Just War Reconsidered

Abstract

Theories that belong in the just war tradition propose sets of conditions under which a state engaging in war is morally justified in doing so. Opposed to the theory is pacifism: the view that war is always morally wrong. There are two ways to get from just war theory to pacifism. One is to take as fundamentally correct the view that war is morally wrong and, therefore, unjustifiable. So even if the conditions of just war theory are satisfied, it remains morally wrong for a state to fight a war. Attempting to add or amend the conditions of the theory is a futile exercise because there cannot be a set of conditions to justify what is considered to be morally unjustifiable. The problem with this approach to pacifism is that the view that war is always wrong is certainly not an obvious one that can be accepted without argument. It is based on the idea that any form of violence is morally unacceptable, including violence used to defend one’s life or the lives of those that one loves. On the face of it, this is rather implausible. In the context of the ethics of war, the question arises of what, for instance, a pacifist in Britain would do to stop Hitler from invading Britain and spreading the evils of Nazism, such as death camps. The idea that war is impermissible when nothing else works strikes many as unrealistic or plain wrong. In fact, it is said that Hitler was encouraged by the attempts at appeasement by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, and by the meekness of the Jews he targeted.