Supreme Emergency Research Articles

The Incompatibility of Rawls's Justice as Fairness and His Just War Approach

AbstractA fundamental tension exists between Rawls's ideal Kantian conception of justice as fairness (JAF), which requires respecting people as ends, and his realistic non‐Kantian consequentialist conception of a supreme emergency in a just war. By justifying the targeting of objectively innocent noncombatants during a supreme emergency exception, Rawls allows for treating them as means only. Hence, his appeal to a supreme emergency is insufficient to avoid this tension. First, since for him JAF is ideal but also practical, one might argue that his fictional people in the original position must reflect on the justification for using force on behalf of JAF. And second, since Rawls justifies targeting objectively innocent people during a supreme emergency exemption, he justifies what one might conceive of as emergency terrorism. Emergency terrorism, however, treats people as means only. Therefore, Rawls's Kantian conception of JAF is in tension with his consequentialist justification of a supreme emergency in a just war and hence with emergency terrorism.

존 롤즈(J. Rawls)의 전쟁과 핵무기에 대한 이론

This article tries to examine John Rawls’ theories of war and nuclear weapons especially from the perspective of international law. Rawls's theory of war is based on the just war theory of Western tradition. It rejects realism and does not adopt pacifism. Rawls's theory of jus ad bellum is similar to the position of current international law in that it recognizes a war of self-defense and exceptionally a war of humanitarian intervention. HIs theory of jus in bello largely reflects the principles of existing International Humanitarian Law(IHL), such as the distinction between combatants and civilians, protection of human rights, and restrictions on military necessity. However, Rawls deviates from international humanitarian law in that it permits military action against civilians in the case of the so-called supreme emergency. Regarding nuclear weapons, it differs from the existing International Court of Justice (ICJ) theory of nuclear permitting by permitting nuclear weapons only to well-ordered peoples and presenting human rights standards for nuclear use. In addition, by evaluating the Hiroshima-Nagasaki atomic bombings as great wrongs, it presents a precedent in international humanitarian law for the use of nuclear weapons. The official position of the United States regarding the Hiroshima-Nagasaki atomic bombings was that it was a justifiable measure to end the war early. However, Rawls rejects the U.S. government's arguments and says that the atomic bombing was a representative case of the failure of so-called 'statesmanship'. This article attempted to support Rawls's perspective from the perspective of international humanitarian law. The claim that the Hiroshima-Nagasaki atomic bombings were intended to reduce the casualties of U.S. soldiers does not comply with the principle of military necessity under international humanitarian law. Additionally, the claim that it was an inevitable choice to reduce the damage to Japanese civilians that would result from a prolonged war is not valid in that there was room for a third option to end the war. The dropping of the Hiroshima-Nagasaki atomic bombs reflected America's political interest for the victory of unconditional surrender and ending the war before Russia (the former Soviet Union) entered the war. This did not comply with the principles of military necessity or humanitarian necessity of international humanitarian law.

Supreme emergency: how Britain lives with the bomb

Journal Article Supreme emergency: how Britain lives with the bomb Get access Supreme emergency: how Britain lives with the bomb. By Andrew Corbett. Manchester: Manchester University Press. 2022. 272pp. £80.00. Isbn978 1 52614 736 3. Available as e-book. Ana Alecsandru Ana Alecsandru The Royal United Services Institute, UK Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 99, Issue 3, May 2023, Pages 1345–1346, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiad101 Published: 02 May 2023

"Neskrivljeno neznanje" u ratu - kolateralna šteta i krajnja nužda

In this paper, author aims to determine the existence of the possibility of the inculpable ignorance argument even for acts of combatants in war, in specific contexts of collateral damage and supreme emergency. The argument of inculpable ignorance is extremely important in Just War Theory and international law as an argument which justifies participation of individuals in war, regardless of its moral and legal status. However, by analyzing the very argument of inculpable ignorance as well as the phenomena of collateral damage and supreme emergency in war, author demonstrates that inculpable ignorance can potentially exist in war itself, i.e., during acts done out of such ignorance in war. Process of utilitarian calculus of justness of collateral damage and the process of deliberation of fulfilment of conditions that constitute the situation of supreme emergence are out of combatants' reach, while their knowledge of correctness of decisions and orders derived from these processes is practically impossible. Accordingly, in these particular situations the argument of inculpable ignorance can be valid for acts which violate norms and rules of war, because the truth about the moral-legal status of these acts remains unknowable for combatants.

Dirty Hands, Supreme Emergencies, and Catholic Moral Theology

AbstractIs it ever permissible to commit an intrinsically evil act in order to avert catastrophe? Consequentialists say yes, denying the very concept of intrinsic evil, since the action that leads to the best consequences is by definition right. Moral absolutism, in contrast, insists that it is never permissible to commit an action that is inherently evil, regardless of the consequences. However, there is a middle position, occupied by “dirty hands” theorists, who claim that actions can be both necessary and immoral. I argue that Catholic moral theology, although generally associated with moral absolutism, can and should make conceptual space for the idea of dirty hands, both because it saves the Church from committing itself to what seem to be moral absurdities and because the phenomenon of dirty hands captures a genuine dimension of our moral experience in a fallen world.

Supreme emergencies and public accountability: the case of procurement in the UK during the Covid-19 pandemic

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to examine the changed nature of public accountability during a supreme emergency and explore how legal and auditing mechanisms have come to the fore, concluding that misappropriation of public monies is not an inevitable outcome.Design/methodology/approachThe paper explores an illustrative example, the UK government's procurement of personal protective equipment during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic.FindingsIn circumstances of a supreme emergency where parliamentary scrutiny and competitive contract tendering are suspended, other forms of public accountability come to the fore, with civil society actors becoming more evident.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper relies on illustrative examples based on the Westminster model of government. The study advanced the notion of deferred accountability and identifies areas for further study, potentially in different jurisdictions.Social implicationsThe paper highlights the need for a variety of active and engaged civil society actors.Originality/valueThe paper contributes an empirical case to how an account of government behaviour is established. The paper also contributes to a deeper understanding of the nature and role of legal and government audit accountability mechanisms.

Irreconcilable Disagreement

John Rawls’s articulation of what makes for justice in war includes one of his most interesting, yet least discussed, assessments of religion and state coercion. Rawls claims that “the duties of the statesman in political liberalism” are incompatible with adherence to “the Catholic doctrine of double effect” when that doctrine precludes the deliberate targeting of innocent and harmless human beings in a “supreme emergency.” I explicate Rawls’s argument in favor of that claim, articulate various theological objections, and assess some proposed restrictions on the justificatory role of religious reasons in the light of that disagreement.

Précis: Our Moral Fate: Evolution And The Escape From Tribalism

Abstract The book uses evolutionary principles to explain tribalism, a way of thinking and acting that divides the world into Us versus Them and achieves cooperation within a group at the expense of erecting insuperable obstacles to cooperation among groups. Tribalism represents political controversies as supreme emergencies in which ordinary moral constraints do not apply and as zero-sum, winner take all contests. Tribalism not only undermines democracy by ruling out compromise, bargaining, and respect for the Other; it also reverses one of the most important milestones of progress in how we understand morality: the insight that morality is not a list of commands to be unthinkingly followed, but rather that morality centrally involves the giving and taking of reasons among equals. Tribalism rejects this insight by branding the Other as a being who is incapable of reasoning.

Just and Unjust Proliferation

Political theorists had vigorous debates about nuclear weapons in the 1980s but have been largely silent about them recently. This article seeks to reopen those discussions. It evaluates the main justifications for nuclear proliferation since 1945: arguments from consistency, nationalism, democratic legitimacy, self-defense, peaceful effects, and supreme emergency. Most of these arguments are badly flawed, as are the arguments for retaining the nuclear arsenals of many of the established nuclear powers. Instead, this article proposes a first cut at a stringent standard for judging the acquisition of strategic nuclear weapons, drawing on jus ad bellum and jus in bello principles.

Medical immunity, international law and just war theory

Under customary international law, the First Geneva Convention and Additional Protocol I, medical personnel are protected against intentional attack. In § 1 of this paper, we survey these legal norms...

Morality and mortality: why the Church of England would have rejected Walzer’s supreme emergency argument

Walzer insists that his supreme emergency argument morally legitimises Churchill’s 1940 decision to bomb German civilians. We contend, however, that it is morally deficient. We contend, further, that if Walzer’s argument had been presented to the leaders of the Church of England in 1940 as justification for the bombing of German civilians, the Church leadership would have rejected it. According to Walzer, a supreme emergency forces us to waive rights we would honour under ordinary circumstances. But the Church has a different conception of rights. Because the Church is committed to universal rights – which are inviolable and cannot be overridden – it would never have agreed with Walzer. Our discussion as to those conflicting conceptions of rights illustrates what differentiates biblical ethics from secular ethics.

Reflections on 'Supreme Emergency'

Toward the end of Just and Unjust Wars, Michael Walzer introduces the idea of “supreme emergency” and considers whether it might be permissible for a society desperate to avoid military defeat when the stakes are very, very high, to resort to methods of waging a war that are ordinarily forbidden. The bombing of civilian areas of German cities in the early 1940s by the British air force is sometimes cited as an example. In this chapter, I consider how best to interpret Walzer’s thinking on this subject. I consider various ways of thinking about “supreme emergency,” including the possible neutral application of the idea (so that it might be used by our enemies for example) and the question of whether the relevant stakes consist of the extinction of a society or of a whole civilization. I argue that Walzer is best understood not as proposing a modification to the laws of war. Instead he is thinking aloud—and thinking responsibly—about what happens, and about what ought to happen, when the stakes have become so high that there is a failure in the circumstances that make the ordinary restraints on fighting a war viable.

Dehumanization, lesser evil and the supreme emergency exemption

Many believe that if the indiscriminate bombings of German cities at the beginning of World War II were necessary for preventing unlimited spread of Nazism, then the bombings were justified. For, the outcome, in which innocent Germans living in Nazi Germany are killed, was not as bad as the outcome in which the Nazis inflict ethnic cleansing and enslavement on a massive scale. Recently, however, Daniel Statman has advanced a powerful case against this type of justification. I aim in this paper to develop an enriched version of consequentialism which rescues the lesser evil elucidation of the Exemption.

‘Supreme Emergencies’, ontological holism, and rights to communal membership

This paper highlights the importance to just war theory of ontological questions about the constitution of personal identity. It does so through a critical reinterpretation of Michael Walzer’s invocation of a supreme emergency exemption to the principles of jus in bello. Walzer’s argument has been widely criticised for attaching more importance to communities than to individuals. I argue that his position normatively prioritises individuals, but is grounded in a holistic ontology. He valorises political community only because of its importance to the individuals who comprise it. On this view, each community forms a moral world and shapes individual identity. This gives individuals a highest order interest in being part of an autonomous community and makes threats to communal existence a form of moral disaster. The paper concludes that the debate about supreme emergency should engage with ontological questions, and that such engagement would mean problematising the study of what liberalism demands in international ethics.

The supreme emergency of war: a critique of Walzer

This is a critique of the way in which Michael Walzer applies the concept of supreme emergencies in war. It aims to show that Walzer is mistaken in reserving this concept, as well as the associated notion of dirty hands, for situations in which political communities, in a desperate struggle for survival, cannot help but kill innocents intentionally, rather than merely with foresight. If moral agents have moral reasons to proceed in a way which will foreseeably result in innocent people being killed, they are already facing a supreme emergency; the killing does not need to be intentional in some narrower sense for that to be the case. This article stays agnostic on whether or not war can be morally justified in principle, and also on whether or not a dirty hands conception of war is ultimately defensible. It merely argues that if there are supreme emergencies as Walzer describes them, then situations in which war can justifiably be waged are, and ought to be, such emergencies.

Pacifism, Supreme Emergency, and Moral Tragedy

Pacifism, Supreme Emergency, and Moral Tragedy

Terrorism: a philosophical investigation

Acknowledgments vi Introduction 1 1 Defining Terrorism 7 2 State Terrorism and Counterterrorism 30 3 Complicity of the Victims 47 4 The Consequences of Terrorism 65 5 Terrorism, Rights, and Justice 84 6 Terrorism, Supreme Emergency, and Moral Disaster 95 7 Is Terrorism Morally Distinctive? 114 8 Case Study: Terror Bombing of German Cities 126 9 Case Study: Terrorism in the Israeli-Palestinian Confl ict 148 Summing up 170 Notes 176 References and Bibliography 180 Index 189

Sworn to Grim Necessity? Imperfections of European Economic Governance, Normative Political Theory, and Supreme Emergency

This contribution examines the Euro Area crisis and European economic governance reforms through a less technocratic lens. It argues for the need to reframe debate around foundation issues in normative legal and political theory. The defining issue is supreme emergency. The credibility of its capacity to act in supreme emergency is of existential significance for the Euro Area. At the same time this capacity poses is bound up with basic legitimacy issues. In particular, it involves ultimately contentious requirements for supranational executive discretion, including credible contingent commitments to take exceptional measures. Meeting these requirements exposed a power vacuum within the Euro Area, consequent on domestic political constraints. This vacuum was filled—if reluctantly—by the European Central Bank. However, difficult legitimacy issues remain. They leave open the credibility of the ECB contingent commitment to act in supreme emergency.

The construction of family values in geopolitical discourse: the ongoing legacy of Adolf Hitler and Britain's ‘supreme emergency’

The use of the philosophical axioms of just war theory by political leaders justifying their participation in war is examined. Especially, the just war themes of ‘supreme emergency’ and ‘emergency ethics’ are investigated as a means of justifying extra-territorial wars, or wars that are far away from a state's borders and where no imminent threat of invasion is present. The practice of equating geopolitical situations to the actions of Hitler and Nazi Germany is seen as a consequence of the mobilisation of the language of ‘emergency ethics’. The rhetoric justifying extra-territorial warfare uses an idealised sense of the home that is reinforced by the practices of soldiers. Furthermore, the importance of values in the ‘emergency ethics’ logic is investigated by exploring the memoirs of a British Army chaplain serving in the Korean War. The contemporary relevance of the article lies in the extra-territorial nature of the War on Terror and the persistent use of reference to values to justify immoral and illegal acts of war.

JUST WAR, NONCOMBATANT IMMUNITY, AND THE CONCEPT OF SUPREME EMERGENCY

The supreme emergency exemption proposed by Michael Walzer has engendered controversy because it permits violations of the jus in bello principle of discrimination when a state is faced with imminent defeat at the hands of a very evil enemy. Traditionalists among just war theorists believe that noncombatants should never be deliberately targeted in war whether or not there is a supreme emergency. Pacifists, on the other hand, reject war as immoral even in a supreme emergency. Unlike Walzer, neither just war traditionalists nor pacifists make a special case for supreme emergencies. In this paper, I borrow Walzer's concept to provide support for a different ethics of war that limits war to supreme emergencies. In non-supreme emergency situations, I agree with pacifists in rejecting war even if just war requirements are satisfied. But in supreme emergencies, I agree with just war traditionalists that war can be legitimately fought provided that moral constraints that protect noncombatants are respected.