Shari’a Reasoning and the Justice of Religious War

Sharia Reasoning, the Just War Tradition, and Religious War

In this article, I intend to explore the normative relation(s) between “God” and “war.” A bit more precisely, I intend to explore the normative relevance of theistic conviction to the proper employment of military violence. Even more precisely, I intend to explore the relevance of theistic conviction to the proper employment of military violence as judged by the so-called Just War Tradition (JWT). Properly interpreted, I take the JWT to provide the best available account of the morality of war. The JWT is not perfect and is bedeviled by serious problems, but it is the best available nonetheless. So, when I reflect on the morality of war, and thus on the normative relation(s) between religion and war, I do so from the perspective of the JWT.Now this might seem to portend a very brief discussion. As we will see in detail, contemporary adherents typically construe the JWT in resolutely secular terms. Perhaps in order to compensate for its religious prehistory, most insist that the JWT has outgrown its religious provenance and may not be used to legitimate a crusade, ajihad, a holy war, or anything of the sort. In so doing, they align the JWT with the commonplace, endemic to contemporary liberal democracies, that religious wars and religious justifications for war lay far, far beyond the moral pale.

Introduction. I. THE JUST WAR TRADITION. 1. The Just War in Antiquity. 2. Christianity and the Just War. 3. Saint Augustine and the Tradition of Just War. 4. Secularization of the Just War Tradition. II. THE LEGAL POSITION OF WAR. 5. Hugo Grotius: Father of International Law. 6. Hugo Grotius and the Just War. 7. Problems for International Law. III. MORAL ISSUES IN WAR. 8. The Responsibility for War Crimes. 9. Military Necessity. 10. Reprisals. 11. Terrorism and War. 12. The Just War and Weapons of Mass Destruction. IV. PROFESSIONAL AND HUMANITARIAN OBLIGATIONS. 13. The Military as a Profession. 14. Unjust Wars and Professional Responsibility. 15. The Role of the United Nations. Glossary. Selected Bibliography. Index.

The last resort criterion has a hallowed place in the just war theory tradition. Many leading just war theory scholars accept it as a jus ad bellum requirement and some powerful politicians reference it. While there are several versions of last resort, many take it to mean that peaceful options that have a reasonable chance of achieving a just cause must be exhausted before the use of force is permissible. Its justification is straightforward and commonsensical: war is terrible, inevitably results in the deaths of numerous innocents and destruction of their property, and thus should be avoided whenever possible. I argue that last resort should be dropped from the just war tradition because its inclusion in the just war tradition can result in a greater number of harms to innocents than if the precept did not exist. What should matter morally is the severity and numbers of harms inflicted on innocents, not whether those harms are inflicted violently or nonviolently. I suggest that in the context of achieving a just cause, the only actions that are permissible are those that are likely to inflict the fewest morally weighted harms and that meet the other just war theory precepts (excluding last resort). Three accounts of last resort do not permit this, whereas while a fourth does, it is redundant with an important account of the jus ad bellum proportionality precept. Thus violent policies may be preferable in some rare circumstances to nonviolent alternatives such as non-targeted sanctions and negotiations because nonviolent policies sometimes are more likely to foreseeably and avoidably result in far greater harms to innocents than violent options.

This essay argues that Aquinas's position regarding the killing of innocent people differs significantly from other representatives of the Christian just war tradition. While his predecessors, notably Augustine, as well as his successors, from Cajetan and Vitoria onward, affirm the legitimacy of causing the death of innocents in a just war in cases of necessity, Aquinas holds that causing the death of innocents in a foreseeable manner, whether intentionally or indirectly, is never justified. Even an otherwise legitimate act of just war cannot legitimate causing the death of innocent people, as this can never advance the common good. This stance also contrasts sharply with much modern and contemporary double effect theorizing in relation to jus in bello. In this regard, Aquinas's position, shaped decisively by his biblical and theological commitments, may point the way towards an ethical orientation beyond the typical divisions of “pacifism” and “just war.”

1. INTRODUCTIONAt the moral core of the Just War Tradition (JWT) is the claim that a just war must have a just cause, where a just cause involves the commission of some grave moral wrong. As a matter of sociological and psychological fact, victims of wrongdoing are inclined to take umbrage at the injustices inflicted on them and to take the violations inflicted on them to permit some appropriately vigorous response. Other things equal, the more egregious the violation, the stronger the victim's inclination to respond. As a matter of brute sociological and psychological fact, then, the members of a community that has been victimized by wrongdoing that is grave enough to satisfy the just cause requirement will likely be inclined to respond in a most ?vigorous' manner. Correlatively, many will find alien-and perhaps even offensive-the demand that they restrain themselves from taking the means necessary to respond to the egregious violations to which they have been subjected. But the possibility that those who belong to a violated community must exercise just this kind of restraint is a clear implication of any adequate understanding of the JWT. For fundamental to the JWT is the claim that a community can have a fully sufficient just cause to respond to an enemy attack and yet be morally forbidden to do so.1 This is, I think, one of the most difficult holdings of the JWT.The JWT's ad bellum proportionality requirement (ABP) captures that fundamental, difficult truth. According to the ABP, a community may wage war in response to a violation that satisfies the just cause requirement only if the relevant goods achieved by so responding are proportionate to the relevant evils caused thereby. My main aim in this paper is to engage recent work by Thomas Hurka regarding what makes certain goods and evils relevant to a proportionality assessment. A secondary aim is to specify the place of the ABP in the JWT's overall justificatory architecture. Given these two rather limited aims, it should be clear that I do not pretend to provide a complete account.2. AN INITIAL EXPLICATION OF THE PROPORTIONALITY REQUIREMENTLet me begin by providing a brief explication of the ABP. Basic to the moral vision of the JWT is the claim that human beings naturally and properly belong to various communities each of which is presumptively prohibited from attacking any another. This presumption against war can be overcome only when one community violates another in some egregious respect(s). But the moral standing of a given war cannot be entirely a function of the normative relations between violators and violated. This is because the morally relevant consequences of war are seldom, if ever, limited only to those who commit the violation that provides for a just cause. Far from it: in the actual world, the deployment of military violence in response to an egregious wrong will typically have dire consequences for human beings who play no role at all in committing that violation. Such 'innocent' human beings must be given their normative due. The primary function of the ABP in the JWT's overall justificatory framework is to formalize that requirement: the JWT permits war only when some particular community commits a relevantly egregious violation, but assesses that prima facie permission in light of the consequences of war for all innocents, irrespective of communal membership. If the consequences of waging a given war are ?excessively bad,' then that war is ?disproportionate' and so morally impermissible.Of course, we need to provide this rather unspecific understanding of the ABP with a bit more granularity. To that end, note, first, that although the ABP implies that every war ought to be assessed in light of relevant consequences, it does not mandate anything like a global consequentialist assessment. That is, it does not require us to agglomerate all of the goods and evils that result from Cl's war with C2, compare that result with the agglomerated goods and evils of the various alternatives to Cl's waging war with C2, and conclude that Cl's war is permissible only if its net result is higher than all of the alternatives. …

The Just War tradition (JWT) is viewed in this paperas a corpus of ideas that discusses the morality and ethics of war. It has changed throughoutmore than 1,500 years, making it a complicated one. The Just War tradition is broad and multifaceted, yet it is confined within some essential principles that determine its boundaries. It differs from pacifism in that it holds that wars can occasionally be justified and from realism, which views war as outside the purview of moral judgment, in that it holds that both the choice to go to war and the tactics used in conducting it are subject to moral inspection. Within such confines, just war theorists disagree with one another not only about subtleties of the theory but also over fundamental issues like whether or not a war may be justified by something other than the necessity of defending oneself against an already-initiated armed attack. This paper's main goal is to provide a clear and comprehensive understanding of the JWT, the conditions under which it permits and restricts acceptable damages and the moral conundrums these arguments raise. Regarding modern just war theory, one of the central concerns is whether war can be fought and damage done for "humanitarian" or "cosmopolitan" purposes, including protecting human rights. Stated differently, the question is whether there exists a clear and present need to conduct war. This paper lays out the main problems with the use of violence, evaluates the cosmopolitan and anti-cosmopolitan contributions to Just War thinking, and ends with some observations on the suitability of Just War thinkingand its connection to cosmopolitanism

It is not for man to make wasteful use of his fellow-man. Seneca In the Western intellectual tradition, systematic thinking about the ethics of war goes back to ancient Greece. The body of thinking that developed in that tradition over the centuries is referred to as the just war tradition. Efforts to organize the insights of the just war tradition into a single coherent understanding of the ethics of war are instances of just war theory. To introduce our discussion of just war theory in the remainder of this book, this chapter offers a brief history of the just war tradition, of the ideas that developed in this tradition. The characteristic feature of both the just war tradition and just war theory is an effort to limit war, both in its frequency and in the savagery with which it is fought. Vitoria and the Spanish war against Native Americans Following the European discovery of America by Columbus, various states in Europe waged war against and exploited the native populations of the New World. Consider the Spanish aggression in Latin America. In 1493, the year after his initial voyage, Columbus, sailing again for Spain, returned to the Caribbean and began a conquest of the Taino people of that region. In 1519–1521, the Spanish, under Hernan Cortes, conquered the Aztec civilization in present-day Mexico. In 1532–1533, the Spanish, under Francisco Pizzaro, conquered the Inca civilization in present-day Peru. These wars of conquest were fought primarily for the precious metals to be had. Many of the surviving natives were put under systems of forced labor. An empire was established, which “in extent and population, and cultural diversity … exceeded even [that of] ancient Roman, previously the standard of imperial power.”

Reviewed by: The War of the Lamb: The Ethics of Nonviolence and Peacemaking Sarah Freeman John Howard Yoder . The War of the Lamb: The Ethics of Nonviolence and Peacemaking, ed. Glen Stassen, Mark Thiessen Nation, and Matt Hamsher . Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2009. Pp. 256. Paper, US $18.26. ISBN 978-1-5874-3260-6. The War of the Lamb by John Howard Yoder is a collection of essays, lectures, and notes compiled into book format, posthumously, by editors Glen Stassen, Mark Thiessen Nation, and Matt Hamsher. In many ways this book is Yoder’s final opportunity to clarify misreadings of his previous work and misunderstandings about pacifism, or as Yoder prefers, non-violent direct action. Using Yoder’s own outline for a next book, Stassen, Thiessen Nation, and Hamsher divide the collected material into three sections. Part 1, “Nonviolence,” begins by focusing on other theories of violence and argues that certain systems “explain,” “regulate,” “channel,” or “manage” violence (31). In contrast, the gospel is about overcoming violence (41). To support his argument, Yoder comprehensively refutes many of the traditional biblical arguments in support of war, and instead provides biblical and early Church examples in support of non-violent direct action. Yoder’s chapter “Jesus: A Model of Radical Political Action” is perhaps the most illuminating argument of this section. He contends that the lessons from the Sermon on the Mount “are not idealistic about human potential so much as they are realistic about divine power and about the substance of the divine intent” (78). He essentially shifts the focus from a supposedly ideal opinion of humanity to a realistic view of the power and love of God. Part 2, “The Dialogue with Just War,” facilitates a discussion between the just war tradition and non-violent direct action. Yoder develops two key arguments. First, the just war tradition and non-violent direct action are “pertinent to one another’s integrity” (85). Non-violent direct action disciplines just war theory by challenging just war theory to explore the meaning of last resort, including developing non-violent training programs. On the other hand, the just war tradition structures non-violent direct action. For example, the just war tradition challenges non-violent direct action to seriously consider the ramifications of “just intentions,” such as boycotts that “rupture the normal social flow” (90). Yoder’s second argument is that the just war theory needs to take itself more seriously. He states that the just war tradition is seldom effective throughout history and “has never been seriously respected by responsible decision makers” (113). For the just war theory to be employed, it needs to develop mechanisms for responding to unjust wars. Until there are viable initiatives for responding to an unjust war, the just war theory is not a practicable option (109). In part 3, “Effective Peacemaking Practices,” Yoder explores the contributions to peace theology from secular sources. These disciplines demonstrate that conflict is a [End Page 140] natural aspect of community and a “sign of life and growth,” resulting from encountering new people and new ideas (134, 139). He challenges churches not to avoid conflict but rather provides techniques for resolving conflict (142–145). He also addresses Christian actions in the broader society, arguing that Christians “be perfect,” loving both friend and enemy as God loves all (146–147). Christians should also refrain from assuming positions of rule, opting to act as servants (147). Finally, Christians engage in the war of the Lamb knowing that death is itself victory (147–148). He believes that the strength of this approach is that it avoids creating a dualism between the moral standards applied to Christians and the moral standards applied to non-Christians (148). Finally, part 3 provides a Christological argument for a liberating Christ, including a discussion of liberation theory. Yoder’s work is comprehensive and challenging and, despite evident shifts in writing style and intended audience, resulting from the diversity of the compiled sources, Yoder and the editors accomplish their goal of clarifying misconceptions concerning the pacifist position and provoking pacifists and those of the just war tradition to explore alternatives to violence. Ultimately, The War of the Lamb calls us all to action...

Nicholas Rengger's Just War and International Order: The Uncivil Condition in World Politics is a masterful work of scholarship in which the author develops a counterintuitive argument that the just war tradition (JWT) has become complicit in the expanding use of violence that characterizes the international system. The JWT is widely viewed as a constraint on the use of force because it treats the use of force as just only under particular conditions and only if utilized in particular ways. Rengger's broad and sophisticated intellectual history calls this widely held belief into question with his contention that the JWT has developed in a way that authorizes an expanding scope of violence. Rengger is not the first to claim that the world is gripped by increasing violence. Many others have made similar claims and some have argued that this increasing use of force is just in response to humanitarian crisis or, in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, as part of a crusade against terrorism.

Among the areas to which Nicholas Rengger contributed was the scholarship on the ethics of war. The just war tradition (JWT) is a tradition in a challenging sense. It brings varied strands of thinking about justice and war, some at odds with one another, together under a broad tent. Like all intellectual traditions, the JWT is in a state of change over time, with much of that change being driven by new social, political, and even technological developments that the JWT needs to address. This process is invariably one of contestation in which some proposed directions are accepted while others are not. Rengger’s treatment of the JWT, which owes much to Oakeshott and his concept of tradition, which is not entirely compatible with the JWT, came to be that of a friendly critic: sympathetic to the aims of the tradition but sceptical about some of the directions in which the tradition was developing. Specifically, Rengger expressed doubt about evolving concepts of just cause, some of which required rather than restrained the use of force. This chapter considers the impact of these criticisms for the problem of international order.

Despite the importance of just war theory for Christian reflection on war, it has had at best a discontiguous life in Christian history. Rather than enjoying sustained attention and import, the just war tradition has been characterized by peaks of interest and valleys of neglect. Briefly, we can trace the major peaks across the fourth century with Augustine, the thirteenth century with Aquinas, and the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with the work of Hugo Grotius, and the Spanish theologians of the University of Salamanca, Francisco de Vitoria, and Francisco Suarez. From this last period until about the mid-twentieth century, just war theory largely remained dormant, with little significant development and minimal engagement.1 That said, the last five decades have witnessed a surge in just-war research. The Cold War, the Viemam War, and the two Gulf wars (1991 and 2003) have all contributed to renewed interest in just war theory. This is not to say that the theory enjoys any more consensus now than it engendered in the past. If anything, interest in nonviolence and pacifism, which increased as much as (if not more than) interest in just war theory, has reinvigorated debates about interpretation and application of the jus ad bellum (war decision-making) and jus in bello (war-fighting) criteria that characterize modern just war theory.

This new Handbook offers a comprehensive overview of contemporary extensions and alternatives to the just war tradition in the field of the ethics of war. The modern history of just war has typically assumed the primacy of four particular elements: jus ad bellum, jus in bello, the state actor, and the solider. This book will put these four elements under close scrutiny, and will explore how they fare given the following challenges: • What role do the traditional elements of jus ad bellum and jus in bello—and the constituent principles that follow from this distinction—play in modern warfare? Do they adequately account for a normative theory of war? • What is the role of the state in warfare? Is it or should it be the primary actor in just war theory? • Can a just war be understood simply as a response to territorial aggression between state actors, or should other actions be accommodated under legitimate recourse to armed conflict? • Is the idea of combatant qua state-employed soldier a valid ethical characterization of actors in modern warfare? • What role does the technological backdrop of modern warfare play in understanding and realizing just war theories?Over the course of three key sections, the contributors examine these challenges to the just war tradition in a way that invigorates existing discussions and generates new debate on topical and prospective issues in just war theory. This book will be of great interest to students of just war theory, war and ethics, peace and conflict studies, philosophy and security studies.

In the previous chapter principle P1 was formulated : “Whenever C is fighting a just war, then it is morally permissible for S to engage in WWR to support C”. This principle can be used to construct justifications of S’s participation in WWR on behalf of C, who (we assume) is fighting a just war. However, the idea of a just war needs clarification – we at least need to know what a just war is – and also P1 itself requires support: why is it that fighting a just war is such as to make WWR morally permissible, if indeed it does? We said that it will be necessary to turn to Just War Theory (JWT) to answer these questions, and it is now time to do so. To begin with we should note that there has a been a good deal said about the idea of a just war and there is not just one single just war theory. There is in fact a just war tradition that has grown up over many centuries, with some even dating its beginnings to ancient Greece. It is not surprising that there has been a long-standing tradition of thinking about how war can be just, given that war has been such a perennial feature of human history. Surely all wars cannot be bad, for, if they are, then does this not condemn all the societies and states that have fought wars, comprising virtually all of human civilisation? This was a pressing problem for the early Christian fathers, like St Augustine, who were anxious to show that the teaching of Christ was compatible with the killing and destruction wrought by war, though clearly not all war could be just. JWT has in fact been informed by different perspectives and viewpoints, ranging from Catholic theology to international law to moral and political philosophy. While this need not result in radically different versions of modern JWT, it will best to use a version of the theory that is most congenial for present purposes, and for this reason I will make use of what I will call the ‘Walzer-Orend’ formulation. Finally, we should be aware that JWT is by no means a secure and uncontroversial theory that commands universal assent: there are problems associated with it, especially as regards the interpretation of certain of the conditions for just war and about verifying that these are satisfied. There is, however, no other viable normative theory about war and it will not be necessary, for our purposes, to accept all its principles and conditions.KeywordsNuclear WeaponCommon MoralityProportionality ConditionMoral PermissibilityProportionality PrincipleThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

In this essay, I reject the suggestion that the just war tradition (JWT) does not apply to cyberwarfare (CW). That is not to say CW will not include grey areas defying easy analysis in terms of the JWT. But analogously ambiguous cases have long existed in warfare without undercutting the JWT's broad relevance. That some aspects of CW are unique is likewise no threat to the JWT's applicability. The special character of CW remains similar enough to other kinds of warfare; the distinctions are more differences of degree than of kind.