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Just and Unjust War
Michael Walzer
Just War Theory
The theory asks two types of questions:
1) Just cause: was the war undertaken for the
right reasons
2) Just Means: is it fought in an honorable way?
To a great extent these questions are
independent. An unjust war might be fought
with a sense of restraint and a just war might
be pursued without any sense of limits.
Against “Realism”
The Realist Argument
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Can war lies beyond moral judgment?
Is the language we use to talk about war rich in
moral meaning? Why?
What is the so-called “realistic” view of war?
Why does Walzer thinks that the judgment of
war and war time conduct is a serious
enterprise?
What lesson can be drawn from a comparison
of the Melian and the Mytilena episodes?
What evidences supports Walser’s belief in the
moral reality of war?
Do the three accounts of Aginourt support that
claim that “all morality is relative?
Some Positions on War and Justice:
a) So-called realism- a realm of force excludes limits
b) The cause must be just but take any means to victory
c) Both the cause and means should be just except in a state
of emergency when unjust means must be adopted for a
while
d) Justice in terms of the cause and the means is vital
e) Nuclear pacifist: traditional wars might be justified but all
nuclear conflicts exceed acceptable limits
f) Even the nuclear policy of deterrence as a strategy for
avoiding war is unacceptable since it threatens human life
indiscriminately
g) Pacifist opposition to violence as a means of defense
Example of An Ancient War
Thucydides:
Thucydides, the Ancient Greek
historian of the fifth century
B.C., is not only the father of
scientific history, but also of
political "realism," the school
of thought which posits that
interstate relations are based
on might rather than right.
“Justice will not come to Athens until those who are
not injured are as indignant as those who are
injured.”
“The secret to happiness is freedom... And the
secret to freedom is courage.
-Thucydides
Read more at
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/t/thucydides.html#ASs02q1
6zRblh8lO.99
Peloponnrsion War
The Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC) was an ancient Greek war
fought by Athens and its empire against the Peloponnesian
League led by Sparta.
Two Parts of the War: http://classicalwisdom.com/thepeloponnesian-war-summary-part-one/
1) The First period: The "Archidamian War” it was concluded in
421 BC, ends at Peace of Nicias
2)
The second period: In 415 BC, Athens dispatched a massive
expeditionary force to attack Syracuse in Sicily
3) in 413 BC. This ushered in the final phase of the war, generally
referred to either as the Decelean War, or the Ionian War. The
destruction of Athens' fleet at Aegospotami effectively ended
the war, and Athens surrendered in the following year.
Consequences: complete with atrocities on a large scale. Shattering
religious and cultural taboos, devastating vast swathes of
countryside, and destroying whole cities, the Peloponnesian
War marked the dramatic end to the fifth century BC and the
golden age of Greece.
The Melian Dialogue
•The "Melian dialogue" best exemplifies Thucydides'
view that interstate politics lack regulation and justice. In
the "Melian dialogue," he wrote that, in interstate
relations:
“The strong do what they have to do and the weak
accept what they have to accept. ”
•The dialogue between the Athenian generals
Cleomedes and Tisias and the magistrates of the island
state of Melos
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The Athenian Generals believe:
• “Let us have no fine words about justice.”
• “We will talk instead of what is feasible and what is
necessary. for this is what war is really like: ’they that
have odds of power exact as much as they can, and the
weak yield to such conditions as they can get.’”
•“They must expand their empire” or “lose what they
already have.”
•“If they do not conquer when they can, they only
reveal weakness and invite attack.”
The Magistrates:
Melians: yield or be destroy?
Rulers: freedom above safety
Melos was betrayed by several of its
citizens. When further resistance seemed
impossible, the Melians “yielded
themselves to the discretion of Athenians:
who slew all the men of military age, made
slaves of the women and children; and
inhabited the place with a colony sent
thither afterwards of 500 men of their
own.”
Consequences of War (Peter Paul
Rubens)
“The Athenians shared a moral vocabulary, shared it
with the people of Mytilene and Melos; and allowing
for cultural differences, they share it with us too.
They had no difficulty, and we have none, in
understanding the claim of the Melian magistrates
that the invasion of their island was unjust.” (Walzer,
p. 11)
“There are, first of all, serious difficulties of
perception and information (in war and politics
generally), and so controversies arise over ‘the facts
of the case.’” (p. 12) ”
Example:
http://winstream.creighton.edu/jyu02084/movies/NorthKorea.m4v
“Whether or not people speak in good faith, they
cannot say just anything they please. Moral talk is
coercive; one thing leads to another.”(p.12)
“If I claim that I am fighting justly, I must also
claim that I was attacked (‘put to it,’ as the
Melians were), or threatened with attack, or that I
am coming to the aid of a victim of someone
else’s attack. And each of these claims has its
own entailments, leading me deeper and deeper
into a world of discourse where, thought I can go
on talking indefinitely, I am severely constrained
in what I can say. I must say this or that, and at
many points in a long argument this or that will be
true or false.” (p. 12)
Strategy and Morality:
•Strategy, like morality, is a language of
justification
•Moral judgments: moral concepts and strategic
concepts reflect the real world in the same way.
•Unfixed Moral Rules: The moral reality of war is
not fixed by the actual activities of soldiers but by
the opinions of mankind
Historical Relativism:
•No doubt the moral reality of war is not
the same for us as it was for Genghis Khan,
nor is the strategic reality
• Three Accounts of Agincourt
•Unfixed Moral Rules: The moral reality of
war is not fixed by the actual activities of
soldiers but by the opinions of mankind.
•Example of unfixed moral rules:
Example (How are Americans viewed by a
unfriendly country):
http://winstream.creighton.edu/jyu02084/movies/NorthKorea.m4v
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJoQOQHQ8oA
The End
Roy Lichtenstein, Whaam!, 1963