervention has been called into action. This timely and important new volume explores the legal and moral issues which emerge when a state uses military force in order to protect innocent people from violence perpetrated or permitted by the government of that state. Humanitarian intervention can be seen as a moral duty to protect but it is also subject to misuse as a front for imperialism without regard to (...) international law. In Humanitarian Intervention, the contributors explore the many questions surrounding the issue. Is humanitarian intervention permitted by international law? If not, is it nevertheless morally permissible or morally required? Realistically, might not the main consequence of the humanitarian intervention principle be that powerful states will coerce weak ones for purposes of their own? The current debate is updated by two innovations in particular, the first being the shift of emphasis from the permissibility of intervening to the responsibility to intervene, and the second an emerging conviction that the response to humanitarian crises needs to be collective, coordinated, and preemptive. The authors shed light on the timely debate of when and how to intervene and when, if ever, not to. Contributors: Carla Bagnoli, Joseph Boyle, Anthony Coates, Thomas Franck, Brian D. Lepard, Catherine Lu, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Terry Nardin, Thomas Pogge, Melissa S. Williams, and Kok-Chor Tan. (shrink)

ABSTRACTI argue that, according to just war theory, those who work as administrative personnel in the private military industry can be permissibly harmed while at work by enemy combatants. That is, for better or worse, a just war theorist should consider all those who work as administrative personnel in the private military industry as either: individuals who may be permissibly restrained with lethal force while at work; or individuals who may be harmed by permissible attacks (...) against their workplace. In doing so, I also provide some critical analysis of the relevant just war concepts. (shrink)

Photo ID 222412412 © US Navy Medicine | Dreamstime.com ABSTRACT In a non-military setting, the answer is clear: it would be unethical to treat someone based on non-medical considerations such as nationality. We argue that Battlefield Triage is a moral tragedy, meaning that it is a situation in which there is no morally blameless decision and that the demands of justice cannot be satisfied. INTRODUCTION Medical resources in an austere environment without quick recourse for resupply or casualty evacuation are (...) often limited. The shortage extends not only to supplies like blood products and drugs, but physicians and other medical personnel. In the midst of a mass casualty scenario, such as a battle that includes intense ground fighting, the medical staff will stretch scarce resources and triage casualties according to specific criteria. Typically, they proceed by providing care for the most severely wounded first, referred to here as conventional triage. At times, though, the staff may reverse the triage so that soldiers with minor wounds can return to the fight. In a mass casualty situation, when medical personnel apply conventional triage and treat casualties from opposing forces, a dilemma may arise. We argue that it can be permissible for military physicians to prioritize their own soldiers over enemy combatants in a mass casualty triage, where reverse triage does not apply. The case we will focus on is as follows: Battlefield Triage: During combat operations on a remote island in the Pacific Ocean, a compatriot soldier and an enemy combatant arrive at the compatriot soldier country’s medical treatment facility. Both have similar gunshot wounds to the abdomen, and they arrive with similar conditions. Both have low oxygen saturation and excessive blood loss. The sole physician only has enough time to stabilize one person. The scenario is brief, and we are aware that medical rules of eligibility will most often dictate how the physician proceeds,[1] but this scenario is useful in setting up the question we focus on in this paper: would it be wrong to favor the stabilization of a soldier just because the soldier is the physician’s compatriot? In other words, can nationality serve as an ethically justified tiebreaker in a situation such as Battlefield Triage?[2] In a non-military setting, the answer is clear: it would be unethical to treat someone based on non-medical considerations such as nationality. The AMA’s Code of Medical Ethics asserts that physicians have “ethical obligations to place patients’ welfare above their self-interest and above obligations to other groups.”[3] The World Medical Association’s Declaration of Tokyo affirms that “no motive, whether personal, collective or political, shall prevail against this higher purpose” of alleviating distress.[4] Physicians are taught early on that triage decisions must be medically indicated and made without consideration of factors such as race, ethnicity, religion, social status, and nationality. They are taught that public trust and obligations of justice grounded in equality demand that only medical indications be considered. But military physicians in a military setting are beholden to obligations, duties, and responsibilities as members of the military, and when these obligations, duties, and responsibilities conflict, as they do in Battlefield Triage, which loyalties win out and why?[5] Critics of partiality on national grounds argue that partiality undermines public trust in medicine and justice because everyone should be treated equally regardless of nationality.[6] Proponents of partiality argue that military obligations supersede equality and that justice requires partiality in such cases.[7] Despite the critics’ disagreement, both agree that there is a morally right, perhaps even blameless, course of action. Drawing on insights from virtue ethics, we argue that Battlefield Triage is a moral tragedy in which justice is unattainable and there is no action without moral cost. The assumption that there is a morally right choice is flawed. We argue that while no decision in this scenario is free from moral blame, there are reasons to favor treating one’s soldiers over enemy combatants. I. The Case Against Partiality There is a common assumption that there is a morally right or just decision in Battlefield Triage. A number of organizations and scholars claim that it is wrong for military physicians to favor their own soldiers on the grounds of nationality or some form of ‘group membership.’ (In a conflict involving service members from multiple nations working as a coalition, a soldier from an allied country may receive the same priority as the US service member due to ‘group membership.’) The World Medical Association’s WMA Declaration of Lisbon on the Rights of the Patient, which was reaffirmed in 2015, posits that, “[i]n circumstances where a choice must be made between potential patients for a particular treatment that is in limited supply, all such patients are entitled to a fair selection procedure for that treatment. That choice must be based on medical criteria and made without discrimination.”[8] This echoes what was set forth in Article 12 of the Geneva Conventions, which states that “[o]nly urgent medical reasons will authorize priority in the order of treatment to be administered.”[9] The argument for impartiality in Battlefield Triage is that every person is morally equal, and equality entails that medical distribution is, “based on a combination of medical need and urgency.”[10] This is in keeping with the bioethical principles that are generally applied.[11] II. The Case for Partiality On the other side, there are arguments that favoritism is the ethically right decision in Battlefield Triage.[12] The argument asserts that members of the military form a morally significant community of friends and participation in these relationships demands partiality. Just as parents have strong ethical duties to their children and not just any children, military personnel have ethical duties to their group, a group that involves an affirmation of mutual aid and support. Some have termed these ‘associative duties. According to Michael Gross, obligations of friendship, care, and solidarity “leave very little room for generally applicable principles of justice that would obligate a medic to treat enemy or non-compatriot wounded ahead of their compatriots.”[13] This is true in Battlefield Triage, but it may also be true even if the enemy’s soldier were more seriously wounded: “the ethics of small group cohesion, largely an ethics of care, mostly replaces the demands of impartial justice.”[14] In a more recent article, Gross explains that preferential treatment is ethically justified based on fighting capability and “the special obligations people owe friends, family, and, no less, comrades-in-arms.”[15] To not show partiality to the US soldier would be morally wrong on the grounds of friendship and mutual care.[16] III. The Moral Tragedy of Battlefield Triage Defenders and critics of Battlefield Triage favoritism based on nationality both frame their position as just or fair. For example, Justin List argues that physicians are “bound to practice medical neutrality,”[17] Marcus Adams denies that physicians “possess special ethical obligations” to enemy combatants because of their profession.[18] These perspectives assume that there is a morally right decision and that justice is attainable. The assumption that there is or can be a morally right Battlefield Triage decision, and we need to put our heads together to figure it out, remains strongly entrenched. However, the facts of the situation should give us pause; there are too many people and too few resources, and this demands a decision-making process that determines who will receive scarce resources. By its very nature, a battlefield triage decision has to be made based on some characteristic or value, a characteristic or value that will inevitably favor some at the expense of others. This is precisely why competing analyses “in the military context struggle to resolve these conflicts satisfactorily.”[19] Drawing on the insights of virtue ethics, we suggest that Battlefield Triage is a moral tragedy. Virtue ethics suggests that morality is about acting virtuously, which is to say that we should do what a virtuous person would do in the situation. Ethics is about figuring out how a just, wise, compassionate, loving, and fair person would act, and then doing that, as one grows in virtue. But life is not always clear cut, and it is possible that virtuous people may find themselves in a moral tragedy, a situation in which, through no fault of one’s own, a person must make a morally objectionable decision. After the action the virtuous person “emerges having done a terrible thing, the very sort of thing that the callous, dishonest, unjust, or in general vicious agent would characteristically do.”[20] Stated differently, a moral tragedy presents a virtuous person with two or more courses of action, all of which have a moral cost.[21] In Battlefield Triage, no matter how the physician goes about deciding, there is going to be defensible concern from those not saved. The fact that there are more people than can be helped fosters competing values in battlefield triage: maximize lives saved, treat people equally, treat the worse off, and support the war effort. Treating people equally may create tension between treating the worse off, maximizing lives saved, and supporting the war effort. Reverse triage is a case in point, as supporting the war effort conflicts with treating the worse off first, as is a fair lottery system since deploying a lottery may not maximize lives saved or support the war effort. There can be reasons why one person is selected over another, to be sure. Yet, there are reasons for making a decision, and that the decision is subject to legitimate moral concern is another. To recognize the moral tragedy of Battlefield Triage is to recognize the impossibility of acting blamelessly in the situation. In this situation, the virtuous military physician is going to have to sacrifice important values such as justice, compassion, and respect for others, even with a defensible criterion in hand. The physician will grieve this sacrifice accordingly. The physician may find her decision difficult or stressful, and rightly so, because of what her circumstances require of her. This kind of moral tragedy results “in actions which betray and violate the rights of persons to whom there may be a strong duty of care. When this happens, it properly triggers an appropriate moral emotion since our moral integrity has been violated and this affects how we think of ourselves and what we have become.”[22] Rather than view her triage decision as the morally superior choice, the virtuous military physician will view her decisions in these circumstances in a different light: it is the least bad option in a terrible situation, and she did something ethically problematic, something that is contrary to her moral character. She deeply regrets the circumstances in which she had to act. IV. Virtue Ethics A virtue ethicist has insight into how one should go about deciding what to do in a moral tragedy, although virtue ethics may not be as helpful as one may hope. The goal of the virtuous military physician in Battlefield Triage is to adopt the best course of action or the action that she feels she ought to do, all things considered. This does not make her choice devoid of serious wrongdoing—a decision must be made, but that does not make it just. The virtuous military physician will approach the situation with courage, responsibility, and insight. She will think about the decision carefully, wisely, and conscientiously; she will weigh the goods and harms of the choices before her, in conjunction with a proper conception of the good life, human worth, and understanding of her obligations to others—including chain of command, fellow soldiers, and the medical community. She is attuned to the value of human life and has a reasonable idea of the various ways her decisions will affect others. She recognizes that she is in this non-ideal situation through no fault of her own: she is not the one fighting in battles; she is serving her country as a physician, whose job it is to save lives, treat everyone justly, and promote military objectives. She regrets the decision she is forced to make in battlefield triage, acting “with immense regret and pain,” Hursthouse explains, “instead of indifferently or gladly.”[23] This is because, no matter what decision is made, the virtuous military physician “does something terrible or horrible,” something she otherwise would not do and is contrary to her values.[24] V. A Resolvable Moral Tragedy Instead of asking whether there is a morally right decision, in which a decision is morally blameless and above reproach, the virtue ethicist asks whether there is a decision with a convincing rationale, knowing that a decision can have a clear rationale but still be morally tragic. It is perfectly reasonable to think that different virtuous persons will arrive at different courses of action: “two virtuous agents, in the same situation,” Hursthouse writes, “may act differently” in irresolvable moral tragedies, in cases in which there is no clear course of action.[25] Because a person must act in a moral tragedy, one goal is to identify reasons for choosing the chosen action. Some decisions are clearly indefensible—treating neither the compatriot soldier nor the enemy combatant in Battlefield Triage would be wrong—and some decisions are more problematic than others. If the military physician selects to treat the soldier because she does not like the enemy combatant’s skin color, such a reason would be deeply problematic. But much of the debate over how to act in a moral tragedy is not over clearly indefensible or problematic criteria. Instead, the literature is largely about different standards or implementations of justice. Some scholars defend nation-impartial triage as right, while others defend nation-aware triage as right, and each argues that the other side is promoting an unjust or otherwise wrong solution to Battlefield Triage. We suggest that Battlefield Triage is a resolvable moral tragedy and that virtue ethics offers convincing reasons to prefer the treatment of the compatriot soldier rather than the enemy combatant on the grounds of national identity. Virtues are integral to living a good life, a flourishing life, but as Aristotle observed long ago, human beings are inherently social, interdependent and interconnected in profound ways.[26] This goes beyond the obvious fact that we need each other to survive day to day (one person makes clothes, another farms, and another makes tools); the claim is that a good or flourishing life depends in large part on one’s social network or community. This is why many of Aristotle’s moral virtues are other facing: justice, friendship, generosity, and magnanimity, to name a few. Courage, a typically self-facing virtue, is understood by Aristotle to be the virtue that regards one’s fear of death in battle, a battle fought on behalf of one’s city.[27] All of this remains true today. Namely, there is an important sense in which our community matters to our lives: it is easier to live a good, flourishing life if one is part of a good, flourishing community. Our community is made up of smaller groups, and it is more accurate to say that we are simultaneous members of different groups within a broader community. A person may be part of a family, friend group, research team, large state university, city, state, and nation. Groups can function well or not, as we all have experienced, and this suggests that there are virtues or excellences that groups can instantiate. Good groups are unified in purpose, with each member doing their duty alongside others for the attainment of that purpose. Good groups manifest solidarity among their members. Although Aristotle does not list solidarity as a virtue, a number of modern-day virtue ethicists have begun examining how group solidarity can be a virtue that contributes to a good or flourishing life.[28] Solidarity is not conceptualized as an individual virtue, a virtue possessed by a person in isolation of others; instead, it is a collective virtue, a virtue that is shared among members of a defined group with particular ends.[29] “A group has solidarity to the extent that its members are disposed to: (1) share values, aims, or goals; (2) care about those values, aims, or goals; (3) act in accordance with those values, aims, or goals; (4) trust the testimony of other group members with respect to those values, aims, and goals; and (5) feel a sense of belonging to the group.”[30] The virtue of collective or group solidarity involves individuals having special concern for each other, shared aims and values, trust, loyalty, and a sense of belonging with these specific others. There is a oneness to the group in the pursuit of a definite goal or purpose, involving mutual support and affirmation of each member. As such, the group has ends and goods above and beyond the good of each individual person. Sometimes solidarity requires personal sacrifice for the collective (for example, a father sacrificing food so his child can eat). The virtue of collective or group solidarity is important to the military and medical community at every level, and for clear reasons. In the military, there is a clear hierarchy of command, unity of purpose and end, mutual trust and support in complex settings, and so on. Soldiers need to know they can count on one another, and solidarity grounds a soldier’s ability to trust others and be assured of mutual aid. In medicine, solidarity maintains self-regulation of the profession, shared values and goals, as well as public support, not to mention that day-to-day operations require physician trust, engagement, and effort toward the ends of clinical care. Physicians need to work together, along with others, in pursuit of health, and disunity is sowed when there is mistrust, selfishness, or disengagement among the healthcare team and organization. Importantly, just as we are all members of various groups and hence may manifest group solidarity in different settings, the virtuous military physician instantiates collective solidarity with both the medical profession and the military. Her dual loyalty contributes to the moral difficulty of acting in Battlefield Triage. The military physician has competing obligations to distinct groups and cannot satisfy all obligations in Battlefield Triage. Solidarity with the military supports the consideration of favoring the soldier for reasons of national identity, whereas solidarity with the medical community does not. Something has to give, which is why it is a moral tragedy. The virtuous military physician, therefore, must weigh the costs of each course of action. To fulfill her obligations to the medical community would require that she does not use nationality and other non-medical considerations in Battlefield Triage. Since the soldier and enemy combatant are equally injured, justice would demand a random process, perhaps a flip of the coin. Although this may satisfy obligations the military physician has to the medical community, this would be costly to the physician’s military group. If word gets out that the physician decides who to treat based on a coin toss, soldiers, families, and citizens may become frustrated and angry. Soldier morale may go down if it becomes known that a coin flip led to the preventable death of a soldier and the saving of an enemy combatant who had killed (or attempted to kill) other soldiers. As Gross highlights, military solidarity involves a mutual aid promise that military personnel promise to help one another.[31] A military physician is part of the military and, as such, is part of the mutual aid promise, which would appear to be violated if the physician flips a coin. Treating a member of one’s own team may be psychologically more beneficial than treating an enemy combatant and may lead to less moral distress.[32] Finally, treating soldiers rather than enemy combatants promotes broader military and social aims, including returning soldiers to health, maintaining unity of purpose, and minimizing community suffering from a soldier’s death. Favoring members of one’s group, that is, triage based on nationality in Battlefield Triage, would fulfill obligations of military group loyalty, which is contrary to the values and duties of medicine. It does not seem as though showing favoritism in this particular situation is very costly to the medical community or general public, but this is because there is recognition that the physician is in the military. Medicine is impartial to non-medical indications partly because of fairness and to promote public trust in medicine. However, Battlefield Triage is unique, as medicine is being practiced in a non-public, wartime setting. In ordinary circumstances, a patient’s identity is irrelevant, and physicians ought not play favorites. Since Battlefield Triage is not an ordinary circumstance, decisions based on patient identity may not undermine public trust in medicine. In addition, it is contestable that fairness in Battlefield Triage requires that no consideration be paid to one’s nationality. Fairness is about giving each person their due, what is owed to them, and the case can be made that soldiers who place themselves in danger for the sake of the common good or a just cause are owed special attention when they suffer harm in the line of duty. In other words, soldiers voluntarily undergo risk to themselves for the greater good, and society owes them for this sacrifice. This plausibly includes preferential treatment in a situation such as Battlefield Triage. So, while the medical community affirms justice demands non-preferential treatment, the military community can affirm the opposite. The demands of fairness are unclear at best or in conflict in this situation: demands of physician justice decry favoritism, while demands of military justice support favoritism. Triage not based on nationality is arguably unfair and triage based on nationality may not undermine public trust, after all. All things considered, there is a clear rationale for favoring nationality-based preferential treatment in Battlefield Triage. Adopting a nationality-based preference in this situation is more defensible than not. This does not make such a decision ethically right or just. Preference based on nationality is the least bad decision, but it is not morally blameless. It involves one in a serious moral wrong, a wrong otherwise avoided and contrary to one’s character. The virtuous military physician is in a situation in which obligations conflict, and we disagree with Gross, who posits that care of fellow soldiers “is important to the near exclusion of all else.”[33] Gross fails to appreciate the collective virtue of solidarity as applied to those in medicine. The military physician has duties to fellow soldiers but also to fellow physicians, to the medical community, and humanity. To favor a soldier on grounds of nationality violates her duties and responsibilities to this latter group. She is involved in a moral tragedy and can only seek the most just action given the circumstances, yet, at least in virtue ethics, the action remains far from blameless. CONCLUSION We argue that Battlefield Triage is a moral tragedy, meaning that it is a situation in which there is no morally blameless decision and that the demands of justice cannot be satisfied. As such, the virtuous military physician incurs a moral cost to acting as she does—there is a moral residue. However, despite being a moral tragedy, there are clear reasons to act in favor of treating one’s own, considering group solidarity. As such, these kinds of tragedies are resolvable: virtuous military physicians should favor treatment of their own, although they would do so with sorrow. - [1] Militaries set forth medical rules of eligibility or guidelines used to determine whether a person qualifies for specific medical interventions or treatments in certain circumstances, and these guidelines are binding for a military physician. For example, despite opposition from medical organizations, militaries have adopted reverse triage guidelines for military physicians to follow. For ethical discussion, see Falzone, Elisabeth, P. Pasquier, C. Hoffmann, O. Barbier, M. Boutonnet, A. Salvadori, A. Jarrassier, J. Renner, B. Malgras, and S. Mérat. "Triage in military settings." Anaesthesia Critical Care & Pain Medicine 36, no. 1 (2017): 43-51. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.accpm.2016.05.004 [2] There are issues that are related to this, including the triage of civilians and allied soldiers. We set related issues aside for purposes of this paper [3] American Medical Association, Code of Medical Ethics: Current Opinions with Annotations, 2004–2005 ed. (Chicago, IL: AMA, 2004), 300. [4] American Medical Association, Code of Medical Ethics: Current Opinions with Annotations, 2004–2005 ed. (Chicago, IL: AMA, 2004), 300. [5] This is termed the “dual loyalty” dilemma in military medicine and has been described at length elsewhere: Institute of Medicine (US) Board on Health Sciences Policy. Military Medical Ethics: Issues regarding Dual Loyalties: Workshop Summary. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2008. Toward a Framework for Resolving Dual Loyalties. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK214853/ [6] See Kenneth G. Swan and K.G. Swan, Jr., “Triage: The Past Revisited,” Military Medicine 161:8 (1996): 448–452. https://doi.org/10.1093/milmed/161.8.448; Jerome A. Singh, “American Physicians and dual loyalty obligations in the ‘war on terror,’” BMC Medical Ethics 4.4 (2003): 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6939-4-4; Beam, Thomas E. "Medical Ethics on the Battlefield." Military Medical Ethics: Sect. IV. Medical ethics in the military. Medical ethics on the battlefield: the crucible of military medical ethics 2 (2003): 369-402; Hereth, Blake. "Health justice for unjust combatants." Journal of Military Ethics 20, no. 1 (2021): 67-81. https://doi.org/10.1080/15027570.2021.1949782. [7] See Adams, Marcus P. "Triage priorities and military physicians." In Physicians at war: The dual-loyalties challenge, pp. 215-236. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 2008. Gross, Michael L. "Comradery, community, and care in military medical ethics." Theoretical medicine and bioethics 32 (2011): 337-350. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11017-011-9189-6. Gross, Michael L. "The limits of impartial medical treatment during armed conflict." In Military medical ethics for the 21st century, pp. 71-84. Routledge, 2016. [8] World Medical Association, WMA Declaration of Lisbon on the Rights of the Patient. 5 December 2022, https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-of-lisbon-on-the-rights-of-the-patient/ [9] Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick in Armed Forces in the Field. 12 August 1949. https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.30_GC-I-EN.pdf. [10] List, Justin M. "Medical neutrality and political activism: physicians' roles in conflict situations." In Physicians at war: The dual-loyalties challenge, pp. 237-253. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 2008. 240 [11] Beauchamp, T., and J. Childress. 2013. Principles of Biomedical Ethics, 7th ed. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. [12] Adams, Marcus P. "Triage priorities and military physicians." In Physicians at war: The dual-loyalties challenge, pp. 215-236. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 2008. [13] Gross, "Comradery, community, and care in military medical ethics," 347. [14] Gross, “Comradery, community, and care in military medical ethics,” 349. [15] Gross, Michael L. "When medical ethics and military ethics collide." Narrative inquiry in bioethics 13, no. 3 (2023): 199-204. 202 https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/nib.2023.a924191 [16] Our argument draws on virtue ethics, from which care ethics derives, and it is worth clarifying how our argument relates to Gross’s. We do not think that the virtue of friendship grounds triage decisions, for we think it is unlikely that the physician and wounded soldier are friends. Instead, as explained below, we think the collective virtue of group solidarity better captures the moral significance of group loyalty and that Gross would agree with us. But since military physicians are part of distinct groups, with competing obligations, the military physician will be forced to sacrifice a value in battlefield triage cases. In other words, we think Gross downplays the dual group membership of a military physician. [17] List,”Medical neutrality and political activism,” 250. [18] Adams,”Triage priorities and military physicians,” 235. [19] London, Leslie, Leonard S. Rubenstein, Laurel Baldwin-Ragaven, and Adriaan Van Es. "Dual loyalty among military health professionals: human rights and ethics in times of armed conflict." Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 15, no. 4 (2006): 381-391. 383. [20] Hursthouse, R. On Virtue Ethics. OUP 1999. 74 [21] Nussbaum, Martha C. "The costs of tragedy: Some moral limits of cost-benefit analysis." The Journal of Legal Studies 29, no. S2 (2000): 1005-1036, 1007. [22] De Wijze, S. (2005). Tragic-remorse–the anguish of dirty hands. Ethical theory and moral practice, 7(5), 453-471, 457. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-005-6836-x [23] Hursthouse, 73 [24] Hursthouse, 81 [25] Hursthouse, 72 [26] Aristotle, Politics 1253a8. Reeve, C. D. C., Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 2017 [27] Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics. III.6.114a, 34-35. 2002, Nicomachean Ethics, Christopher Rowe (trans.), Oxford: Oxford University Press [28] Byerly, T. Ryan, and Meghan Byerly. "Collective virtue." The Journal of Value Inquiry 50, no. 1 (2016): 33-50. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-015-9484-y; Federico, Veronica. "Conclusion: solidarity as a public virtue." Solidarity as a Public Virtue (2018): 495-542. https://doi.org/10.5771/9783845290058. Rehg, William. "Solidarity and the common good: An analytic framework." Journal of Social Philosophy 38, no. 1 (2007): 7-21. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9833.2007.00363.x [29] Byerly and Byerly. "Collective virtue." 43 [30] Battaly, Heather. "Solidarity: Virtue or vice?." In Social virtue epistemology, pp. 303-324. Routledge, 2022. 304 [31] Ibid., 2011: 341 [32] It might be thought that displaying altruism by helping an enemy combatant at the expense of one’s fellow soldier may be psychologically satisfiying. For evidence that military physicians find it difficult to treat enemy combatants, see Lundberg, Kristina, Sofia Kjellström, Anders Jonsson, and Lars Sandman. "Experiences of Swedish military medical personnel in combat zones: adapting to competing loyalties." Military medicine 179, no. 8 (2014): 821-826. https://doi.org/10.7205/MILMED-D-14-00038. Lamblin, Antoine, Clément Derkenne, Marion Trousselard, and Marie-Ange Einaudi. "Ethical challenges faced by French military doctors deployed in the Sahel (Operation Barkhane): a qualitative study." BMC Medical Ethics 22 (2021): 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12910-021-00723-2 [33] Ibid., 2011: 344. (shrink)

The primary purpose of government is to secure public goods that cannot be achieved by free markets. The Coordination Principle tells us to consolidate sovereign power in a single institution to overcome collective action problems that otherwise prevent secure provision of the relevant public goods. There are several public goods that require such coordination at the global level, chief among them being basic human rights. The claim that human rights require global coordination is supported in three main steps. First, I (...) consider Pogge's and Habermas's analyses as alternatives to Hobbesian conceptions of justice. Second, I consider the core conventions of international law, which are in tension with the primacy of state sovereignty in the UN system. Third, I argue that the just war tradition does not limit just causes for war to self-defense; it supports saving innocent third parties from crimes against humanity as a just reason for war. While classical authors focused less on this issue, the point is especially clear in twentieth-century just war theories, such as those offered by the American Catholic bishops, Jean Elshtain, Brian Orend, and Michael Walzer. Against Walzer, I argue that we add intractable military tyranny to the list of horrors meriting intervention if other ad bellum conditions are met. But these results require us to reexamine the "just authority" of first resort to govern such interventions. The Coordination Principle implies that we should create a transnational federation with consolidated powers in place of a treaty organization requiring near-unanimity. But to be legitimate, such a global institution must also be directly answerable to the citizens of its member states. While the UN Security Council is inadequate on both counts, a federation of democracies with a directly elected executive and legislature could meet both conditions. (shrink)

American and international involvement in war-torn regions such as Bosnia and Somalia has come under increasing scrutiny by politicians and scholars. Here, two distinguished philosophers debate military intervention from just-war and pacifist perspectives. Describing the range of values and issues facing governments as they consider intervening in the affairs of other nations, each scholar makes his case and then responds to the opposing argument.

Preventive use of force may be defined as the initiation of military action in anticipation of harmful actions that are neither presently occurring nor imminent. This essay explores the permissibility of preventive war from a cosmopolitan normative perspective, one that recognizes the basic human rights of all persons, not just citizens of a particular country or countries. It argues that preventive war can only be justified if it is undertaken within an appropriate rule-governed, institutional framework that is designed (...) to help protect vulnerable countries against unjustified interventions while also avoiding unacceptable risks of the costs of inaction. The key to ensuring the fairness of rules governing the preventive use of force is accountability.This essay proposes a scheme that would make those promoting and those rejecting the preventive use of force more accountable. The proposal contains the following crucial features:States proposing preventive war are required to enter into a contract with a diverse body of states as a condition for authorization of their actions;Prior to taking preventive action, states must make an evidence-based case to the UN Security Council, and agree in advance to submit themselves to an evaluation by an impartial body after the preventive action occurred;Both proponents of action and those opposing it will be held accountable ex post for the accuracy of their prior statements and the proportionality of their actions;Sanctions will be imposed against intervening states or states that opposed preventive action, respectively, depending on the findings of the ex post evaluation.If preventive action were blocked in the Security Council, states seeking to engage in preventive action could then present their case in a different body–a coalition of democratic states–with its own ex post and ex ante accountability procedures. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Chinese Just War Ethics: Origin, Development, and Dissent ed. by Ping-Cheung Lo, Sumner B. TwissRosemary B. KellisonChinese Just War Ethics: Origin, Development, and Dissent Edited by Ping-Cheung Lo and Sumner B. Twiss London: Routledge, 2015. 320pp. $160.00As Ping-Cheung Lo notes, Western stereotypes of Chinese culture and particularly of Confucian ethics have led many to describe ancient China as a place of peace and cooperation—a picture that (...) is contrary to historical evidence (249). This new volume, edited by Lo and Sumner Twiss, offers an important corrective to that image. The contributing authors describe the moral attitudes toward war and peace taken by Chinese thinkers in several schools during the Warring States Period of 475–221 BCE (along with one later figure, the sixteenth-century neo-Confucian Wang Yangming). In particular, they focus on five traditions: military strategy, Confucianism, Daoism, Mohism, and legalism. The authors collectively demonstrate that ancient Chinese thought was marked by an intense interest in both peace and war, and that these topics were approached from moral as well as strategic and prudential perspectives. Moreover, in their historical contextualization of these materials, the authors emphasize the significance of the reality of war in shaping the arguments discussed. This attention to interpretation and real-life applications of these arguments, in both the ancient world and the contemporary activities of the People’s Liberation Army, is a particular strength of the book.This volume will be of special interest to comparative religious ethicists as well as to those interested in just war reasoning. As the inclusion of the phrase “just war” in the book’s title suggests, the identification of parallels to Western just war thinking in ancient Chinese thought is a major emphasis. Lo argues that although the Seven Military Classics are often read simply as strategy manuals, their discussions of strategy are complemented by concepts similar to the just war criteria of just cause, last resort, and discrimination. Twiss and Jonathan Chan suggest that the Confucian “true king” who is to oversee war [End Page 226] virtuously and with the goal of maintaining an ordered, humane society represents a requirement similar to the just war criterion of right authority; importantly, however, “right” in the Confucian tradition comes from the ruler’s virtue rather than his sovereignty. Hui-chieh Loy’s study of the Mohist tradition identifies concepts similar to six different jus ad bellum criteria while also revealing a lack of jus in bello criteria. Finally, Lo argues for the similarities between ancient legalism and contemporary Western realism as an alternative to just war thinking.Future scholarly development in this area should include a more robust articulation of the purpose of taking this comparative approach. Some reasons are implied in the book. For instance, Twiss and Chan argue for the overlap of Confucian punitive expeditions with the contemporary model of responsibility to protect, suggesting the possibility of international consensus on that norm. On the other hand, comparative work always runs the risk of distorting or overlooking material as a result of the desire to identify similarities or differences to a particular framework. Aaron Stalnaker, for example, points out that while Confucian thinker Xunzi may have embraced some concepts similar to those of jus ad bellum and jus in bello, he did not structure his own writing in those terms (135). Similarly, Ellen Zhang argues that the Daodejing differs from just war texts in that it approaches the question of war from the perspective of a particular conception of peace as an absence of coercion; the text thus takes the avoidance of war as its moral ideal. She also suggests that Confucian punitive expeditions may be better understood as domestic criminal discipline than as acts of war or humanitarian intervention (220). The chapters of this book thus provide a helpful and illustrative starting point for the kind of theoretical conversation about comparison mentioned here.Rosemary B. KellisonUniversity of West GeorgiaCopyright © 2016 The Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:CHARITY LOST: TBE SECtJLA'.RIZATfON OF THE PRINCIPLE OF DOUBLE EFFECT IN THE JUST-WAR TRADITION TIMOTHY M. RENICK Georgia State University Atlanta, Georgia 0 N AUGUST 12, 1945, the city of Hiroshima still smoldered, and President Harry Truman addressed the American people : We have used [the atomic bomb] against those who have attacked us without warning at Pearl Harbor, against those who have starved and beaten and executed (...) American prisoners of war, against those who have abandoned all pretense of obeying international laws of warfare. We have used it in order to shorten the agony of war.1 Truman and his military advisers had made a calculation. Japan was preparing for a last-ditch defense of the Japanese Islands. The prospect was ominous, to say the least. The United States had suffered eighty thousand casualties in the taking of the smaller and less protected Okinawa just two months earlier; 120,000 Japanese soldiers had been killed (and only ten-thousand taken prisoner). Strategists estimated that losses, both military and civilian, from a full scale battle for Japan itself would exceed one million. Surely the tens of thousands killed by exploding a bomb over Hiroshima was the lesser evil. Surely this was a proportionate act : fifty thousand lives traded for a million. As Winston Churchill wrote in support of Truman's decision: "To avert a vast, indefinite butchery... at the cost of a few explosions seemed, after all our toils and perils, a miracle of deliverance." 2 1 Michael Walzer, lust and Unjust Wars (New York: Basic Books, 1979), p.164. 2 Ibid., pp. 266-267. 441 442 TIMOTHY M. RENICK From an ethical perspective, however, the act was anything but a deliverance. I am not alone in this assessment. Advocates of the just-war tradition including Elizabeth Anscombe, Paul Ramsey, George Kennan, John Langan, and Michael Walzer have condemned the bombing of Hiroshima by means of a shared just-war argument.8 The argument goes as follows, and it is a good one. In times of war, many actions are likely to have both good and evil effects. One destroys an enemy's munitions factory (good effect) but kills an innocent child in the process (evil effect). The jus in bello of the just-war tradition, however, stipulates that an action which has a " double effect " is permissible if and only if: ( 1) it is discriminate (i.e., the actor aims only at the good effect and does not intend the evil effect, nor is the evil effect a means to the end, however good); and (2) it is proportionate (i.e., the good created by the act outweighs the bad).4 Now, the argument continues, Truman's decision to bomb Hiroshima failed the first criterion. It was not a discriminate act because the evil effect (the killing of tens of thousands of Japanese civilians) was not unintended. In fact, the evil was the very means to the good end. Although Truman himself claimed to have selected Hiroshima as a target because it was "a war s See, for example, G. E. M. Anscombe, "Mr. Truman's Decision," in Ethics, Religion and Politics (Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota, 1981); M. Walzer "Supreme Emergency," in Just and Unjust Wars; and John Langan, "The American Hierarchy and Nuclear Weapons," Theological Studies 43 (1982) : 447-467. ' I utilize here a helpful shorthand version of the principle of double effect introduced by Paul Ramsey in War and the Christian Conscience (Durham, North Carolina: Duke, 1961). More frequently, the principle is rendered by means of four criteria: It is permissible to perform an act likely to have evil consequences if and only if (I) the act is good in itself or at least indifferent; (2) the direct effect is morally justified; (3) the actor aims only at the acceptable effect and does not intend the evil effect, nor is the evil effect a means to the end, however good ; and (4) there is in the good effect a proportionately grave reason for permitting the evil effect. The shortened version of the theory captures all components essential to my discussion and enhances clarity. I thus will make use of it throughout this essay. CHARITY AND... (shrink)

This chapter argues that, because humanitarian intervention typically involves the military of one state attempting to overthrow another state ’s government, it gives rise to different moral questions from simple cases of interpersonal defensive violence. State sovereignty not only protects institutions within a society that contribute to the satisfaction of individuals’ interests and that cannot be easily restored once overthrown; it also plays a role in the constitution of those interests, which cannot be assumed to be invariant across different (...) forms of social life. As a result, humanitarian intervention will frequently give rise to incommensurability between the pre-intervention and post-intervention states of affairs. The reasons against violating sovereignty, together with reasons for conservativism in action that arise in circumstances of incommensurable value, mean that the threshold for the moral permissibility of humanitarian intervention is high. The chapter concludes by outlining how humanitarian intervention might be internationalized, making it easier to justify. (shrink)

President Barack Obama has clearly placed himself in the just war tradition, and so we may ask how successful has President Obama in fact been as just war theorist? His justification of the recent NATO intervention in Libya shows that the record is at best mixed. More broadly, Obama’s failure as just war theorist is at least partly a failure of the theory itself: as long as this theory does not address issues of “just military (...) preparedness,” it will fail to place real constraints on American resort to military force. (shrink)

Michael Walzer’s use of John Stuart Mill’s A Few Words on Non-Intervention (1859) helped to inaugurate it as a canonical text of international theory. However, Walzer’s use of the text was highly selective because he viewed the first half as a historically parochial discussion of British foreign policy, and his interest in the second was restricted to the passages in which Mill proposes principles of international morality to govern foreign military interventions to protect third parties. As a result, theorists (...) tend to see those canonized passages as if through a glass darkly. Attention to the detail and context of Mill’s first-half critique of Lord Palmerston’s opposition to the Suez Canal project reveals that his discussion of purely protective intervention is embedded in a broader exploration of the limits of self-defence, including the moral permissibility of preventive military force and the use of protective interventions for defensive purposes. Moreover, reading the text holistically facilitates a refutation of some objections directed at it by Michael Doyle to the effect that Mill’s conception of self-defence incorporates elements of aggression which makes it extremely dangerous when adapted for application to the contemporary world. (shrink)

This article argues that the traditional jus ad bellum and jus in bello criteria are fully capable of providing the ethical guidance needed to legitimately conduct military cyber operations. The first part examines the criteria’s foundations by focusing on the notion of liability to defensive harm worked out by revisionist just war thinkers. The second part critiques the necessity of alternative frameworks, which its proponents assert are required to at least supplement the traditional just war criteria. Using (...) the latter, the third part evaluates ethical issues germane to responding to cyber force, including casus belli, moral aspects of “the attribution problem,” and respective rights and duties when attacks involve innocent third-party states. The fourth part addresses in bello issues, including compliance with discrimination, necessity, and civilian due care imperatives; whether civilians may be targeted with sub-“use of force” cyber-attacks and the permissibility of using civilian contractors to conduct cyber-attacks. Throughout these analyses, conclusions are brought into conversation with those of The Tallinn Manual on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Warfare. (shrink)

The article deals with the problem of moral justification of humanitarian intervention by modern just war theorists. At the beginning of the article, we discuss the evolution of the dominant paradigms of the moral justification of war and explain why the theory and practice of humanitarian intervention appears only at the present stage of the development of ethics and the law of war. It is noted that theorization of humanitarian intervention began in the last decades of the 20thcentury. This (...) is due to a significant transformation, a retreat in the legal and ethical studies of war from the position of radical condemnation of aggressive actions and the recognition of the political subjectivity of non-state groups. Thus, there is a rethinking of the long tradition, the Westphalian system of international relations, according to which the state was recognized as the main participant of big politics, and its sovereign right to conduct domestic policy was considered indisputable. Further, we take the works of Michael Walzer as the main source of modern conceptualization of the ethics of humanitarian interventionism, since Walzer repeatedly addressed this topic and formulated a position on this issue that is representative of the entire modern Just War Theory. The arguments of Walzer and his supporters in favor of the moral justification of humanitarian intervention are considered. Among them are the following. First, the argument about the state as an organization which goal is to protect the rights of its own citizens. If this goal is not not achieved, the state shall loose its power over these people and in this territory. Second, Walzer calls for identifying governments and armed forces involved in mass murders as criminal and, therefore, deserving of punishment. Finally, there is, perhaps the most important, demonstrative argument: an appeal to the self-evident impossibility to stand aside in cases of mass violence in any state. This is followed by a critique of these arguments, as well as a demonstration of how the modern Just War Theory can respond to these criticisms. (shrink)

In this article, the author aims to demonstrate how Agamben’s concept of Homo Sacer is ideally epitomized by a soldier in war. A soldier in war holds a peculiar position, as killing of soldiers is considered neither illegal by laws nor immoral by ethics, and so a soldier is not considered to be legally or morally “guilty” in the usual sense of the word if he or she kills another soldier in war. The author analyzes the notion of Homo Sacer (...) – a figure representing a human that can be killed without the killer being punished, but at the same time someone who cannot be sacrificed – and further demonstrates that a soldier in war can be said to hold precisely such a status. The reason why a soldier cannot be sacrificed resides in the fact that he has already been “sacrificed to war” by his own society, in exchange for the safety of all other members of society. Perceiving a soldier as Homo Sacer provides a novel explanation and an additional argument for the moral symmetry of combatants, one of the pillars of non-revisionist Just War Theory, as all soldiers can be understood as persons sacrificed by their own societies. (shrink)

I argue that the lives of domestic and enemy civilians should not receive equal weight in our proportionality calculations. Rather, the lives of enemy civilians ought to be “partially discounted” relative to the lives of domestic civilians. We ought to partially discount the lives of enemy civilians for the following reason (or so I argue). When our military wages a just war, we as civilians vest our right to self-defense in our military. This permits our military (...) to weigh our lives more heavily. Before arguing for this view I first explain why recent accounts attempting to show the opposite – that enemy civilians ought to be weighed more heavily – are mistaken. (shrink)

Abstract It has become almost commonplace to regard the concepts of Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and Just War as not only compatible but rather closely connected. Contrary to this position I argue here that some Just War criteria are in significant tension with R2P. This tension results from the fact that Just War only makes war permitted while R2P prescribes an obligation. But R2P and Just War not only are in significant tension, but also suffer from (...) inverted weaknesses: R2P is too demanding while Just War is not demanding enough. Granting that R2P implies a duty to protect, I argue that such a duty is too demanding since it conflicts with the principle of ?ought implies can?, whereas Just War is arguably not far-reaching enough as ?duties-talk? does not fit into its structure. I finish by proposing an interpretation of R2P and Just War which not only eliminates the tension but also compensates for these weaknesses. (shrink)

The mass killings, large-scale gang rape and large-scale expulsion of the Rohingyas from Myanmar constitute one of the most repugnant world events in recent years. This article addresses the question of whether armed humanitarian intervention would have been morally permissible to protect the Rohingyas. It approaches the question from the perspective of the jus ad bellum criteria of just war theory. This approach does not yield a definitive answer because knowing whether certain jus ad bellum conditions might have (...) been satisfied is difficult to judge without detailed knowledge of military intelligence assessments. Nevertheless, I argue that there was just cause for intervention according to both liberal and communitarian perspectives; that legitimate authority in the form of United Nations Security Council authorization would not have been morally necessary; that it is doubtful whether permissible intervention would have required humanitarian intent; that in late August 2017, intervention might well have been a last resort, but that morally relevant facts suggest intervention might have been disproportionate and lacked a reasonable chance of success, such that, all things considered, it would have perhaps been impermissible. -/- (Free access via third external link). (shrink)

This book offers a detailed utilitarian analysis of the ethical issues involved in war. Utilitarianism and the Ethics of War addresses the two basic ethical questions posed by war: when, if ever, are we morally justified in waging war, and if recourse to arms is warranted, how are we permitted to fight the wars we wage? In addition, it deals with the challenge that realism and relativism raise for the ethical discussion of war, and with the duties of military (...) personnel and the moral challenges they can face. In tackling these matters, the book covers a wide range of topics—from pacifism to armed humanitarian intervention, from the right of national defense to pre-emptive or preventive war, from civilian immunity to the tenets of just war theory and the moral underpinnings of the rules of war. But, what is distinctive about this book is that it provides a consistent and thorough-going utilitarian or consequentialist treatment of the fundamental normative issues that war occasions. Although it goes against the tide of recent work in the field, a utilitarian approach to the ethics of war illuminates old questions in new ways by showing how a concern for well-being and the consequences of our actions and policies shape the moral constraints to which states and other actors must adhere. This book will be of much interest to students of the ethics of war, just war theory, moral philosophy, war and conflict studies and IR. (shrink)

this paper advances a novel account of part of what justifies killing in war, grounded in the duties we owe to our loved ones to protect them from the severe harms with which war threatens them. It discusses the foundations of associative duties, then identifies the sorts of relationships, and the specific duties that they ground, which can be relevant to the ethics of war. It explains how those associa- tive duties can justify killing in theory—in particular how they can (...) justify overrid- ing the rights to life of some of those who must be killed to win a war. It then shows how these duties can be operationalised in practice: first, showing how soldiers who fight on behalf of their community can act on reasons that apply to the members of that community; second, showing that the argument from associative duties does not prove too much—in particular, that it does not license the intentional killing of noncombatants in war. (shrink)

This book offers the first comprehensive analysis of warfare ethics in early China as well as its subsequent development. Chinese attitudes toward war are rich and nuanced, ranging across amoral realism, defensive just war, humanitarian intervention, and mournful skepticism. Covering the five major intellectual traditions in the "golden age" of Chinese civilization: Confucian, Daoist, Mohist, Legalist, and Military Strategy schools, the book's chapters immerse readers in the proper historical contexts, examine the moral concerns in the classical texts on (...) their own terms, reframe those concerns in contemporary ethical idioms, and forge a critical dialogue between the past and the present. The volume develops fresh moral interpretations of classical texts such as The Art of War, Mencius, Xunzi, Mozi, and the Daodejing and discusses famous philosophers such as Han Fei and Wang Yang-ming, representing antithetical schools of thought about warfare. Attention is also given to the military ethics of the People's Liberation Army, examining its thinking against the backdrop of its own civilizational context. This book will be of much interest to students of just war theory, Chinese politics, ethics, and philosophy, military studies, and International Relations in general. (shrink)

Ukraine's war of self-defense against Russia is one of the clearest examples of a nation fighting a just war in recent history. Ukraine is clearly entitled to defend itself, and Russia is clearly obligated to cease hostilities, withdraw troops, and make repair. In light of this, some of the most salient moral questions related to Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine involve the international community; namely, what moral duties it has toward Ukraine, especially in light of Russia's extreme and (...) pervasive human rights abuses. The first section of the essay argues that there is a pro tanto moral duty to intervene militarily in Ukraine to stop Russian human rights abuses and ensure that Ukraine achieves a military victory. This duty is grounded in duties of rescue, promissory obligations, and reliance obligations, as well as duties to nations’ own citizens and to the international community. The second section of the essay argues that the most relevant consideration in determining whether there is an all-things-considered duty for the international community to intervene militarily in Ukraine is Russia's nuclear coercion and the associated risk of nuclear war. This section highlights the nuclear risks involved in compliance with Russian nuclear coercion, which I argue have been neglected in prominent discussions. The moral stakes involved in this determination are very high, and succumbing to Russian nuclear coercion in the face of massive human rights violations would set a dangerous precedent. Any course of action should be guided by a thorough analysis of all the risks involved, both nuclear and moral. (shrink)

Bringing together contributors from philosophy, international relations, security studies, and strategic studies, New Wars and New Soldiers offers a truly interdisciplinary analysis reflective of the nature of modern warfare. This comprehensive approach allows the reader to see the broad scope of modern military ethics, and to understand the numerous questions about modern conflict that require critical scrutiny. Aimed at both military and academic audiences, this paperback will be of significant interest to researchers and students in philosophy, sociology, (...) class='Hi'>military and strategic studies, international relations, politics, and security studies, acting as an ideal course text or as supplementary reading. (shrink)

Even in just wars we infringe the rights of countless civilians whose ruination enables us to protect our own rights. These civilians are owed compensation, even in cases where the collateral harms they suffer satisfy the proportionality constraint. I argue that those who authorize or commit the infringements and who also benefit from those harms will bear that compensatory duty, even if the unjust aggressor cannot or will not discharge that duty. I argue further that if we (...) suspect antecedently that we will culpably refrain from compensating those victims post bellum, then this makes satisfying the war’s proportionality constraint substantially more difficult at the outset of the war. The lesson here is that failing to take duties of compensation in war seriously constrains our moral permission to protect ourselves. (shrink)