The Ethics of War and Peace
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THE ETHICS OF WAR AND PEACE: COMPETING TRADITIONS A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Notre Dame in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Jennifer Rose Stutzman Rodriguez ____________________________________ David Solomon, Director Graduate Program in Philosophy Notre Dame, Indiana July 2012 © Copyright by JENNIFER R. S. RODRIGUEZ 2012 All Rights Reserved THE ETHICS OF WAR AND PEACE: COMPETING TRADITIONS Abstract by Jennifer Rose Stutzman Rodriguez Controversies on how best to deal with other groups of people, especially aggressive ones, have surely been with us nearly as long as people have been forming groups, and modern advances, both political and technological, have only complicated these matters. That moral agents must give some thought to our moral responsibility in this arena is a given, but what form such reasoning will take is not. Over time, a number of traditions regarding war have emerged, ranging from categorical rejection (pacifism) to a limited acceptance (just war tradition) to an enthusiastic acceptance (crusading tradition); others ultimately reject the notion that war is subject to moral strictures at all (realism). As a first step to evaluating these views, I will work to more precisely define each, especially the two most popularly espoused (pacifism and just war theory), by way of a survey of their histories and scope. Building on this groundwork, I will then show how all four traditions relate to one another, by situating them along a continuum, arguing in particular that just war theory and pacifism have far more in common than Jennifer Rose Stutzman Rodriguez most realize. In the course of laying out this continuum, I will also show that the only coherent way to characterize these traditions is with reference to non-consequentialist moral reasoning. I will then argue that pacifism and just war tradition, given their underlying principles, are morally preferable to the alternatives, and more specifically, that a strong form of pacifism (that takes active responsibility for nonviolently combating injustice), and a strict form of just war (that is willing forego war when it is unjust), are morally superior to other forms. Of the two, I will ultimately make the case for the former, while nonetheless showing why a dualist approach that accepts both is most appropriate for this moral domain. For Melqui, Oliver, and Ivan ii CONTENTS Chapter 1: War or Peace – The Question .......................................................................... 1 Chapter 2: Just War Tradition ......................................................................................... 10 Chapter 3: Pacifism ......................................................................................................... 64 Chapter 4: War/Peace – Setting the Terms ................................................................... 167 Chapter 5: War and Peace – Choosing Pacifism .......................................................... 224 Bibliography .................................................................................................................. 253 iii CHAPTER 1 WAR OR PEACE – THE QUESTION War is a constant, both historically, as a state of human relations, and here and now, in that we can scarcely avoid hearing about conflicts around the world on a daily basis. Wars themselves, as well as their individual facets, are framed by most in terms of good or evil, as moral matters: the use of child soldiers is wrong, an ongoing genocide should be stopped by arms if necessary, and so on. This framing is done by those who think of themselves, and their listeners, as moral agents. However, for most, the matter seems strictly, or at least primarily, theoretical: we are not soldiers, nor are we in a position to direct war. We think of ourselves as onlookers of conflicts in other parts of the world, responsible at most for the votes we cast for those who do make the decisions, and perhaps for staying informed and informing others of states of affairs to be concerned about. The judgments we make are more significant than we think, however, for we are more than just onlookers. The actions we consciously take with regard to war are of greater consequence than we often suppose, and actions not regarded as relevant to the issue we may discover to be, as we deepen our understanding of the issues at hand. This universal moral engagement is due at least in part to the form of modern society: The development in modern times of an organized bureaucratic state, ultimately answerable to an electorate of all competent adults, has brought the conduct of 1 war and the aim of limiting or abolishing war within the boundaries of possibility and, therefore, within the domain of active moral concern.1 This point is made with reference to Christians, but there is no reason to suppose it does not apply to all moral agents. It is particularly relevant for those who are members of a powerful group (e.g., the United States), and/or the sort of group that all too easily slips into a mode of seeing itself as exclusively correct in its understanding of the world - the latter “is a short step removed from rationalising violence as itself a sacred act”2 - (e.g., religions and ideologues of whatever stripe). Even the powerless should take care with regard to their moral positions; how much more cautious should those of us with power be, as we make judgments regarding matters of life and death, and take action on the basis of those judgments. Even those who regard the matter as theoretical make moral judgments and thereby stake out positions, whether as pacifists or proponents of just war (or something else); we use these as viewpoints from which to critique conflicts around the world, even if there does not seem much call to act in these matters ourselves. What is more, we see ourselves as staking out these views collectively: we are part of the group of pacifists, or of just-warists, or of some other philosophical bent. In reality, however, the differences within each group is almost as great (and sometimes greater) than the differences between them; there are reasons it can be helpful to reduce the profusion of views to only a few large groups, but doing so can also help to disguise the genuine disagreements that fellow members within any one category may have, both in position held and in reasons 1 Basil Mitchell, “The Christian Conscience,” in The Oxford History of Christianity, edited by John McManners (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 628. 2 Ramin Jahanbegloo, “Nonviolence,” in A Companion to Muslim Ethics, edited by Amyn B. Sajoo (London: I.B. Tauris Publishing, 2010), 188. 2 for holding it. Once we recognize our heightened responsibility to choose a position consciously and correctly, identifying and acknowledging (if not resolving) these disagreements becomes a matter of special import. We cannot understand these variations until we understand the broad categories, however: overgeneralization can be a hindrance to understanding an issue, but some generalization is necessary, if only to provide some initial traction in our quest for any confidence as to which views are more morally viable and why. Accordingly, we will be considering four different approaches (broadly speaking) to the question of the ethics of war: The just war tradition (JWT), pacifism, realism, and the crusade tradition (CT).3 The two most commonly-espoused of these are pacifism and JWT; each encompasses a wide range of views, but can – as an initial generality – be described respectively as the view that the violence of war is always immoral, and the view that the violence of war, while undesirable in itself, is sometimes morally acceptable in order to prevent some worse injustice. Both views have in common the belief that the force used in war as at least prima facie wrong; the other two take at least this form of violence to be amoral or even morally desirable. The first of these, realism, denies that there are ethics of war at all (while not (usually) at the same time refuting the possibility or even necessity of ethics at the individual level); the realist is usually defined simply as one “who says it is wrong or impossible to think morally about war”4 or international relations at all. The fourth view, that of the crusader, views 3 I have taken some liberties in designating this last category; crusading does not have as clearly established a tradition as the other approaches to war and peace, but as I will demonstrate, it is a position worth considering in its own right, especially as it compares to its alternatives. 4 Yoder, John Howard, When War is Unjust: Being Honest in Just-War Thinking (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1996), 1. 3 the violence of war neither as evil (necessary or otherwise) nor as morally neutral, but as potentially a positive thing, if done for the right cause and in the right way. My primary focus here will be on the relationship between JWT and pacifism, the highest-profile of these alternatives, situating them relative to their alternatives, both in terms of definition and moral status. JWT and pacifism are often perceived as being polar extremes – pro-war vs. anti-war, but as most proponents of either are quick to point out, this is far from accurate. For example, John Howard Yoder, a prominent pacifist, states that “most of the time these positions will agree over against the others. In the face of most real moral choices, whether the ideological ‘wars