Read, Fitz-Gibbon's, “Peace” and answer the following questions: Instructions:Do you think that those in wealthier nations have an obligation to help those in poorer nations? If so why and if not
Realism
Realism is the idea that in the “real world” of social and political life, violence is one tool among others to be employed strategically to get things done. Realists tend to be consequentialists, who are primarily focused on outcomes and results—and who are not as concerned with the morality of the means employed to achieve such results. Realism is often characterized as holding an “anything goes” approach to the question of violence. The idea of realism has roots in the thinking of Thucydides, the ancient Greek historian of the Peloponnesian War. In his account of a battle between the Athenians and the inhabitants of the island of Melos, Thucydides describes an attempted negotiation prior to the battle. The Athenians argue that since they have the more powerful military, the Melians ought to surrender, since it is useless for them to fight. The Athenians explain that the stronger party does whatever it can get away with, while the weaker party is prudent to acquiesce. The Athenians go on to say that the strong sometimes have to use violence to establish their supremacy and as a warning against those who might challenge them. The Melians do not submit to the Athenian threat. The Athenians attack, killing or enslaving all of the inhabitants of the island of Melos. One moral of this story is that it is better to be strong than to be weak. Another moral is that there are no limits in war. From this perspective, war is understood as an existential struggle for supremacy. Perhaps it is possible to achieve a balance of power between equal powers. But if another power is threatening you, the realist would argue that in a life or death struggle it is necessary to do whatever it takes to defend against the threat of annihilation. Realists are opposed to the idea that there are inherent or intrinsic moral limits on the justification of violence. Indeed, they may argue that adherence to limitations on violence can make a nation look weak and ineffectual and produce more harm than good.
Realism is sometimes related to “militarism,” a social and ethical system that celebrates martial power and military might. Some militarists argue that the highest glory is to be found in military adventures—an idea with a deep history that goes back to Achilles, the warrior hero in Homer’s Iliad. Achilles and other heroes in warrior cultures view warfare as a test of manhood, which produces virtues such as loyalty, courage, and steadfastness (see Chapter 8’s discussion of virtue). Some continue to celebrate this spirit of masculine sacrifice and the glory of military service. But in modern culture, we have also expanded the definition of service and sacrifice to include gender-neutral virtues: it is not manhood that is tested but dedication and valor. Indeed, in the American military, women have been active participants for decades and a recent policy change allows women to serve in combat.
Critics of militarism argue that there should be nonviolent ways to produce the same sorts of virtues. In his essay “The Moral Equivalent of War,” American pragmatist philosopher William James called for a substitute for war. He wanted to find a way to develop virtues such as heroism and loyalty without the destruction of armed conflict.
But James was generally an opponent of war—especially the expansive American war in the Philippine islands. He and other philosophers—including the American feminist and pacifist author Jane Addams—were actively involved in the antiwar movement during the early part of the twentieth century.
Realists generally deny that moral ideas can be applied in warfare or that moral concerns should inhibit us from doing what is necessary to achieve victory. If we must bomb civilians or use torture to win a war, then that is what we must do. But realists are not simply bloodthirsty. They might agree that there are good pragmatic reasons to limit the use of violence. Violence can provoke a backlash (as enemies fight harder and unite against a dominant power). For realists, the central question is about what works. If terror bombing works, then it should be used, but if it does not work, then it should be avoided. Realists also have to consider the costs and benefits of warfare. War can be expensive. Realists do not advocate war at any cost. Instead, realists want to be strategic about the use of violence. It is imprudent to get involved in battles that cannot be won or that are so costly that they leave us in a weakened state. Note here that realism is focused on the question of prudence, strategy, and pragmatism—it is a consequentialist approach that is not concerned with moral questions about the means employed. From a utilitarian perspective, war may be employed as a way of pursuing the greatest happiness for the greatest number of those living within a polity. (Note that such a use of the utilitarian calculus ignores suffering on the other side.) Realism may also be criticized as being amoral, as when it simply denies that morality applies in the context of war. This version of realism will hold that “all’s fair in love in war” or that “war is hell”—both clichés point in the direction of the realist idea that in war there is no morality at all.
Pacifism
Pacifism lies on the opposite end of the spectrum from realism. While extreme realists argue that there are no moral limits in warfare, extreme pacifists argue that war is always wrong. Pacifism is often grounded in a deontological claim that focuses on the morality of killing. Deontological pacifists will maintain that there is an absolute moral rule against killing. Pacifism is also grounded in a more positive commitment to active nonviolence. Some forms of pacifism extend the idea of nonviolence in a very general way that condemns violence done to sentient beings in general, including nonhuman animals. Other forms of pacifism are narrowly focused on a condemnation of war as the most horrible form of violence, which must be opposed. Not all pacifists oppose the use of all types of force. After all, there are nonphysical means of exerting force and even nonviolent social protest is a way of mobilizing social force. One can think of there being degrees of pacifism—that is, in terms of the degree and type of force thought acceptable. Some pacifists may reluctantly allow the use of physical and even lethal physical force when it is absolutely necessary, such as to defend oneself.
Pacifists generally maintain that nonviolent alternatives to violence are preferable and should be actively pursued in a creative and sustained fashion. Prominent pacifists include Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., whose ideas we encountered in Chapter 2. Both were actively engaged in trying to change the world by using nonviolent social protest, including nonviolent civil disobedience. While King is best known as a civil rights activist, he was also a critic of war. He opposed the Vietnam War, for example, arguing that using war to settle differences is neither just nor wise.
The reasons given in support of pacifism vary. Some—like Gandhi and King—grounded their commitment to nonviolence in a religious perspective. Gandhi was dedicated to the idea of ahimsa (Sanskrit for nonviolence), which is a common value in South Asian traditions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. King developed his ideas about nonviolence from reading Gandhi. But as a Baptist minister, he also appealed to a pacifist interpretation of the Christian Gospels, an interpretation that is shared by such groups as Mennonites and Quakers. These Christians view Jesus as a pacifist who maintained (in the Sermon on the Mount found in the Gospel of Matthew 5, for example) that peacemakers are blessed, that one should not return evil for evil, and that we should love even our enemies.
Nonreligious arguments for pacifism can also be found—many derived from consequentialist considerations. Consequentialist pacifists believe that nonviolent means work better than violence to produce social goods. Violence does more harm than good, they argue, because violence begets violence. How can we determine whether or not this is true? We can look to see whether historical examples support the generalization. We also can inquire whether this may result from something in human nature. Are we overly prone to violence and bloodlust? Are we able to restrain ourselves when we turn to war? Our judgments will then depend on adequate factual assessments. We should note that it is difficult to weigh the benefits and costs of war—because we would have to engage in counter-factual speculation, asking what would have happened if we had (or had not) gone to war. War does cause substantial damage; however, it is an open question as to whether the damage of war is worse than the damage that would result if we did not use war to respond to aggressive dictators or genocidal regimes.
Most pacifists argue that killing is wrong. But critics of this view argue that if killing is wrong, there may be times when we need to kill to prevent killing from occurring. Consider, for example, whether it is justifiable to kill those who threaten the innocent. Should an exception to the rule against killing be made to prevent such killing? Would it be acceptable to kill in self-defense? Or in defense of innocent children, such as the children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School? Or in defense of those who are being slaughtered by genocidal or racist governments? Pacifists must address the criticism that it seems inconsistent to hold that life is of the highest value and yet not be willing to use force to defend it. One way they might address this objection is to clarify that pacifism is not passive—pacifists do not advocate doing nothing in response to atrocity. Rather, pacifists can be committed to active, creative, and sustained efforts to help people and defend the innocent, so long as such efforts do not involve killing. Pacifists will also argue that the problem of war is that innocent people are accidentally killed even by the “good guys” and that it is very difficult to focus the destructive power of war in a way that does not harm the innocent.
Just War Theory Intermediate between pacifism and realism is the idea that the use of force, including military force, is justified in limited and specific circumstances. The just war theory attempts to clarify when it is justifiable to resort to the use of lethal force. The just war approach is more or less the mainstream theory of the American military and political system. While some critics may argue that American military strategy includes a realist element—that the United States is engaged in asserting force and displaying strength around the globe—the rhetoric used to explain American military power is generally grounded in just war language. President Barack Obama defended this idea when he delivered his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech. According to Obama, philosophers and theologians developed the just war idea over time as they attempted to find moral language to criticize and limit the destructive power of war. “The concept of a ‘just war’ emerged, suggesting that war is justified only when certain conditions were met: if it is waged as a last resort or in self-defense; if the force used is proportional; and if, whenever possible, civilians are spared from violence.”
As Obama noted, the just war theory is not new. Indeed, the just war theory has a long history. Its origins can be traced to the writings of Augustine, one of the ancient fathers of the Catholic Church. Augustine wanted to reconcile traditional Christian views about the immorality of violence with the necessity of defending the Roman Empire from invading forces. He asked what one should do if one sees an individual attacking an innocent, defenseless victim. His response was that one should intervene and do whatever is necessary (but only so much as was necessary) to protect the victim, even up to the point of killing the aggressor. Further developments of the theory were provided by Thomas Aquinas, who provides a natural law justification of the violence used in self-defense. Medieval codes of chivalry also have something in common with just war ideas. But the theory gets its most systematic exposition in the work of early modern theologians and jurists such as Francisco de Vitoria, Francisco Suarez, and Hugo Grotius. In more recent times, just war ideas have been instituted in international law, which asserts the right of a nation to defend itself against aggression, while also calling for protections for civilians and prisoners of war. These ideas can be found in international conventions, as well as in the Charter of the United Nations and other treaties signed by world powers.
There is general agreement that just war theory includes two basic areas: principles that would have to be satisfied for a nation to be justified in using military force, or initiating a war, and principles governing the conduct of the military action or war itself. These have been given the Latin names of jus ad bellum (the justness of going to war) and jus in bello (justness in war).
Jus ad Bellum
Just Cause
To use force against another nation, there must be a serious reason to justify it. Defense of one’s territory against an invader is a prime example of a just cause for war. Nations have the right to defend themselves against aggression. But war is not justified to right a minor wrong or to respond to an insult. A newly developing concept of just cause includes the idea of intervening to prevent another nation from harming its own population. This idea is known as humanitarian intervention—the idea of using limited military force for humanitarian purposes. The United Nations has expanded this idea recently under the idea of a “responsibility to protect” (sometimes called “R2P”). The R2P idea holds that the international community has a responsibility to intervene to protect people from their own governments and to prevent war crimes and crimes against humanity (which we discuss in more detail later in this chapter).
Other causes for war have been proposed. Could war be employed to prevent the spread of communism, to rid another country of a despotic leader, to prevent a nation from obtaining nuclear weapons, or to protect the world’s oil supply? These may be viewed as cases of self-defense, using a broad definition of what is in a nation’s vital interest. But the just war theory in general attempts to limit the causes of war.
One contentious issue related to just cause is the justification of preventive and preemptive strikes. If a neighboring nation is about to invade one’s territory, preemptive defense against threatened aggression would seem to be a just response. A nation need not wait to be attacked when it knows an invasion is impending. The principle of “only if attacked first” may be too strict. Traditionally, preemptive attacks were thought to be justified if an attack was imminent. However, in the age of terrorists with weapons of mass destruction, some have argued that to wait until an attack is imminent is to wait too long. This logic has been employed to justify a variety of attacks. For example, Israel has attacked weapons sites in Iraq (in 1981) and in Syria in more recent years in an effort to prevent its enemies from developing deadly weapons. The 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq was justified as an attempt to prevent Iraq from using, developing, and disseminating weapons of mass destruction. While some just war theorists supported this invasion, others argued that preventive war was an immoral use of war. The danger of preventive war is that it can cause an escalation in violence, as each side may feel justified in attacking first.
Legitimate Authority
If we assume that we can agree upon the question of what counts as a just cause for war, another concern is the question of who has the authority to declare war. Traditionally, it was thought to be the sovereign power who had the right to declare war. In the era of kings and princes, it was the monarch who declared war. In democracies, however, we presume that the power to declare war rests in the hands of the duly elected government. In the United States, there has been some concern about where the power to declare war resides: in Congress or in the president. The Constitution (Article I, Section 8, Clause 11) stipulates that the power to declare war rests in the hands of the Congress. However, in recent decades, the president has sent military forces into battle without explicit declarations of war. Leaving aside this constitutional question, we might wonder whether it makes sense for the civilian leadership to declare war. Wouldn’t it be wiser to let the military decide when and where to fight? After all, soldiers are the experts in war. However, the idea of civilian control of the military is a central idea for democratic nations, which believe that warfare must be approved by the people through duly elected representatives. This can lead to a difficulty, however, as military priorities may conflict with the concerns of the civilian leadership.
The issue of legitimate authority points toward other problems. Who has a claim to legitimate authority in a civil war or a revolution? That’s a difficult question to answer. Another problem has to do with the development of international institutions such as the United Nations. Should the United States defer to the judgments of the United Nations Security Council about wars and interventions? Or do the United States and other nations have the right to “go it alone” when it comes to war? In 2004, the secretary-general of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, declared that the United States had violated the United Nations Charter by going to war against Iraq and that the war was illegal. But the United States maintained that it had a moral right to go to war without United Nations approval. The issue of legitimate authority remains an important concern for thinking about the justification of war.
Proportionality
Not only must the cause be just, according to the theory, but also the probable good to be produced by the intervention must outweigh the likely evil that the war will cause. Before engaging in warfare, we should consider the probable costs and benefits and compare them with the probable costs and benefits of doing something else or of doing nothing. Involved in this utilitarian calculation are two elements: one assesses the likely costs and benefits, and the other weighs their relative value. The first requires historical and empirical information, whereas the second involves ethical evaluations. In making such evaluations, we might well compare lives that are likely to be saved with lives lost, for example. But how do we compare the value of freedom and self-determination, or a way of life with the value of a life itself? How do we factor in the long-term impacts of war, including the possibility of post-traumatic stress for soldiers and civilians? Moreover, there is the difficulty of assessing costs and benefits with regard to a complex and chaotic activity such as fighting a war.
Last Resort
The just war theory holds that war should be a last resort. Military interventions are extremely costly in terms of suffering, loss of life, and other destruction, so other means must be considered first. They need not all be tried first, for some will be judged useless beforehand. However, nonviolent means should be attempted, at least those that are judged to have a chance of achieving the goal specified by the just cause. Negotiations, threats, and boycotts are examples of such means. When is enough finally enough? When have these measures been given sufficient trial? There is always something more that could be tried. This is a matter of prudential judgment and therefore always uncertain.
Right Intention
Military action should be directed to the goal set by the cause and to the eventual goal of peace. Thus, wars fought to satisfy hatred and bloodlust or to obtain wealth are unjustified. The focus on intentions is a deontological element in the jus ad bellum consideration. Recall that Kant’s deontological theory focused on the intention behind an act (what Kant called the “good will” and the nature of the maxims of action). In thinking about going to war, this principle would remind us that we ought to intend good things even as we employ violent means. The right intention principle seems to imply that there should be no gratuitous cruelty such as would follow from malicious intentions. This moves us into discussion of the conduct of a war, the second area covered by the principles of just war theory.
We might consider this particular principle as what is called a regulative rather than a substantive principle. Instead of telling us when something is enough or the last thing we should try, it can be used to prod us to go somewhat further than we otherwise would.
Jus in Bello
Even if a war were fought for a just cause and by a legitimate authority, with the prospect of achieving more good than harm, as a last resort only, and with the proper intention, it still would not be fully just if it were not conducted justly or in accordance with certain principles or moral guidelines. The jus in bello part of the just war theory consists of several principles.
Proportionality
The principle of proportionality stipulates that in the conduct of the conflict, violence should be focused on limited objectives. No more force than necessary should be used. And the force or means used should be proportionate to the importance of the particular objective for the cause as a whole. This principle is obviously similar to the principle of proportionality discussed previously in thinking about jus ad bellum; however, within the jus in bello consideration of proportionality, the cost–benefit analysis is focused on limited war aims and not on the question of the war itself.
Discrimination
Just warriors should not intentionally attack noncombatants and nonmilitary targets. While this principle sounds straightforward, there are complex issues to sort out in terms of what counts as a nonmilitary target or who is a noncombatant. Are roads, bridges, and hospitals that are used in the war effort military targets? The general consensus is that the roads and bridges are targets if they contribute directly and in significant ways to the military effort, but that hospitals are not legitimate targets. The principle to be used in making this distinction is the same for the people as for the things. Those people who contribute directly are combatants, and those who do not are not combatants. There is some vagueness here. Is a soldier at home on leave a legitimate target? One writer suggests that persons who are engaged in doing what they do ordinarily as persons are noncombatants, while those who perform their functions specifically for the war effort are combatants. Thus, those who grow and provide food would be noncombatants, whereas those who make or transport the military equipment would be combatants.
Note, too, that although we also hear the term innocent civilians in such discussions, it is noncombatants who are supposed to be out of the fight and not people who are judged on some grounds to be “innocent” in a deeper moral sense. Soldiers fighting unwillingly might be thought to be innocent but are nevertheless combatants. Those behind the lines spending time verbally supporting the cause are not totally innocent, yet they are noncombatants. The danger of using the term innocents in place of noncombatants is that it also allows some to say that no one living in a certain country is immune because they are all supporters of their country and so not innocent. However, this is contrary to the traditional understanding of the principle of discrimination.
One way of describing the discrimination principle is to say that noncombatants should have immunity from harm. The idea of noncombatant immunity says that noncombatants should not be intentionally harmed. Combatants are not immune because they are a threat. Thus, when someone is not or is no longer a threat, as when they have surrendered or are incapacitated by injury, then they are not to be regarded as legitimate targets. The discrimination principle does not require that no noncombatants be injured or killed, but only that they not be the direct targets of attack. Although directly targeting and killing civilians may have a positive effect on a desired outcome, this would not be justified. The principle of discrimination is a deontological principle that stipulates a duty not to deliberately target noncombatants.
Nonetheless, some noncombatants are harmed in modern warfare—as bombs go astray and battles rage within cities. Noncombatant harms can be permitted by application of the principle of double effect (also discussed in Chapter 10). Noncombatant harms can be permitted if they are the foreseen but unintended and accidental result of a legitimate war aim. Not only must the noncombatants not be directly targeted but also the number of them likely to be injured when a target is attacked must not be disproportionately great compared to the significance of the target. Thus if a bomb goes astray and kills some children, this could be permitted by the principle of double effect if the intended target was a legitimate one, if the numbers harmed were minimal, and if the death of the children was not directly intended. In such a case, these children would be described as collateral damage, that is, as harms that are accidental and unintended.
Intrinsically Evil Means
A final concern of jus in bello is a strictly deontological prohibition on the use of means that are viewed as being evil in themselves (or mala in se, as this is expressed in Latin). One obvious inherently evil act is rape. Rape has long been a weapon of war, employed by conquering armies as a way of degrading and terrorizing a conquered people. But just warriors ought not engage in rape. We should also prohibit slavery as a means of warfare—for example, forcing captured enemies to engage in hard labor or using them as human shields. We might also think that the use of poisons—including poison gas—is intrinsically wrong. And most just war accounts maintain that torture is intrinsically wrong, although (as we shall see) in recent years there has been an open debate about the morality of torture in American war-making. To say that these things are wrong in themselves creates a deontological prohibition on such weapons and actions: just warriors may not use such weapons even if they might work to produce good outcomes.
According to just war theory, then, for a war or military intervention to be justified, certain conditions for going to war must be satisfied, and the conduct in the war must follow certain principles or moral guidelines. We could say that if any of the principles are violated, that a war is unjust, or we could say that it was unjust in this regard but not in some other aspects. Just war ideas have become part of national and international law, including the U.S. Army Rules for Land Warfare and the UN Charter. Its principles appeal to common human reason and both consequentialist and non-consequentialist concerns.
Realists will maintain that the moral limits imposed by the just war theory can get in the way of victory and the goal of establishing power and supremacy. Pacifists will maintain that the just war theory is too permissive. Pacifists might reject, for example, the way that the doctrine of double effect allows noncombatants to be harmed. To evaluate realism, pacifism, and the just war theory, you must think about how you evaluate the various consequentialist and deontological principles and ideas appealed to by each approach. Let’s apply these principles to some current issues.
Currcent Issues
19-4a Terrorism
Terrorism would be condemned by pacifists, along with other acts of killing. Just war theory would condemn terrorism that kills noncombatants as violating the jus in bello principle of discrimination. Realists may argue that terrorism is acceptable if it works as a strategy.
We can describe an act of violence as terrorism when this violent act causes or intends to cause widespread terror. Usually this terrifying act has a political goal (although there may be nihilistic terrorists who blow up things just for fun). Some maintain that terrorism is a politically loaded term, employed to denigrate one’s enemies. Some say that one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter. But the common element in a definition of terrorism is the use of attacks on noncombatants. The first known use of the term terrorism was during the French Revolution for those who, like Maximilien Robespierre, used violence on behalf of a state. Only later was the term used to categorize violence against a state. The U.S. Code of Justice (Title 22, section 2656f(d)) defines terrorism as “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.” The FBI defines terrorism as, “the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.”
By combining these definitions, we see that terrorism is, first of all, a particular kind of violence with particular aims and goals. The more immediate goal is to create fear. This is why civilians simply going about their daily routines are targeted at random. The more distant goals vary. Terrorists may use such violence to achieve some political goal such as independence from a larger national unit or to fight back against occupying armies or to protest against particular injustices. A terrorist may be motivated by religious or political ideology. Although we often read about Islamic militants employing terror tactics, it is important to note that terrorism can be employed by people from a variety of religions, and it can be used by secularly minded political groups. Christians have employed terror tactics (as in the struggles in Northern Ireland or as in the antiapartheid violence in South Africa). And Marxist revolutionaries have employed terrorism in pursuit of atheistic and communistic goals. One could argue that the Ku Klux Klan used terrorism to subjugate the black population in the American South. And black militants in the 1960s advocated terrorism against white supremacy. One could argue that Native Americans used terrorism against the white settlers of the American West. And one could argue that colonial powers used terror tactics against the Natives. And so on. Any time there is an attempt to manipulate a political situation by applying indiscriminate force, it is possible that there is terrorism. We might even suspect that the use of firebombing and atomic bombing during the Second World War was a sort of terrorism—terror bombing that aimed to force the enemy to surrender by indiscriminately bombing civilian population centers.
Some terrorists commit suicide while killing others. We hear quite a bit about Muslim terrorists who employ the tactic of suicide attack. But we should note that suicide attacks have been employed by a variety of religious (and nonreligious) groups. The Japanese kamikaze pilots of World War II were, for example, suicide attackers (although since they attacked military targets, they may not be considered terrorists). Indeed, we might note that those American soldiers who launched themselves on the beach of Normandy on D-Day also were involved in a kind of suicidal attack—although again, such a military onslaught is not terrorism. Suicidal terrorism is especially frightening, however, because the suicide bomber is not subject to a rational calculus of deterrence. The suicidal bomber is willing to die and wants to kill others in order to produce terror. Most suicide bombers are young (as are most soldiers) and thus may be more idealistic and easily influenced and manipulated. While some blame fundamentalist preaching and religious schools for the rise of suicidal terrorism, those who have investigated the background of known terrorists find that most of them are at least middle class and most often well educated. Some terrorists are more rational in their goals than others, in having sufficient historical and political sense to know what will and will not work. In other cases, it seems that terrorists simply strike out in frustration, not caring about the long-term strategic consequences of their actions.
Terrorists seem to lack the ability to empathize with the innocent victims of their attacks. Terrorists may demonize entire nations and peoples, killing out of hatred. But terrorists may also be engaged in a consequentialist calculation that has much in common with the thinking of realism. From a realist perspective, there is nothing inherently wrong with targeting innocent civilians for attack. And if one is on the losing end of a military conflict, it might be necessary to resort to terror attacks as a way of continuing the fight. Those who resort to terror may be motivated by political or religious ideology. But they may also feel they have no other way to influence the state of affairs than to resort to terrorism.
In evaluating terrorism, we might reject it outright as a form of unjustified killing. From this standpoint, terrorism is like murder—by definition wrong. Terrorism would be condemned in this way by pacifists, who maintain that all violence is wrong. Pacifists would also maintain that a war against terrorism is also wrong, since pacifists maintain that war is wrong. Pacifists may also view terrorism as an example of what is wrong with war and violence—it tends to spread toward the deliberate targeting of noncombatants. Moreover, pacifists might point out that terrorism produces backlash and escalation, which only tends to beget more violence.
Could there be an ethical justification of terrorism? The reasoning that supports terrorism is most often basically consequentialist. This is connected with the realist approach to the justification of violence, which holds that the end justifies the means. If one supported this type of reasoning, then one would want to know whether, in fact, the benefits outweighed the harm and suffering caused by the means. One could do empirical studies to see whether terrorism actually produces desired outcomes. Did the terror bombing of Japan during World War II result in the surrender of the Japanese? Did the September 11 attacks bring down the U.S. government or change its international behavior? Did terror attacks on American military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan lead Americans to retreat? These sorts of questions point toward the primary realist concern, which is the prudential and strategic application of power.
One might, however, question the consequentialist nature of realist reasoning by appealing to the just war theory’s ideas about noncombatant immunity and discrimination. Indiscriminate violence can be rejected on realist grounds as simply being an inefficient use of power and resources. But in the just war tradition, the principle of discrimination is a non-consequentialist or deontological prohibition. Noncombatants cannot be intentionally or directly targeted, their deaths being used to send a message to others (no matter the importance of justification of the cause for which we are fighting). International law also condemns terrorism. The Geneva Conventions, including the fourth (adopted on August 12, 1949—more than sixty years ago), enunciated principles that aim to protect civilian populations from the worst effects of war. These conventions hold that civilians should not be directly attacked. From the standpoint of international law and the just war theory, terrorism is a war crime.
Targeted Killing and Drones
Terrorists are not necessarily part of any recognized state. Often they are loosely affiliated, acting alone or organized in small cells. They may be motivated by radical ideology read online or viewed in videos. And terrorists do not declare war or put on uniforms that distinguish them as combatants. For these reasons, some argue that the weapons and rules of traditional just war theory may not apply. Others argue that terrorists are simply criminals and that domestic and international law enforcement should be employed to bring them to justice.
Should terrorists be viewed as criminals, who ought to be captured if possible and put on trial so that they might be punished? Or are terrorists enemy combatants who may be killed or captured without a trial and held as prisoners of war until an eventual peace treaty is concluded? Or are terrorists unlawful combatants whose actions and ideology put them outside of the established moral and legal framework for dealing with enemy combatants? The term unlawful combatant has been employed by the United States to indicate that the normal rules for dealing with criminals and enemy fighters do not apply to those suspected of terrorism. For example, American policy is that terrorist suspects can be killed without trial. And when captured, terrorism suspects have been held without trial in extraterritorial prisons such as the American prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba (discussed in Chapter 7). Terror suspects have been tortured. And Americans have engaged in targeted killing of terrorists, hunting them down in foreign lands (often in violation of the sovereignty of foreign nations).
The most famous case of targeted killing is that of Osama bin Laden. Osama bin Laden was the leader of Al Qaeda at the time of the September 11 attacks. He was killed by an American military attack on his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on May 2, 2011. The operation that killed him was in violation of Pakistani sovereignty. When he was killed, he was accompanied by his wives and children. He was not actively engaged in military operations. Some claim that he was unarmed, with a recent book by one of the Navy SEALs involved in the raid maintaining that Bin Laden was shot in the head as he peered down a dark hallway and again in the chest as he lay convulsing in a pool of his own blood. The SEALs feared bin Laden could have had a booby trap or suicide vest at his disposal. President Obama explained in a speech to the nation celebrating the death of bin Laden that there was a firefight, which led to bin Laden being killed.
Whether bin Laden posed an active threat to the Navy SEAL team that attacked him or not, Obama and others maintain that the killing of bin Laden was justified. Obama explained that bin Laden was responsible for killing Americans and that he was also, as Obama explained, “a mass murderer of Muslims.” Obama concluded, “[H]is demise should be welcomed by all who believe in peace and human dignity.” Eric Holder, the attorney general of the United States, further explained, “The operation against bin Laden was justified as an act of national self-defense. It’s lawful to target an enemy commander in the field.” Critics objected that the killing was a violation of international law and that Americans had an obligation to work to try to extradite bin Laden and put him on trial. Critics might also object to Holder’s claim that bin Laden was a “commander in the field.” Is a terrorist who is resting at home in the middle of the night a commander in the field?
The justification of the killing of bin Laden points toward the broader question of whether it is morally and legal permissible to employ targeted killing as a method of warfare. The larger question from the standpoint of the just war theory is whether it is permissible to target an enemy commander or other soldier who is not actively engaged in fighting. The just war idea of discrimination may encourage us to distinguish between soldiers who are actively fighting and those who are in hospitals, on leave, or engaged in nonlethal support operations. One reason to avoid targeting soldiers behind the lines is to keep violence contained on the battlefield. But some may argue that this convenient distinction between combatants who are fighting and soldiers on leave does not hold in the war on terrorism where there are no specified fields of battle and where terrorists themselves refuse to adhere to the distinction between combatants and noncombatants. A realist would have no problem with targeting a terrorist mastermind or a political leader, except for pragmatic concerns about potential blowback from such attacks. The just war theory may also permit assassinations of terrorist masterminds and political leaders, if such attacks are discriminate and proportional. One concern, however, is that by employing targeted assassination, the door is open for similar attacks coming from the other side. Could Al Qaeda make similar arguments in attempting to justify attacks on American political or military leaders? The presumption here is that the “good guys”—those who fight justly and who have a just cause—are permitted to employ targeted killing, while the “bad guys” are not.
The issue of targeted killing has come to prominence lately with regard to the use of unmanned drones. Drone aircraft, piloted by remote control, can attack terrorist suspects around the world, easily crossing borders. Drones have been used to attack targets in a variety of countries. One advantage of drones is that they are more precise than the use of other sorts of bombing, allowing for more discriminate and proportional killing. However, civilian noncombatants have been killed by the use of drones. One estimate from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism claims the United States has killed at least five thousand people in Yemen, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Pakistan with drone strikes (as of spring 2016), including at least five hundred to six hundred civilians. At one point, early in the drone program in Pakistan, nearly half of the casualties were noncombatants. But the drone program has become more precise, with civilian deaths accounting for only 10 to 15 percent of casualties from more recent drone attacks. Such killing may be justifiable on just war grounds as collateral damage. But they are still morally troubling. In April of 2016, President Obama admitted the difficulty, saying of the drone war, “It wasn’t as precise as it should have been, and there’s no doubt civilians were killed that shouldn’t have been…. We have to take responsibility where we’re not acting appropriately, or just made mistakes.”
Another advantage of using drones is that drones are cheaper than manned aircraft. And they do not put pilots at risk. However, they return us to the problem of who counts as a combatant. Would the remote control drone pilots, who fly these drones from facilities based in the United States and who thus never come near the battlefield, be considered “combatants”? One worry along these lines is that remote control piloting of drones extends our idea of what counts as “the battlefield” in a way that undermines the just war effort to constrain violence to a confined space of battle.
Defenders of drones will argue that they are an essential response to terrorism. The war on terrorism is not a traditional war, with armies fighting each other on clearly marked battlefields. Terrorists do not wear uniforms. Indeed, they try to blend into to the local populace. And they employ mundane objects and camouflaged devices as part of their weaponry: car bombs, suicide vests, and most notoriously commercial jet airliners. Perhaps the rules have changed for a war on terrorism, which leads to a changed evaluation of the use of targeted killing. And since terrorists plan their operations in cities and villages around the globe, it might be necessary to use drones to cross borders and kill terrorists where they are doing their planning.
Another problem arises when we think about the justification of targeted killing of terrorists—whether by drones or by other means—and that is the question of preventive violence. We might think that the killing of Osama bin Laden is justifiable because he was responsible for terrorist attacks in the past. But the drone and targeted killing policy of the United States allows for targeted killing of terrorists who have not themselves committed terrorism and who may not be an imminent threat. A Justice Department memo outlining the justification of targeted killing explains that the policy “does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future.” In other words, it may be enough to be thinking about terrorism to be liable for targeted killing. Such an idea might make sense from a standpoint that advocates preventive warfare, as discussed previously. If the U.S. invasion of Iraq was justified as a war aiming to prevent Iraq from obtaining or using weapons of mass destruction to terrorize the world, couldn’t a drone attack on a terrorist in Yemen be justified by the same logic? A defender of the drone program will argue that it is better to prevent terrorist attacks before they happen. But a critic will argue that it is a disproportionate escalation of hostilities.
The discussion of drones has become even more contentious due to the government policy of allowing targeted killing of American citizens. The Department of Justice memo mentioned earlier was used to justify the killing of American citizens who are actively involved in Al Qaeda and who are residing in foreign countries. This policy was employed in the killing of four Americans in Yemen and Pakistan in 2011. Among those killed was a radical Muslim cleric, Anwar Al-Awlaki, who was born in New Mexico and attended college in Colorado. He was killed along with his son and another American associate. The U.S. government claims that Al-Awlaki was actively involved in planning terrorist operations against the United States and thus that his killing was justified. Such a justification might appeal to just war ideas about the killing of aggressive combatants. Or targeted killing might be justified by realists as part of the struggle for supremacy in the world of power and politics. Critics have argued that it is illegal for the government to execute American citizens without attempting to capture them and put them on trial, perhaps maintaining that domestic and international law enforcement standards should be employed. But President Obama defended the drone program by maintaining that it was part of a just war against terrorism, which is discriminate and proportional in its approach to targeted killing.
Weapons of Mass Destruction
One of the central concerns of the war on terrorism is the issue of weapons of mass destruction. Recall that the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction was a primary reason given by George W. Bush as a cause for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The Bush administration maintained that the invasion was necessary to prevent Saddam Hussein from obtaining weapons of mass destruction, especially nuclear weapons. The issue of weapons of mass destruction remains a concern with regard to Iran and North Korea. International sanctions against Iran were directed against Iran’s nuclear program. And the Korean peninsula remains tense due to North Korea’s nuclear capabilities. In 2013, there was evidence that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons against rebels. This was widely condemned by the international community, leading to a change in the U.S. policy toward the civil war in Syria. As a result of the chemical weapons attacks, the United States began actively arming rebel forces in Syria, while also threatening a military strike on the country.
The category of weapons of mass destruction usually includes biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons. Biological weapons are living microorganisms that can be used as weapons to maim, incapacitate, and kill. Among these weapons is anthrax, which infects either the skin or the lungs. Breathing only a small amount of anthrax causes death in 80 to 90 percent of cases. Smallpox, cholera, and bubonic or pneumonic plague are other biological agents that might be used. Genetic engineering may also be used to make more virulent strains. There have been no proven usages of biological weapons in modern wars. One hundred sixty-three states have ratified the Biological Weapons Convention (1975), which prohibits the production, stockpiling, and use of such agents as weapons.
Chemical weapons include blister agents such as mustard gas, which is relatively easy and cheap to produce. It produces painful blisters, and it incapacitates rather than kills. Iraq used mustard gas in its 1980 to 1988 war with Iran as well as some type of chemical weapon on the Kurdish inhabitants of Halabja in 1988. Through low-level repeated airdrops, as many as five thousand defenseless people in that town were killed. Phosgene is a choking agent, and hydrogen cyanide “prevents transfer of oxygen to the tissues.” Large quantities of the latter, however, would be needed to produce significant effects. Hydrogen cyanide is a deadly poison gas, as is evidenced by its use in executions in the gas chamber. Sarin is called a nerve “gas,” but it is actually a liquid. It affects the central nervous system and is highly toxic. In 1995, the Japanese cult group Aum Shinrikyo deployed sarin in the Tokyo subway. It sickened thousands and killed twelve people. Sarin is the gas employed in attacks in Syria that killed more than 1,000 people. Chemical weapons were also used in both world wars. For example, in World War I, the Germans used mustard gas and chlorine, and the French used phosgene. Although it might not be usually classified as the use of a chemical weapon, in 1945 American B-29 bombers “dropped 1665 tons of napalm-filled bombs on Tokyo, leaving almost nothing standing over 16 square miles.” One hundred thousand people were killed in this raid, not from napalm directly but from the fires that it caused. One hundred and eighty-eight nations are party to the Chemical Weapons Convention (1994). Because such weapons can be made by private groups in small labs, however, verifying international compliance with the convention is highly problematic.
Nuclear weapons, including both fission and fusion bombs, are the deadliest weapons. They produce powerful explosions and leave radiation behind that causes ongoing damage. The effects were well demonstrated by the U.S. bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. It is estimated that 150,000 people perished in these two attacks and their immediate aftermath, with an eventual total of nearly 300,000 deaths caused by these bombs (as survivors died of subsequent maladies attributed to the bombing). Among the casualties at Hiroshima were American citizens—including American prisoners of war and Japanese Americans who were unable to escape from Japan once the war began. Some 3,000 Japanese Americans were in Hiroshima when the bomb was dropped; 800 to 1,000 survived and returned to the United States.
Since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, no other nation has ever employed nuclear weapons in wartime. Perhaps we learned a moral lesson from the sheer destructive power of these bombings. But for many decades after World War II, we continued to stockpile weapons. The world’s nuclear arsenals grew to include unimaginable destructive power throughout the Cold War. Recognizing that nuclear weapons were pointing toward the nihilistic conclusion of mutually assured destruction, the nuclear powers have attempted to limit nuclear arsenals. There have been many nuclear weapons treaties designed to limit nuclear stockpiles and prevent proliferation. Nations known to have nuclear weapons now include China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Although some dream of complete disarmament, we are a far from a nuclear free world. On the other hand, there has been some progress made regarding the agreement to reduce nuclear stockpiles. On April 8, 2010, in a new START treaty, the US and Russia agreed to limit the number of nuclear warheads in each arsenal to 1,550.
The global community continues to be concerned about nuclear proliferation. There is a worrisome global black market in nuclear materials and know-how. These weapons are difficult but not impossible to make. And many fear so-called “loose nukes,” nuclear weapons that are not carefully guarded (for example in the former Soviet Union) and that are sold on the black market to terrorists. There was an attempt to confine possession of nuclear weapons to the original nuclear powers: the United States, the UK, France, the Soviet Union (now Russia), and China. But in recent decades nuclear weaponry has been developed by Israel and India, with Pakistan joining the nuclear club in 1998. North Korea successfully detonated a nuclear device in 2006 and claimed to have tested a hydrogen bomb in early 2016, an act that provoked outrage in the international community. Other states have agreed not to pursue nuclear weapons by signing on to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. At least one state has voluntarily given up its nuclear weapons: South Africa dismantled its nuclear weapons in the 1990s.
In calling these nuclear, chemical, and biological devices weapons of mass destruction, we imply that they are of a different order of magnitude than the usual means of modern warfare. It is clear why nuclear weapons are labeled in this way, but it is not so clear why the others are. Even when used somewhat extensively in World War I, “fewer than 1 percent of battle deaths” during that war were caused by gas, and only “2 percent of those gassed during the war died, compared with 24 percent of those struck by bullets, artillery shells, or shrapnel.” For gas to work well, there can be no wind or sun, and it must be delivered by an aircraft flying at very low altitude. If delivered by bombs, the weapons would be incinerated before they could become effective. Today’s gas masks and antibiotics and other preventives and treatments lessen the lethality of such weapons even more. In 1971, smallpox accidentally got loose in Kazakhstan but killed only three people; and in 1979, a large amount of anthrax was released through the explosion of a Soviet plant, but only sixty-eight people were killed. There have been subsequent scares with regard to chemical and biological agents. In 2001, Americans were frightened by anthrax scares, as suspicious white powder was sent by the mail. In 2013, federal authorities arrested domestic terrorists who sent letters laced with the poison ricin through the mail to judges and politicians, including one to the president. Ricin is made from castor beans and it is quite deadly: a dose about the size of a grain of salt can cause death.
Realists would have no moral problem with weapons of mass destruction, provided that they work. One concern is that such weapons are difficult to use without harming your own soldiers. The wind can blow chemical and biological weapons in the wrong direction, and nuclear weapons leave deadly radiation that can harm one’s own troops. On the other hand, just war theorists may argue that weapons of mass destruction are mala in se or evil in themselves (and so prohibited). But we need not appeal to intrinsic qualities of the weapons to form a moral critique of weapons of mass destruction. Principles from the just war theory that are used to evaluate terrorism and other warfare can be employed to evaluate the use of weapons of mass destruction. The principle of discrimination tells us that it is morally wrong to deliberately target innocent civilians with firebombs, nuclear bombs, or chemical weapons. And massive destruction caused by these weapons might fail the proportionality test as well. One wonders, however, whether ordinary bombs and bullets that explode and kill many more people than biological or chemical weapons are less objectionable. During the Second World War, more civilians were killed by conventional bombs than were killed by atomic bombs. And land mines continue to be a cause of harm—left behind in battlefields to harm civilians after conflicts end. Nevertheless, people seem to fear biological and chemical weapons more than conventional weapons. Possibly it is the thought of being killed by something invisible—radiation sickness or poison gas—that makes them so feared and is behind the desire to call them weapons of mass destruction, with the implication that they are morally abhorrent and are intrinsically evil.
War Crimes and Universal Human Rights
One of the difficulties of thinking about the morality of war is that, as the realists may insist, there is no international authority that could regulate behavior in war. Realists will argue that victors dispense so-called “victor’s justice.” Usually the term victor’s justice is thought of as an accusation of unilateral and hypocritical judgment, as the victors punish the losers, while failing to prosecute or condemn their own unjust or immoral actions. Consider, for example, a scene from the 2003 documentary The Fog of War in which former Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara is interviewed about his participation in the bombing of Japan during World War II. McNamara worked with General Curtis LeMay to coordinate the bombing of Japan. In addition to the atomic bomb attacks mentioned previously, American planes dropped incendiary bombs on a large number of Japanese cities, causing massive damage and killing millions. As McNamara reflects on this in the film, he acknowledges that the bombing would have been viewed as a war crime if the Americans had lost. He said that LeMay suggested, “If we had lost the war, we’d all have been prosecuted as war criminals.” McNamara continued, “And I think he’s right. He...and, I’d say, I...were behaving as war criminals. LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?” The realist will argue that this shows us that moral judgments do not apply in wartime and that the goal is to win so that one can be the victor dispensing victor’s justice.
On the other hand, there is a growing consensus in the international community that moral judgment should apply to behavior in war. International agreements, treaties, and institutions have developed in the past centuries that aim to limit warfare and prosecute immoral actions done in war. These efforts in international law are grounded upon ideas that are closely connected to ideas found in the just war theory—most important, the idea that civilians should not be targeted and the idea that certain actions—rape, for example—are always immoral. Many of the elements of the laws of war and the nature of war crimes have been developed in the various declarations of the Geneva Conventions and in other international treaties and agreements. For example, the 1984 UN Convention against Torture, which was ratified by the United States, requires that all signatory nations avoid cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.
Those who violate these conventions and protocols may be held to be guilty of “war crimes.” One important source for the conventions regarding war crimes were the war crimes tribunals conducted after World War II—both the Nuremberg trials and the Tokyo trials. There have been questions about the legal procedures and standards of proof employed in these trials. But in general, they are viewed as examples of the developing moral consensus about the rules of war. The Nuremberg trials established three categories of crimes: crimes against the peace (involving aggression and preparation for war), war crimes (including murder, maltreatment of prisoners, etc.), and crimes against humanity (involving racial, religious, or political persecution of civilians). The last category, crimes against humanity included a newly developed concept—that of genocide, the deliberate effort to exterminate a people. As is well known, the Nazis were engaged in a genocidal campaign of extermination against Jews, Gypsies, and others. Nazi death camps were employed in an efficient and mechanized effort to annihilate the Jewish people, resulting in the deaths of six million Jews (out of a prior population of nine million Jews in the German-controlled parts of Europe). This event is referred to as the Holocaust. The mass extermination of civilians is a war crime and a crime against humanity.
The idea of a crime against humanity and of war crimes in general can be understood in relation to the natural law and natural rights theories discussed in Chapter 7. Certain actions violate the natural value and dignity of persons, and all human beings should know this based upon a common moral sense, no matter what orders they receive. The important point here is that soldiers cannot be excused for criminal behavior by claiming that they are merely following orders. Principle IV of the Nuremberg trials stipulates, “The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.” Moreover, Principle III of the Tribunal stipulated that heads of state and other political leaders were not excused from prosecution. The Nuremberg trials put twenty-two Nazi leaders on trial (Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels, and other Nazi leaders were already dead), resulting in convictions for nineteen of them and death sentences for twelve. While the Nuremberg trials are viewed as an important step in the development of war crimes tribunals and international law, some still worry that they remained examples of victor’s justice—since there was no similar accounting for war crimes committed by the Allied powers.
Since Nuremberg, the international community has worked to create a more impartial system for dealing with war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the development of an International Criminal Court in The Hague. But egregious attacks on civilians continue to occur, attacks that are referred to as “ethnic cleansing” or genocide. These attacks have occurred in Kosovo, in Rwanda, in Sudan, in Syria, and elsewhere. The international community condemns such atrocities. But it is often at a loss as to what to do about them. Military intervention is risky—and pacifists will argue for nonviolent responses. A significant problem is whether a war of intervention intended to rescue civilians will produce more harm than good in the long run. Although there is a developing international consensus about war crimes, the world is still not able to agree on strategies for responding to such crimes.
Torture
Torture is viewed as a criminal activity, outlawed by the Geneva Conventions and by other international treaties such as the UN Convention against Torture. But some have argued that torture could be justified in the fight against terrorism. And others in the U.S. government have sought to justify techniques that have traditionally been viewed as torture, in part by calling them “enhanced interrogations methods.” In congressional testimony in February 2007, the director of the CIA, Michael Hayden, admitted that the United States has used waterboarding on prisoners. Waterboarding is a technique in which a prisoner’s head is strapped to a board with his face drenched in water to produce a sensation of drowning. The CIA admitted that it used waterboarding on one particular terror suspect, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, 183 times; another suspect was waterboarded 83 times. These prisoners were subjected to other so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques”: they were kept disoriented, naked, and cold. We have learned that prisoners were slammed against walls, given suppositories, prevented from sleeping, and kept in stress positions. The Red Cross concluded that this treatment was torture and that it was cruel, inhuman, and degrading.
But the government under George W. Bush argued that this use of torture was justified. Former Vice President Dick Cheney explained,
No moral value held dear by the American people obliges public servants to sacrifice innocent lives to spare a captured terrorist from unpleasant things. And when an entire population is targeted by a terror network, nothing is more consistent with American values than to stop them. The interrogations were used on hardened terrorists after other efforts had failed. They were legal, essential, justified, successful, and the right thing to do.
Cheney’s justification of torture is a straightforwardly utilitarian justification: it works to prevent terrorism and should not be prohibited by a “moral value.” The Bush administration’s legal staff provided legal and moral justifications of torture. The Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department issued a number of memos suggesting that certain methods of trying to extract information from prisoners suspected of terrorism were not torture. The author of a number of these memos, John Yoo, argued that “inflicting physical pain does not count as torture unless the interrogator specifically intends the pain to reach the level associated with organ failure or death.” This definition was given to allow certain enhanced interrogation techniques while avoiding the legal prohibition on torture. According to this definition, waterboarding—simulated drowning—does not count as torture. Critics complained loudly that waterboarding was indeed torture and that this was not consistent with American law or international law and that the use of torture was contrary to American values. For example, the U.S. Uniform Code of Military Justice makes “cruelty, oppression, or maltreatment of prisoners a crime.” Senator John McCain—who was himself tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam—spoke out against torture. And when Barack Obama became president, he banned the use of these “enhanced interrogation methods.”
Pacifists will condemn torture as another example of unjustified violence. They may also point out that this episode from recent history indicates the ugly logic of war—that we can end up betraying our own values in the name of victory and power—and that this shows us why war is a corrupting and immoral force. Realists may nod in agreement with Dick Cheney’s consequentialist justification of torture. Realists are not opposed to using supposedly immoral means to achieve other goals. Indeed, realists may also add that our enemies are not opposed to using torture and to employing other cruel techniques, including beheading prisoners. Realists may argue that the best way to fight cruelty is to employ cruelty in return. Just war theorists will not agree to that line of reasoning. Instead, they may argue that torture ought to be considered as one of those actions that are considered as evil in themselves and that are prohibited by principles of jus in bello. They may argue that even if torture works, there are some things we simply ought not do in pursuit of justified causes.
In the readings in this chapter, we have selections representing pacifism and just war theory. First, we will read an essay by Andrew Fitz-Gibbon, a philosopher who explains pacifism and nonviolence with reference to the legacies of Gandhi and King. Next, Michael Walzer—the leading exponent of the just war theory—evaluates some key elements of the theory.
Andrew Fitz-Gibbon
Study Questions
Summarize Fitz-Gibbon’s account of the history of nonviolence.
How does Fitz-Gibbon describe the difference between comprehensive approaches to nonviolence and less selective approaches?
What are the three main types of pacifism that Fitz-Gibbon discusses?
Andrew Fitz-Gibbon, Peace in Andrew Fiala, ed., The Bloomsbury Companion to Political Philosophy (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015).
Despite the predominance of war in political affairs, peace and nonviolence were central ideas behind much political activism in the twentieth century. M. K. Gandhi was the first to use techniques of nonviolent resistance, first in South Africa (1893–1914) and then in India (1915–1947). For Gandhi, nonviolent protest required as much courage as warfare. The satyagrahis—those who practice satyagraha, “truth force” or “love-force”—were to resist oppressive sanctions by absorbing the violence of their oppressors in their own persons (2001, 3ff). In time the oppressor would cease violence, having had a fill of it. He called this the “law of self-sacrifice,” the “law of nonviolence,” and the “law of suffering.” Just as the requirement of the military is training in how to use violence effectively, satyagrahis needed to be trained in how not to be violent (ibid., 92 ff). Gandhi even called for an official “non-violent army” of trained volunteers numbering the thousands who could put themselves in harmful way to end violence (ibid., 86).
Martin Luther King, Jr relied extensively on Gandhi’s developed nonviolent techniques (see his “Pilgrimage to Nonviolence” in King 1986, 54–62). In his “My Trip to the land of Gandhi,” King says, “True nonviolent resistance is not unrealistic submission to evil power. It is rather a courageous confrontation of evil by the power of love, in the faith that it is better to be a recipient of violence than the inflictor of it, since the latter only multiplies the existence of violence and bitterness in the universe, while the former may develop a sense of shame in the opponent, and thereby bring about a transformation and change of heart” (1986, 44).
King’s understanding of nonviolence led him eventually to oppose all war and to make significant protest of the Vietnam War. He said, “I have come to the conclusion that the potential destructiveness of modern weapons of war totally rules out the possibility of war ever serving as a negative good. If we assume that mankind has a right to survive then we must find an alternative to war and destruction” (ibid., 60). Gandhi and King held in creative tension of the notions that nonviolence was a “good,” an end in itself—something akin to love or truth—with the notion of nonviolent resistance as a political strategy. In other words, nonviolence was not merely a political technique, but the outworking of a deeper metaphysics.
Since King, nonviolence as a political tool has been developed most especially by Gene Sharp (1973a–c, 2005). Sharp analyzed different techniques for using nonviolent protest as a means of achieving political ends. He suggested 198 different methods of nonviolent action in order to bring about social change. Peter Ackerman and Jack Duvall (2000) built on the pioneering work of Sharp. Ackerman and Duvall analyzed 12 different movements in the twentieth century which accomplished social and political change by direct nonviolent action. On close analysis, many of the movements were not as clearly nonviolent as Ackerman and Duvall suggest. Such change is accomplished by seizing the initiative to control a conflict to make the opposition give-in to demands against their will. In practice, nonviolent direct action is far from “peaceful.” Nonetheless, their conclusion is persuasive: nonviolent direct action is a powerful means of social and political change. Their organization, the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, through its publications and DVDs was influential in the overthrow of Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic in 2000, and Ukrainian leader Viktor Yanukovych in 2004–2005. Their techniques were extensively used in the Arab Spring revolutions of 2010–2011 (see Gan, 2013, 70).
However, some on the Left criticize nonviolent direct action as politically ineffective and not going far enough. Ward Churchill in his Pacifism as Pathology says, “Pacifism as a strategy of achieving social, political, and economic change can only lead to the dead end of liberalism” (Churchill and Ryan, 2007, 33). Yet, in Eastern Europe, it was just such liberalism that the masses pursued as Soviet Communism faded.
Those who see nonviolence as more than a sociopolitical strategy also have criticized the direction that Sharp, Ackerman, and Duvall have taken. Barry L. Gan notes a distinction between “selective nonviolence” and “comprehensive nonviolence” (2013, 73 ff). Selective nonviolence rejects the use of violence for pragmatic reasons in order to accomplish a political aim. The “good” is not nonviolence itself, but rather the political goal. If violence could achieve the goal more effectively and quickly, then violence would be used. However, some selective nonviolentists consider nonviolence as always a better strategy than violence, and so make no resort to violent tactics. Nonetheless, nonviolence is still considered merely a tool to use toward some other goal. Comprehensive nonviolence is the rejection of violence in all its forms; nonviolence being considered a good in itself. A comprehensive nonviolentist will attempt to practice nonviolence in all aspects of personal, social, and political life. Comprehensive nonviolentists reject some of the techniques suggested by Sharp as being inherently violent.
Gan also suggests that between the extremes of selective and comprehensive nonviolence is a wide spectrum of understandings and practices. He places Tolstoy, Gandhi, and King toward the pole of comprehensive nonviolence, and Sharp, Ackerman, and Duvall toward the pole of selective nonviolence.
Feminism has contributed to understandings of peace through the Ethics of Care and other feminist philosophical writing (see Ruddick, 1990, Noddings, 2003, Held, 2007). Ethicists of care argue that it is, in part, the impersonal masculinist themes of political philosophy and ethics (contracts, rights, and duties) that allow even the contemplation of war as a good. The ethics of care, focused on networks of personal caring relationships, would make war and violence less likely than other ethical schemes.
Notable organizations involved in pacifism and antiwar are the Fellowship of Reconciliation, founded in 1914 as a Christian antiwar movement. It has since become an interfaith organization involving all faiths and includes those who have no formal faith commitment (see the collection of writings from the Fellowship of Reconciliation, Wink, 2000).
In some recent political philosophy, a distinction has been made between “negative peace” and “positive peace.” Negative peace is the mere absence of war. Positive peace has taken on a more full conceptualization, a condition more akin to the Jewish notion of Shalom and is a state of well-being, free from violence. In different presentations, positive peace is a eudemonic, or else, a loving state. Duane L. Cady says of positive peace, “the point is always to build on and broaden our sense of community by stressing interdependence, respect, tolerance, common aspirations, and understanding” (2010, 86).
Johan Galtung analyzes negative peace as:
the absence of violence of all kinds (physical and psychological;
structural violence (violence embedded in institutions); and
cultural violence (attitudes and values that tolerate harm) (1996, 31).
In moving the discussion of violence beyond the bounds of physical violence (to psychological, structural, and cultural harm), Galtung moves the discussion of negative peace beyond the notion of the absence of war. Although a nation may not be at war, its citizens may be subject to internal strife and various harms that Galtung classifies as violence. Positive peace, then, is not only the absence of war together with these diverse violent harms, but also a different kind of human interaction. Michael Allen Fox suggests that positive peace includes four aspects:
subjective (a state of well-being);
objective (a goal with a process to reach the goal);
cosmic (unity with a larger whole—not merely peace between human beings, but with other sentient beings and with the environment); and
prescriptive/visionary (guiding principles and outlook) (2014, 188–193).
Historical and Multicultural Precedents
From ancient times, war has been an accepted part of human interaction. In the ancient world, arguments against war are few and far between, though in the Crito Plato argues that we should never return evil for evil. One interpretation of Plato would be to say that retaliation is morally wrong. As the conduct of war is largely retaliatory, often with extreme violence, Plato’s argument might be taken as an early argument against war (2011, Crito 48b-c). However, even if this is a true construction, Plato’s suggestion is a mere drop of war resistance in a bucketful of the political acceptance of, and justifications for, war.
It is not that notions of peace were absent from the ancient world. The Epicureans pursued ataraxia as the goal of human life—a state of tranquility untouched by the chances and changes of life—hence peace. Yet ataraxia belongs to peace as an inner state. The pursuit of ataraxia was engaged in with the knowledge that the world is one of conflict and war. There was no Epicurean antiwar movement in any political sense.
Ancient Buddhism and Jainism share the concept of ahimsa—nonharm—and from the sixth-century bce onward had a direct influence on Hindu thought. Yet, in Buddhist thought the notion that all of life is suffering, and that the eightfold path leads one away from suffering have tended toward a social conservatism and individualism. As suffering will be always a part of the human condition, why try to eradicate it? The best hope is to become personally nonattached, and hence avoid suffering. The political attempts to embrace Buddhism as public policy, and hence antiwar, have been few and far between. A notable exception is As´oka who ruled most of India from c. 265 to 238 bce (see Cortwright, 2008, 186). However, more recently a new tradition, known as engaged Buddhism, has taken the Buddhist notion of metta—loving-kindness, as a starting point for engaged social action to alleviate suffering and protest war. Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh (1992) and the Dalai Lama (1999) are notable in this regard.
The Western world had to wait for the early Christian movement for its first brief hiatus looking toward an antiwar philosophy. For its first 250 years of existence, Christianity was a pacifist movement (Hershberger, 1981, 64–70). Christians were forbidden from being soldiers in the army of empire until around 174 ce, under the reign of Marcus Aurelius, though it must be remembered that early Christianity was a movement composed of slaves, women, and subaltern Jewish males. However, when Constantine embraced Christianity in the early fourth-century ce, the pacifist religion became the favored religion of Empire and began its own justifications for war. Besides some elements of monasticism and a few minor sects in the medieval period, Christianity was at ease with violence, either enacted by the state against other states in war, or in pogroms, inquisitions, and crusades. Some Christians returned to pacifist roots, but not until the early sixteenth century.
Modern philosophers built their understanding of human nature—whether fundamentally aggressive or pacifistic—from a careful reading of ancient texts, by observation of human behavior, and sometimes because a certain view of human nature matched well with a religious or ideological viewpoint. However, recent developments in brain science have challenged the often-held view that human beings are ineluctably aggressive by nature. Suggestions, backed by science, that human beings are an empathic species have caused some controversy (see Rifkin, 2009). At the very least psychologists seem to have established that the human being rather than being either always aggressive, or else pacifistic, has the potential for predation, vengeance, and violence on the one hand, and for compassion, reason, and peacefulness on the other (see Pinker, 2011, 483–696).
Pacifisms
Pacifism is generally taken to mean something like “opposition to war.” However, there is no single understanding of pacifism in the literature. Scholars note these main types of pacifism:
principled opposition to war in all its forms, but not to all forms of violence;
principled opposition to all kinds of violence, which includes war;
principled opposition to some kinds of war, such as in nuclear pacifism, but not to “conventional” war.
However, Duane L. Cady (2010) suggests a moral continuum from warism to pacifism, with the different versions of pacifism melding into each other with no clear boundaries.
The early sixteenth century saw profound changes in the political and social landscape of Europe. Besides the major reforms produced by Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, John Calvin, and others, a number of small radical sects arose—loosely termed Anabaptist—in part in the wake of the breaking of the hegemony of the Roman church, and in part as a reaction to the slow progress of reform by the magisterial reformers. Once characterized as violent revolutionaries (in some tellings as proto-Marxist), the sixteenth-century radicals were rebranded as pacifists in the historiography of Mennonite scholars from the 1940s onward (see Estep, 1963, Hershberger, 1981). Careful, and non-partisan, scholarship places the radicals somewhere in between. The beginning of religious and political freedom in the sixteenth century was fertile ground in which many varieties of religious and political groups thrived. Some radicals were truly revolutionary, though more often than not of an apocalyptic bent, while some embraced the pacifism of a nonviolent Christ (Stayer, 1976). Those groups that gradually embraced pacifism were historically longer lived as movements than the violent revolutionaries. Although both types of radical were persecuted by both Catholic and Protestant state authorities, the peaceful sects continued through migration, first to Eastern Europe, and then to the new world. These groups we know now as the Amish, the Mennonites, and the Hutterites, the historic peace churches. They have been largely pacifist groups who see themselves as islands of holiness in the vast sea of godlessness—what Stayer terms “separatist nonresistance.” Those within the radical communities see themselves as within “the perfection of Christ.” The rest of society is outside “the perfection of Christ.” The world is characterized mostly by violence, which the Anabaptists eschew. Although pacifists, the Anabaptists had a generally pessimistic view of society and of political authority, though most viewed the government as God-given. They did not expect society to become more peaceful (Brock, 1981, 20). Nonetheless, the peaceful sixteenth-century radicals influenced the pacifist groups of the seventeenth century—most notably the Quakers—and many pacifists since. Whereas the Anabaptists tended to withdraw from society, the Quakers under William Penn’s leadership attempted the “holy experiment” of a pacifist colony in the new world—Pennsylvania. The pacifist colony was in part successful (in relationships with native Americans and in its generally humanitarian approach to law), but following Penn’s death Pennsylvania gradually moved away from its pacifist roots (Brock, 1981, 43–46).
Anabaptist pacifism was of an absolute kind and has been termed nonresistance, based on an interpretation of the gospel text where Jesus says, “Do not resist evil.” The text was interpreted to include not only opposition to war or any government violence—“the sword”—but also any interpersonal violence. The Anabaptists took the injunction to “turn the other cheek” quite literally. Even self-defense was considered morally wrong. Although few have followed the Anabaptist extreme of nonresistance, most notably Leo Tolstoy embraced such radical pacifism in the late nineteenth century (1984). Tolstoy differed from the Anabaptists in holding a more hopeful view of the world. The Anabaptists considered the world unredeemable until some great apocalyptic event. Hence they did not try to change society, and simply withdrew into closed communities. Tolstoy, on the other hand, argued that all in society should embrace nonresistance.
The Anabaptist stance has often been considered politically irrelevant—though in the twentieth century Anabaptist were also conscientious objectors (see Brock and Young, 1999). However, scholars have used Anabaptist-like arguments, that is religious, to protest war (see, e.g. Hauerwas, 1983, 2004, Yoder, 1994, 1996, 1997).
A different argument against war and for a peaceful life is the brief but influential tract by Henry David Thoreau, On The Duty of Civil Disobedience written originally in 1849, in part as protest both to slavery and to the Mexican war. Thoreau’s basis is not a religious one, but is based on the inviolability of the individual conscience. Government has no right to demand anything from citizens (for Thoreau the best form of government is no government at all). As government demand citizens to enter the military, it is the citizen’s duty to resist, to disobey government nonviolently. Thoreau’s view is significant for political philosophy in its direct challenge of the legitimacy of government. Libertarians and anarchists alike have used Thoreau as a justification for an antigovernment stance.
Thoreau (along with other New England pacifists) influenced Tolstoy. In turn, Thoreau and Tolstoy’s work had a direct effect on the young Mohandas Gandhi, then in South Africa, and later on Martin Luther King Jr. In process of time, the religious argument of the teaching of the New Testament—to not resist evil, to love enemies, and to bless persecutors—was conjoined with Thoreau’s notion of civil disobedience, based on conscience, to become the social political strategy of nonviolent resistance, sometimes termed simply nonviolence.
Works Cited
Ackerman, P. and Duvall, J. (2000), A Force More Powerful: A Century of Nonviolent Conflict. Palgrave: New York.
Brock, P. (1981), The Roots of War Resistance: Pacifism from the Early Church to Tolstoy. Nyack: The Fellowship of Reconciliation.
Brock, P. and Young, N. (1999), Pacifism in the Twentieth Century. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Cady, D. L. (2010), From Warism to Pacifism: A Moral Continuum. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
Churchill, W. and M. Ryan (2007), Pacifism as Pathology: Reflections on the Role of Armed Struggle in North America. Oakland: A.K. Press.
Cortwright, D. (2008), Peace: A History of Movements and Ideas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Estep, W. R. (1963), The Anabaptist Story. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans.
Fox, M. A. (2014), Understanding Peace: A Comprehensive Introduction. New York and London: Routledge.
Galtung, J. (1996), Peace by Peaceful Means: Peace and Conflict, Development and Civilization. Oslo: PRIO International Peace Research Institute, and London: SAGE.
Gan, B. L. (2013), Violence and Nonviolence: An Introduction. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
Gandhi, M. K. (2001), Non-Violent Resistance (Satyagraha). Mineola, NY: Dover.
Hanh, T. N. (1992), Peace in Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Every Day Life. New York: Bantam.
Hauerwas, S. (1983), The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
Hauerwas, S. (2004), Performing the Faith: Bonhoeffer and the Practice of Nonviolence. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press.
Held, V. (2007), The Ethics of Care: Personal, Political And Global. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hershberger, G. F. (1981), War, Peace, and Nonresistance; A Classic Statement of a Mennonite Peace Position in Faith and Practice. Scottdale: Herald Press.
Holmes, R. L. and Gan, B. L. (2005), Nonviolence in Theory and Practice. Longrove, IL: Waveland.
King, M. L., Jr (1986), I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches that Changed the World, J. M. Washington (ed.). San Francisco: Harper.
Kurlansky, M. (2009), Non-Violence: The History of a Dangerous Idea, foreword by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. New York: The Modern Library.
Lama, D. (1999), Ethics for a New Millennium. New York: Berkley.
Nagler, M. N. (2004), The Search for a Nonviolent Future: A Promise of Peace for Ourselves, Our Families, and Our World. Maui, HI: Inner Ocean Publishing.
Noddings, N. (2003), Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Pinker, S. (2011), The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. London: Penguin.
Plato (2011), The Last Days of Socrates. London: Penguin.
Rifkin, J. (2009), The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World of Crisis. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin.
Ruddick, S. (1990), Maternal Thinking: Towards a Politics of Peace. London: Women’s Press.
Sharp, G. (1973a), The Politics of Nonviolent Action: Part One Power and Struggle. Boston, MA: Porter Sargent.
Sharp, G. (1973b), The Politics of Nonviolent Action: Part Two The Methods of Nonviolent Action. Boston, MA: Porter Sargent.
Sharp, G. (1973c), The Politics of Nonviolent Action: Part Three The Dynamics of Nonviolent Action. Boston, MA: Porter Sargent.
Sharp, G. (2005), Waging Nonviolent Struggle: 20th Century Practice and 21st Century Potential. Boston, MA: Porter Sargent.
Stayer, J. M. (1976), Anabaptists and theSword. Lawrence, KS: Coronado Press.
Tolstoy, L. (1984), The Kingdom of God is Within You: Christianity Not as a Mystic Religion but as a New Theory of Life, trans. C. Garnett. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Wink, W. (ed.) (2000), Peace is the Way: Writings on Nonviolence from the Fellowship of Reconciliation. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.
Yoder, J. H. (1994), The Politics of Jesus. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.
Yoder, J. H. (1996), When War is Unjust: Being Honest About Just War Thinking. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis.
Yoder, J. H.(1997), For the Nations: Essays Public and Evangelical. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans.
Zinn, H. (Introduction) (2002), The Power of Nonviolence: Writings by Advocates of Peace. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
For an extended essay on the implementation of non-violence, see Nagler (2004). For the history of peace movements, see Cortwright (2008). For an eclectic collection of essays on non-violence, see Zinn (2002). For the history of non-violence, see Kurlansky (2009). For a general introduction to peace studies, see Fox (2014). For an historical collection of essays on non-violence, see Holmes and Gan (2005).
Chapter Contents
Chapter Contents
Learning Outcomes
After reading this chapter, you should be able to:
• Describe issues arising in the context of the war on terrorism including the use of drones and targeted assassination, and the morality of terrorism and torture.
• Articulate arguments for pacifism.
• Articulate arguments for realism.
• Explain the distinction made in just war theory between jus ad bellum and jus in bello.
• Explain and apply key terms employed in the just war tradition, including just cause, legitimate authority, discrimination, and noncombatant immunity.
• Demonstrate how the doctrine of double effect applies within the just war theory to deal with the problem of collateral damage.
• Understand the history and concept of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
• Defend your own ideas about the ethics of war.
For most Americans, terrorism became an inescapable moral issue after September 11, 2001. On that day, Al Qaeda terrorists crashed loaded passenger jets into the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing nearly three thousand people. The U.S. administration of President George W. Bush came to call its response to these attacks “the war on terrorism,” a war that has grown and changed in a variety of ways. It began as the United States and its allies invaded Afghanistan in late 2001, in an unsuccessful effort to capture or kill the leadership of the Al Qaeda terrorist group, including Osama bin Laden. Afghanistan was viewed both as a failed state being ruled by an extremist religious faction—the Taliban—and as the haven from which Al Qaeda masterminded the September 11 attacks. Within two years, another front in the war on terrorism opened in Iraq, as the United States invaded the country in March 2003. Although Iraq had nothing to do with the September 11 terrorist attacks, President George W. Bush argued that the leader of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, was a malicious dictator who was a threat to stability in the region, that he had used chemical weapons against his own people, and—quite controversially—that he was currently stockpiling other weapons of mass destruction or WMDs. After the U.S. invasion of Iraq, no such weapons were ever found, but the country did descend into a bloody and destructive civil war, which has continued to destabilize the region. The rise of the so-called “Islamic State in Iraq and Syria” (ISIS) can be traced back through the war on terror under the administration of President Barack Obama, battles in the war on terror were waged in other countries such as Libya, Yemen, and Pakistan, fought by drone aircraft and special operations forces, which target specific terrorists or terrorist groups.
Terrorism remains an issue of grave concern throughout the world. As of this writing, Syria remains embroiled in a brutal civil war, which has involved the use of chemical weapons. ISIS terrorists and sympathizers have publicly beheaded some victims, burned others alive, and have waged attacks in cities in Europe and North America. Recent and ongoing conflicts in Israel, Lebanon, Libya, Pakistan, Mali, and Egypt have been marked by high civilian death tolls, both as a result of terrorist attacks and the actions of conventional armies. More than a decade of war in the Middle East and North Africa has had a profound impact on the world. Estimates for civilians killed in the war on terrorism range from 150,000 up to over 1.3 million. Military deaths include nearly 10,000 American and coalition forces killed, tens of thousands of enemy fighters killed, and many more injured and disabled soldiers. Instability remains across the region.
Terror attacks continue. In Paris, in November of 2015, ISIS sympathizers killed 130 people. In San Bernardino, California, in December 2015, 14 people were killed by ISIS sympathizers. Other ISIS inspired attacks have occurred in Brussels, Orlando, Nice, and elsewhere. While those attacks demonstrate ISIS’s global reach, the primary victims of ISIS and other terrorist groups reside in North Africa and the Middle East, where members of minority religions have persecuted, women have been forced into marriages, and communities have been decimated by violence. We continue to worry about attacks on water supplies, transportation systems, computer systems, and fuel depots in Europe and North America. Attacks in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia have targeted civilians in crowded markets, shopping malls, and buses. While Americans remain concerned about terrorism employed by foreigners, we should note that terrorism can be employed by homegrown domestic terrorists. One of the brothers involved in the Boston Marathon bombing was a naturalized American citizen; the perpetrator of the far deadlier Oklahoma City bombing, in 1994, was a native-born citizen. Terrorists do not need complicated or high-tech mechanisms to cause serious damage and widespread fear. And terrorists do not wear uniforms or announce their plans in advance.
Some claim that it is difficult to define terrorism, pointing out that one person’s “freedom fighter” is another person’s “terrorist.” But terrorism is generally agreed to involve violent acts that deliberately intend to inflict harm on those who do not deserve to be harmed. We’ll discuss this further later in this chapter. But note that according to that definition, school shootings—such as the one that occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012 and at Virginia Tech University in 2007—can be described as terrorism. These acts may not have been politically motivated. But they certainly inflicted harm on the innocent. Most would agree that violence of this sort is wrong. And many would also agree that the police and the military are justified in using violent force to kill those who kill children. But are there moral limits on how much violence might be employed in such circumstances?
Most people assume that there is a right to use violence in self-defense. And many also think that we are permitted (some may say required) to use violence in defense of innocent children. The natural law tradition maintains that individuals have a right to life and liberty—and that violence can be employed to defend life and liberty against those who threaten it, including the life and liberty of defenseless and innocent others. A consequentialist argument could also be used here. More happiness will be produced for more people when such threats are eliminated. For a strict consequentialist, if the goal is to eliminate threats, the means employed are irrelevant. If war or other forms of violence work to produce good outcomes, then these can be used as a tool to defend social welfare.
