Abstract

According to the dominant position in the just war tradition from Augustine to Anscombe and beyond, there is no “moral equality of combatants.” That is, on the traditional view the combatants participating in a justified war may kill their enemy combatants participating in an unjustified war—but not vice versa (barring certain qualifications). I shall argue here, however, that in the large number of wars (and in practically all modern wars) where the combatants on the justified side violate the rights of innocent people (“collateral damage”), these combatants are in fact liable to attack by the combatants on the unjustified side. I will support this view with a rights-based account of liability to attack and then defend it against a number of objections raised in particular by Jeff McMahan. The result is that the thesis of the moral equality of combatants holds good for a large range of armed conflicts while the opposing thesis is of very limited practical relevance.

Highlights

  • The dominant position in the just war tradition from Augustine to Aquinas to Grotius and, even further, to Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe and beyond has been that there is no ‘‘moral equality of combatants.’’ That is, on the traditional view those combatants participating in a justified war may kill their enemy combatants participating in an unjustified war, but the combatants participating in an unjustified war may not killU

  • Reichberg 2008) and, even further, to Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe and beyond has been that there is no ‘‘moral equality of combatants.’’ That is, on the traditional view those combatants participating in a justified war may kill their enemy combatants participating in an unjustified war, but the combatants participating in an unjustified war may not kill

  • There are some wars in which even those combatants who abide by ius in bello restrictions do not have an equal liberty right to kill each other

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Summary

Introduction

The dominant position in the just war tradition from Augustine to Aquinas to Grotius (cf. Reichberg 2008) and, even further, to Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe and beyond has been that there is no ‘‘moral equality of combatants.’’ That is, on the traditional (but sporadically contested) view those combatants participating in a justified war may kill their enemy combatants participating in an unjustified war, but the combatants participating in an unjustified war may not kill. We think that intentionally killing innocent people (without their consent) who do not pose an unjust threat amounts to murder or manslaughter and is at any rate one of the most egregious moral crimes one can commit. If this is true, it would seem that soldiers would be required to very seriously rethink their obligations; and civilians who consider it their civic duty to support their troops would have to face the fact that doing so might mean nothing less than supporting murderers or manslaughterers. McMahan is not correct: he ignores collective action problems and certain realities of war

The Moral Inequality Thesis in History
Liability to Attack in General
Rights-Violations in War
Reply to Objections
On Making Too Many People Liable to be Killed
Persons Who are Liable to Attack may Sometimes Defend Themselves
Justification Does Not Defeat Liability
Concluding Remarks
Full Text
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