Four Approaches to Deciding Whether a War Is Just

Four approaches to deciding whether a war is just

1. No war is just. War necessarily involves the taking of innocent life;

no human person’s life can be sacrificed for the benefit of others.

Christian justification: Caiphas was wrong: it is not expedient that one man should die for many (Jn. 18:14). Turn the other cheek etc.

Secular argument: ends do not justify means.

2. Any war which remedies injustice is justified -- usually with the

provision that war must be declared by a legitimate authority (God).

A. Augustine (legitimate author, right intention, injustice):

Avenge injury: Just war punishes

NB: legitimized the use of force against Donatists

Casus belli can be:

1. Homeland (Patria) endangered

2. Enemy seizes things unjustly

3. Enemy society leaves wrong-doing unpunished

B. Charlemagne (circa 800): drive out impious men, defend church & kingdom

C. Jihad (Holy Struggle, interpretation controverted,

but used to describe Islamic expansion from 632)

D. Crusades (1095): casus belli: holy lands unjustly seized by infidels.

3. War is justified only to remedy certain kinds of injustice &

must be waged by a public person except in the case of self-defense.

A. Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274): Defense of the common good by a prince.

B. Canonists: Denial of free passage, necessity, unjustly seized property.

4. Only Defensive War is Just (Sometimes with preemptive exceptions, as when an enemy army is poised on a nation’s borders and clearly plans an attack in days or hours).

“Our position is that whatever grievances a nation may have, however objectionable it finds the status quo, aggressive warfare is an illegal means for settling those grievances or for altering those conditions."

US Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson

Opening statement at the Nuremberg trials

Decision criteria

A version of 3: Limiting the kind of injustices that can serve as a legitimate casus belli

Grotius (Protestant jurist: 1583-1645)

Grotius distinguishes between the justice of going to war (ad bellum) and the justice of practices in warfare (in bellum). The latter regulates the kind of weapons and the way they can be deployed, the treatment of ambassadors and non-combatants, provisions for conscientious objection etc. It is a complicated and nuanced treatment, but as the somewhat misleading, modern summary provided below indicates, it includes most provisions of current just war doctrines.

1.  Legitimate public authority must declare war publicly

2.  Cause must be just & it must be argued, not simply asserted

3. Right Intention: Purpose must be peace

War must preserve values that could not otherwise be preserved.

4. The danger faced must be immediate, real, & certain

5. Force must be a last resort after peaceful means have failed

The force must be necessary to adequately defend the nation's interests;

6. The use of force must be proportionate to the threatened danger

The seriousness of injury proportionate to war's damages

7. There must be a reasonable hope of success

A version of 4: Defensive war as the only legitimate casus belli

Modern Catholic Canon Law (##’s 2302-2317):

All conditions must simultaneously obtain.

1) Just Cause - the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or

community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain.

2) Last Resort - all other means of putting an end to it must have been

shown to be impractical or ineffective.

3) Probability of Success - there must be serious prospects of success.

4) Proportionality - the use of arms must not produce evils or disorders graver

than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction

weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.

5) Discrimination - there must be a distinction between combatants and

noncombatants. (While the Catechism considers discrimination to be of

secondary importance, most just war theorists consider it essential.)

Some Resources at Stanford:

J. T. Johnson, The Holy War Idea in Western and Islamic Traditions

J. T. Johnson & G. Weigel, Just War and the Gulf War

B. Orend, Michael Walzer on War and Justice

P. Ramsey, The Just War: Force and Political Responsibility

J. H. Russell, THe Just War in the Middle Ages

J. D. Tooke, The Just War in Aquinas & Grotius

M. Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars