States and the Morality of War

Abstract

et HE PROBLEM OF THE USE of forst pl central to the subject of ethics and foreign policy. In the first place, the use of force in international affairs is obviously the greatest obstacle to moral behavior; the belief so well expressed by General Sherman that is hell, and that therefore there is nothing one should or can do to refine it, is a manifestation of this. As long as states use force against one another, citizens will be torn between their duties as citizens and their consciousness as reasonable and moral beings whose thoughts and feelings transcend borders. Also, wars provide the greatest opportunities for national self-righteiousness and for the denial of the humanity and the rights of others. Finally, it is in war that the greatest opportunity exists for statesmen, and for military commanders, to plead necessity, to argue that they really have no choice, that what they do is literally imposed upon them by military imperatives. And yet the use of force remains the essence of the international milieu despite all of the efforts of lawyers and statesmen to do away with it, despite the League of Nations and the Briand-Kellogg pact, and despite the U.N. Charter. The problems faced by statesmen have traditionally been divided into those raised by the ends of war and those raised by the means. For what ends can a war be morally justifiable? Here the dilemma of the moralist is particularly acute. It is very easy to deride utilitarians. They would say that a war can be just if resorting to it increases the common utility or the general happiness-it is not a very satisfactory notion, because when states are engaged in intense conflict with one another, the whole notion of common utility becomes rather fatuous; each state will be easily convinced that its vocitory will of course maximize general happiness or utility (two very different notions) and that its failure to stand up to its foe will be a cause of general disaster. Moreover, given the uncertainty