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Philosophy 220
The Moral Status of War
What's the Deal with War, Terrorism
and Torture?
 War, Terrorism and Torture, like all other forms of human
activity, have moral implications that ethics helps us
evaluate.
 Like some of the other activities we’ve taken a look at, war is
something which common moral opinion agrees is
sometimes justified, but not always.
 Terrorism and torture, on the other hand, are instances of
activities which common moral opinion generally forbids
(murder is another example).
 In these cases, too, arguments have been made that they can be/are
justifiable acts/practices.
 This is an example of how ethics can expand our common moral
judgment.
What are the Ethical Questions?

As we’ve seen in other contexts, moral
philosophy asks general questions about the
appropriateness and adequacy of moral
judgments.

In the context of W, T and T, the questions
take this form:
1. Are W, T or T, considered individually, ever morally
permissible?
2. If any of them are, what best explains why (justifies this
answer)?
Some Definitions: War
 War: (1): a state of usually open and declared armed
hostile conflict between states or nations; (2) a period
of such armed conflict (504).
 The distinction between hot and cold wars expands on
this definition. Hot wars are wars which actually involve
fighting. Cold wars are those which are carried out
without declaration or direct military conflict.
 We are going to focus on hot wars, one controversial
instance of which our country is currently involved.
Theoretical Extremes
 Two positions which could serve as the endpoints of a
moral spectrum addressing war are moral nihilism and
anti-war pacifism.
 Moral Nihilism: the view that moral considerations do
not apply to war (507).
 An absolute nihilist rejects any moral questions about war; a
limited nihilist acknowledges questions about the justice or
injustice of specific wars, but argues that in a war, anything
goes.
 Anti-War Pacifism: any massive use of lethal force
(wars) is always (perhaps, almost) morally wrong.
Theoretical Mainstream
 Just-War Theory is a common context of moral
analysis of war.
 Though there are a number of competing
JWTs, a clear and straightforward account
comes as an extension to Natural Law Theory.
 Particularly helpful is the NLT's "Doctrine of Double
Effect."
What does JWT do?
 As the title suggests, JWT assumes an answer to the first of
our moral questions about war: war is sometimes justified.
 The theory provides us with an answer to the second
question, specifying the conditions under which war is
justified, and thus, of course, unjustified.
 Like most theories justifying war, JWT makes the basic
distinction between jus ad bellum (discussion of when it is
justified to go to war) and jus in bello (discussion of the
morality of activities used to make war).
Jus ad Bellum
 JWT identifies 5 conditions which must be met
for a justified decision to go to war.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
War must be declared by a legitimate authority.
There must be a just cause.
War must be a last resort.
There must be a reasonable chance of success.
The violence produced must be proportional to the
wrong being resisted.
Jus in Bello

Employing the doctrine of double effect, JWTs
specify 3 conditions which must be met for a
particular action to be just in pursuit of military
ends.
1. Military Necessity: the action must be necessary to
accomplish a justifiable military end.
2. Discrimination: the action must avoid, to the extent
possible, innocent collateral damage.
3. Proportionality: the evil of the activity (casualties, property
damage, etc.) must be in proportion with the good of the
goal of the action.
Wasserstrom, "Does Morality Apply?"
 Wasserstrom's article evaluates the
common arguments for Moral Nihilism,
ultimately concluding that the arguments
are unsuccessful.
 On the assumption that the presumptive
position is that war is susceptible to moral
evaluation, Wasserstrom concludes that
MN is false.
What is Moral Nihilism?
 The first step in evaluating arguments for a position
is to carefully and clearly state the position and
arguments under examination.
 With the help of the Acheson quote (512c1-2),
Wasserstrom works to provide a clear,
unambiguous statement of the position.
 As he goes on to show, disambiguating the
position reveals that there are a number of different
possible MN positions to argue for, and the
arguments for each of them have to be evaluated
on their merits.
Conceptual MN
 One way to understand the MN claim is to understand it
as a statement of analytic or conceptual truth: it is
impossible for war to be evaluated from a moral
standpoint.
 A MN view on war could in this sense be just an instance of the
broader claim that morality is empty or useless, but most frequently
it amounts to the claim that war is a special case.
 Evaluation? This analytic claim certainly isn’t true
merely by the definition of war. The definition certainly
indicates that war is a case when killing is acceptable,
but it doesn’t require that it is always or in any way
acceptable.
Prescriptive MN
 Another way to understand MN is as a prescriptive
claim that in the case of war, national interests ought to
trump moral considerations.
 A common way of making this argument is to make
appeal to consequentialist features, such as that fewer
American lives would be lost if a particular war is fought
or a particular weapon system is used, even though it
may lead to the loss of more foreign lives.
 Clearly, an underlying assumption is that American lives are more
valuable than those of foreigners.
 Another common assumption is that leaders making the decision to go
to war act as servants of the interests of the citizens (like lawyers
acting as servants of the interests of their clients).
Evaluation?
 Taking the lawyer analogy seriously requires that we
recognize that such "servant" roles are not absolute.
Lawyers are often required to act counter to the interests of
their clients, if moral considerations overwhelm those
interests.
 If a lawyer knows that their client is going to commit a crime, they are morally
(and legally) required to report it. Similarly, a leader does have an obligation to
protect her citizens, but not in ways that violate other fundamental moral
obligations (like respect for human life).
 It's also dubious that appeals to national interests rule out
consideration of the interests of other nations.
 Finally, the claim that national interests trump other interests
is itself in need of justification that is not obvious or
straightforward.
Implications
 Given the strong presumptive argument that all
areas of human activity are open to moral
evaluation, the argument that war qualifies as a
case of special exemption needs to be justified.
 Wasserstrom examines the common justifications
offered for this claim and provides strong
arguments that they do not work.
 Lacking justification, the MN thesis should be
rejected.