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eBook details

• Title: Liability and Just Cause.
• Author : Ethics & International Affairs
• Release Date : January 22, 2007
• Genre: Politics & Current Events,Books,
• Pages : * pages
• Size : 272 KB

Description

In "Just Cause for War," Jeff McMahan develops an account of the just cause condition in just war theory that is revisionist and even, as he says, "heretical." (1) Moreover, the general tendency of his revisions is to make the theory less permissive, or less likely to approve the use of military force. In this paper I defend a standard, more permissive version of just war theory against his revisions. As McMahan points out, the just cause condition is absolutely central to just war theory. It is, first, one of six or so conditions that all must be satisfied before a war can be just; without a just cause, the resort to military force is wrong. (2) But it also has priority over many other conditions, since it figures essentially in their definitions. For a war to be fought with a right intention, for example, those who initiate it must be motivated by a desire for its just causes, and there is a similar dependence in the proportionality and last resort conditions. (3) The proportionality condition permits war only if the harm it will cause is not out of proportion to the relevant goods it will achieve. But not all goods are relevant here. Imagine that fighting a war will boost our nation's economy, as World War II ended the depression of the 1930s. Though undeniably good, this type of effect cannot count toward a war's justification; an otherwise disproportionate conflict cannot become proportionate because it will boost GDP. Nor is it relevant if a war will give pleasure to soldiers eager for real action or will stimulate more profound art. As McMahan says, the goods relevant to the proportionality condition are only those in the war's just causes, and the same holds for the last resort condition. It permits a war only when there is no less destructive way of achieving its relevant goods, or if its balance of relevant goods over evils caused is preferable to that of any alternative. Again, however, only goods in the war's just causes count--war cannot be preferable to diplomacy because of economic or artistic effects. So both these key conditions presuppose a specification of relevant just causes.

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