Lee Intervention, Terrorism, and Torture

Contemporary Challenges to Just War Theory
2007
ISBN: 978-1-4020-4678-0
Verlag: Springer Netherland
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: 1 - PDF Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, Band 1, 323 Seiten, eBook

Reihe: AMINTAPHIL: The Philosophical Foundations of Law and Justice

This book asks whether just war theory and its rules for determining when war is justified remains adequate to the challenges posed by contemporary developments. Some argue that the nature of contemporary war makes these rules obsolete. By carefully examining the phenomena of intervention, terrorism, and torture from a number of different perspectives, the essays in this book explore this complex set of issues with insight and clarity.

Zielgruppe

Research

Autoren/Hrsg.

Lee, Steven P.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

I. Introduction: Just War Theory and the Challenges It Faces.

II. Some Theoretical Background: 1. William Murnion; A Postmodern View of Just War. 2. David Duquette; From Rights to Realism: Incoherence in Walzer’s Conception of Jus in Bello. 3. Patrick Hubbard; A Realist Response to Walzer’s Just and Unjust Wars.

III. Intervention. 4. Rex Martin; Walzer and Rawls on Just Wars and Humanitarian Interventions. 5. Helen Stacy; Humanitarian Intervention and Relational Sovereignty. 6. Eugene Dais; Just War Theory Post 9/11: Perfect Terrorism and Superpower Defense. 7. Steven Lee; Preventive Intervention.
IV. Terrorism. 8. Allen Weiner; Law, Just War, and the International Fight Against Terrorism: Is It War? 9. Jonathan Schonsheck; Determining Moral Rectitude in Thwarting Suicide Terrorist Attacks: Moral Terra Incognita. 10. Stephen Nathanson; Terrorism and the Ethics of War. 11. Alistair Macleod; The War Against Terrorism and the ‘War’ Against Terrorism. 12. Win-chiat Lee; Terrorism and Universal Jurisdiction.

V. Torture. 13. Ken Himma; Assessing the Prohibition against Torture. 14. David Luban; Liberalism, Torture, and the Ticking Bomb. 15. Deirdre Golash; Torture and Self-Defense. 16. Larry May; Humanity, Prisoners of War, and Torture. 17. Sally Scholz; War Rape’s Challenge to Just War Theory. 18. Ken Kipnis; Prisons, POW Camps, and Interrogation Centers: Reflections on the Juridic Status of Detainees.

VI. The Impact of Technology.Richard DeGeorge; Jus in Bello, Non-Combatant Immunity, and Contemporary Warfare.

Leseproben

JUST WAR THEORY AND THE CHALLENGES IT FACES (p. 3)

The extent to which the world changed on 9/11, with the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, is a matter of debate. But, even if the attacks did not themselves introduce significant changes, it is clear that they highlighted and accelerated changes that were already underway in the role of military violence.

This volume is an examination of the moral implications of those changes. The chapters consider how these changes should be understood in moral terms. Traditionally, matters of the morality of military violence have been understood and assessed in terms of Just War Theory (JWT).

This volume examines the extent to which recent changes in the role of military violence pose challenges to JWT. How has the role of military violence changed, and what are the moral implications? There are different ways in which this question might be approached.

In this introduction, I will approach it by asking whether JWT is adequate to handle the challenges, or whether instead it needs to be revised or abandoned in favor of a different approach. What does it mean to ask whether JWT is adequate to the contemporary challenges?

JWT has always been understood not as an abstract moral theory, but as a practical guide for political leaders and military personnel in their decisions about the employment of military violence. The adequacy of JWT is bound up with its continuing ability to serve this practical function.

If the contemporary changes have left the theory unable to provide practical guidance, the theory is now inadequate. JWT consists of a set of rules and norms that seek to control military violence, to limit or restrict its exercise. It is a theory of limited war.

Unlike doctrines of pacifism, it does not seek to outlaw all war, it assumes that some military violence is morally justified. It accepts the assumption that in a world of sovereign states without an overarching governing authority, military violence must be available to states, at least to protect themselves from aggression.

At the same time, unlike doctrines of realism, JWT does not assume that any use of military violence that furthers a belligerent’s national interests is justified, it seeks to impose moral limits on military violence.

It assumes that even in a world of sovereign states, states have some mutual moral obligations not to interfere with each other. As a theory of limited war, JWT is in a middle position, so to speak, between pacifism and realism, allowing some uses of military violence and disallowing others.

Its adequacy is tied to its ability to maintain that sometimes precarious middle position, not to move too close to, or collapse into, either realism or pacifism. If JWT moves too close to realism, it is not serving its moral function. If it moves too far from realism, it is not serving its practical action-guiding function because military decision-makers will simply ignore rules that require too great a sacrifice of national self-interest.

The just war rules have been developed over time in response to given social, political, and technological realities, and, as these realities change, the question arises whether the rules remain adequate, whether they retain their action-guiding function.