Search Results

This chapter defends the moral importance of an intervener's fidelity to the principles to jus in bello (principles of just conduct in war). It begins by outlining the particular principles of ‘external jus in bello’ that an intervener should follow (focusing largely on discrimination and proportionality). It draws on Jeff McMahan's work and the nature of humanitarian intervention to claim that these principles should be highly restrictive. The chapter then asserts two principles of ‘internal jus in bello’. The second section considers more broadly the moral underpinnings of the principles of jus in bello. It claims that consequentialist justifications of these principles cannot fully grasp their moral significance and particularly the difference between doing and allowing. The final section considers the ‘Absolutist Challenge’—that the principles of jus in bello defended are too important and consequently render humanitarian intervention impermissible. After rejecting the doctrine of double effect as a solution to this challenge, the chapter invokes the scalar account of legitimacy to respond to this objection.

Drawing on some of Bernard Williams's work, especially his essays ‘The Idea of Equality’ and ‘The Human Prejudice’, this chapter argues that ‘speciesism’ is very unlike racism or sexism, and that much of the philosophical apparatus which has been mobilized on behalf of anti-speciesism, such as moral individualism and the argument from marginal cases, is unsound. Moral individualists hold that the standards of appropriate ethical treatment of a creature must display fundamental sensitivity to only the intrinsic non-relational properties exemplified by that creature. But this doctrine cannot tell us, all by itself, when a creature has been unfortunate, and hence deserving of protection or compensation. Those questions can only be settled by locating the creature in a community of fellow creatures, which define the relevant standards of flourishing and misfortune. It is further contended that there is nothing unintelligible or morally obnoxious about defining these communities in species-sensitive ways, and that our understanding of the wrongness of racism and sexism is actually dependent on the background thought that those individuals who are victimized by racist or sexist treatment belong to a particular community: the human community.

A moral assessment of international humanitarian law (IHL) is often conducted. Jeff McMahan proposed a radically different approach that pitted against IHL what he termed ‘the deep morality of war’, in the name of which he advocated, in the article challenged here, systematic violation of IHL. Our fundamental difference is an empirical one, consisting in what our different understandings of war allowed us to believe possible and therefore, on the basis of ought presupposes can, required. When he simply contrasts the rules governing peaceful domestic society and the rules governing international conflict, he begs the question of how similar they should be. The chapter begins to contrast the circumstances of peace and the circumstances of war, emphasizing different epistemological burdens.

Our critical thesis is that although Jeff McMahan is critical of Michael Walzer, they both mistakenly adopt the same crucial presupposition, namely that the form of laws of war must be explained by underlying retention or forfeiture of moral rights by individual persons: equal retention on both sides for Walzer and asymmetrical forfeiture (by combatants on opposing sides) for McMahan. Both Walzer and McMahan assume that legal rights granted to combatants ought to mirror directly each individual’s moral rights, a moralization of laws that is impossible to implement within combat. The constructive thesis is the radical suggestion that the immunity of civilians to attack—principle of discrimination—can be understood as an extension of the principle of military necessity, provided the crucial frame of reference for determination of military necessity is what we call the ‘St Petersburg assumption’: the only acceptable goal for war is weakening enemy military forces.

This chapter offers a response to a 1998 paper by Peter Singer and it focuses on discussion in 1979 by Grisez and Boyle of the theoretical, factual, and operational definition or criteria of death. That discussion is a model of conceptual (philosophical) clarification, and was mangled in Singer's account of it. But against their factual and operational conclusions linking brain death with loss of integrated organic functioning (the ‘theoretical’ definition of death), the chapter adduces work by Alan Shewmon giving clinical grounds for doubting the necessity or invariable reality of that link. Along the way, dualism of the kind embraced by Jeff McMahan is critiqued, as is Singer's ethic. A last-minute endnote cites Grisez's recent reply to Shewmon.

The final problem just war theorists perceive with victory reflects the belief that to speak about war in terms of victory is to court an escalatory logic that undercuts the spirit of moderation that the just war tradition champions. The pursuit of victory inclines armies to set the rules aside and fight in an unrestrained manner. Turning this concern on its head, this chapter contends that while it is true that the idiom of victory tempts an escalatory logic, so too does the idea of just war. This is demonstrated by the writings of two leading contemporary just war theorists: Michael Walzer and Jeff McMahan. The conclusion arising from this is not necessarily that we should back away from speaking about either victory or just war. It is, however, a reminder of both what is staked when we do engage them, and why they must always be approached with circumspection.

This chapter examines the relative weight that should be given to the interests of the child compared to the interests of other members of their family. Family members may be profoundly affected by the need to provide care for an impaired child, though this may be alleviated by the amount of support provided for families. The strength of the interest of the child in continued life is also assessed, in particular the potential difference between newborn infants and older children. Infants have an interest in life, and in realizing their future potential. However, this interest is somewhat less than the interest of an older child or adult because of their developmental immaturity. This means that it is easier for the interests of others, particularly those of parents and siblings, to outweigh the infant’s interest. This is most likely for the youngest infants with the most severe degrees of impairment.

The focus of this chapter is the right to defend oneself (self-defense) and others (other-defense) against unjust aggression. This right must do the lion’s share of the work in justifying recourse to war and violence in war. The chapter defends Locke’s general view that the right to defense is a right to enforce rights. However, the specifics of the “rights enforcement account” that is developed and defended differ substantially from Locke’s account. Most notably, the rights enforcement account defended in this chapter does not rely on Locke’s claim that those who pose a threat of unjust harm forfeit their own right not to be harmed. Locke’s account and various other accounts of the right to defense, including Judith Jarvis Thomson’s and Jeff McMahan’s respective accounts, are shown to be inferior to the rights enforcement account.

Donors to global health programs and policymakers within national health systems have to make difficult decisions about how to allocate scarce health care resources. Principled ways to make these decisions all make some use of summary measures of health, which provide a common measure of the value (or disvalue) of morbidity and mortality. They thereby allow comparisons between health interventions with different effects on the patterns of death and ill health within a population. The construction of a summary measure of health requires that a number be assigned to the harm of death. But the harm of death is currently a matter of debate: different philosophical theories assign very different values to the harm of death at different ages. This chapter considers how we should assign numbers to the harm of deaths at different ages in the face of uncertainty and disagreement.

This is the third part of the analysis of the doing/allowing distinction. Non-substantial facts are normally simply background conditions and do not count as part of the sequence leading to the harm. Yet, in some situations, a non-substantial fact can count as part of the sequence leading to harm: the fact counts as relatively substantial. In this case, an agent counts as doing harm even though the agent has merely removed a barrier to harm. It discusses Jeff McMahan’s account of the removal of barriers and suggests some modifications to his view. Removal of a barrier counts as doing harm if and only if (a) the barrier belongs to the victim or to a third party who has given, or would give, valid authorization for the barrier to be used to protect the victim or (b) the victim has the strongest non-need based claim on the barrier. In such cases the normally non-substantial fact that the barrier is absent counts as relatively substantial, so the relevant fact about the agent is part of the sequence leading to harm.

Some are blameless for posing a threat to the lives of another because they are not morally responsible for being a threat. Others are blameless in spite of their responsibility. On what has come to be known as the “moral-responsibility account” of liability to defensive killing, it is such responsibility, rather than blameworthiness, for threatening another that renders one liable to defensive killing. Moreover, one’s lack of responsibility for being a threat grounds one’s nonliability to defensive killing. The chapter defends the claim that it is impermissible to kill a passive nonresponsible threat in self-defense. It further defends the claim that it is permissible to kill a blameless but morally responsible threat in self-defense.

Rights-based and consequentialist approaches to ethics are often seen as being diametrically opposed to one another. This is entirely understandable, since to say that X has a (moral) right to Y is in part to assert that there are (moral) reasons to provide X with Y even if doing so foreseeably will not lead to better consequences. However, a ‘global’ form of consequentialism raises the possibility of some sort of reconciliation: it could be that the best framework for the regulation of international affairs (say) is one that employs a notion of rights, but if so, that (according to global consequentialism) is the case because regulating international affairs in that manner tends, as a matter of empirical fact, to lead to better consequences. By way of case study, this chapter applies these ideas to a recent dispute about the morality and laws of war, between Jeff McMahan and Henry Shue.

The responsibility account of permissible killing in war states that only those responsible for unjustified threats may be intentionally killed in war. In recent papers, Jeff McMahan and Bradley Strawser have defended the responsibility account against an objection that it leads either toward pacifism, according to which force is nearly always unjustified, or towards total war in which combatants need not even respect noncombatant immunity, depending on how much responsibility is required for liability to be killed. This chapter rebuts their counterarguments with the challenge that defensive forces are unable to discern to what extent individuals are responsible for the threats they pose, and hence whether they are liable to defensive force.

Chapter 2 develops and defends an original account of liability to defensive harm: the moral status account. On this view, a person renders himself liable to defensive harm when the evidence-relative permissibility of his act depends on the assumption that others lack certain moral rights that they in fact possess, and his act threatens, or reasonably appears to threaten, those rights. The chapter also provides criticisms of competing accounts of liability, in particular, the moral responsibility account influentially developed by Jeff McMahan, among others. The chapter concludes by addressing a number of objections that might be pressed against the moral status account.

This chapter examines the importance of providing health care resources and other protections for cognitively disabled people, arguing that doing so is central to adequate principles of justice. It first considers Jeff McMahan’s view that people with cognitive impairments are no more due the protections and entitlements of personhood than other nonhuman animals because they lack the capacities that are requisite to the moral status of personhood. It then describes an inclusive account of justice that should not be based on properties intrinsic to moral personhood, as many well-known theories of justice are. It also suggests that the principle of equality is not effective in securing distributive justice for individuals with severe cognitive disabilities. But there are species-specific differences that matter, one of which is that humans share in caring for our young. Surviving the long periods of human dependency requires a species whose members are disposed to social cooperation.

Continuing exchange with Jeff McMahan, I emphasize that a practice of war is presupposed by laws of war imposing a brake on the violations of morality involved. The central measure by which these laws try to prevent unavoidable concessions to violence from expanding into unnecessary excess is by limiting the means usable by all parties, irrespective of their ends, strictly to attacking persons and objects directly participating in the opposing military. McMahan had advocated a deeper moralization of the practice of war through decisions grounded in individual moral liability to attack, but I respond that the application of any criterion of moral liability to individuals would require thoughtful reflection on quantities and qualities of information not available during conflicts. McMahan’s proposed international court on the resort to war would not solve his proposal’s problems. Meanwhile minimal existing legal restrictions under attack by state practice and rhetoric need philosophical defence.

In this chapter the focus is on the ethics surrounding war. The laws of armed conflict regulate how warfare can legitimately be conducted. In particular, there are laws regulating what you can do in war (jus in bello), regardless of whether the war you take part in is just or unjust. It is argued that these laws are roughly as they should be. How do the three theories put to test deal with the question of killing in war? Deontology cannot provide a rationale behind them, however. The moral rights theory is consistent with them. Utilitarianism can explain why they should look roughly in the way they do.

This chapter introduces and clarifies Moral Distinction, the principle that killing civilians is worse than killing soldiers. It develops the conceptual apparatus deployed in subsequent chapters, then explains why Moral Distinction matters, focusing in particular on its connection to similar principles in international law. It explains why recent just war theory and political discourse have placed Moral Distinction at risk, then outlines the pluralist approach to defending it, and in particular the central contention that almost all civilians (as well as many soldiers) are not liable to be killed in war. Since killing innocent civilians is necessarily worse than killing liable soldiers, the real challenge is to show that killing innocent civilians is worse than killing innocent soldiers. Only a pluralist approach will do: each argument will have exceptions; only taken together will they provide civilians with robust protection in war.

Conventionalists argue that combatants are legally and morally permitted to fight irrespective of their cause. Revisionists argue that combatants are not morally permitted to fight for an unjust cause and conclude that the law of war sharply diverges from the deep morality of war. Many revisionists conclude that the law of war should simply aim to reduce suffering in war to the greatest extent practically possible. This chapter argues that the law of war does not permit or authorize combatants to fight for an unjust cause. The law of war is prohibitive, not permissive. The law of war does not confer symmetrical legal permissions but instead imposes symmetrical legal prohibitions and grants symmetrical legal immunities. The law of war applies alongside other legal and moral norms, including human rights law. Finally, this chapter argues that the law of war should aim to help combatants better conform to their moral obligations.