WAR WITHIN REASON: A REALIST APPROACH TO THE
ETHICS OF WAR
The just war tradition provides a robust and comprehensive framework
for arguing about war. It offers guidance on the declaration and conduct
of war; it has exerted a profound and beneficent influence on the law of
armed conflict; it has been remarkably resourceful in accommodating the
moral dilemmas arising out of irregular warfare, nuclear weapons,
humanitarian intervention, and precision-guided munitions. Most of all, it
appears to offer an arena within which those of many faiths and of none
can meet on equal terms. The tradition is no more than that: a tradition
and not a theory. Marked disagreements persist on particular questions,
including the identification of legitimate authority, double effect, and
conditional deterrence. It is all too often reduced to a mere box-ticking
exercise, to justify some specific instance of resort to force or military
episode, when it ought rather to be thought of as a space for moral
reflection. But at least the parameters of debate are secure, with pacifists
and advocates of the unconstrained use of force consigned to the fringes.
Something along these lines appears to be the dominant view in the
United States and Britain. It is mistaken. Indeed it is more than that; it is
pernicious, not of itself but for its narrowness. It encourages complacency
and shuts the door on a wide range of moral experience, both personal
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Convention