Method and the Morality of War
Fishback, Ian
2021
Abstract
My argument consists of three interdisciplinary chapters, each of which is a distinct prong that contributes to the overall project. The first interdisciplinary chapter, which is primarily philosophy, discusses the analogy between war in international relations and self-defense in domestic society. This argument, which is sometimes referred to as the domestic analogy, takes the following form: resort to war in internationally relations is sufficiently similar to resort to lethal self-defense in domestic society that the morality of the latter tells us a great deal about the morality of the former. The domestic analogy is a lynchpin of the most influential version of the traditional just war theory framework outlined in Michael Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars. Revisionists criticize Walzer's domestic analogy by using intuitions about hypothetical cases of self-defense to 'discover' moral principles through rational intuitionism. The moral principles revisionists generate appear to be inconsistent with various aspects of the traditional just war framework. Therefore, revisionists argue that the traditional just war framework is mistaken and ought to be revised. I use the principle of necessity applied to the real-world case of Bernhard Goetz's 1984 New York City subway shooting to demonstrate that it is possible to 'discover' moral principles from cases of self-defense that are more consistent with the traditional just war framework than revisionists claim. The second interdisciplinary chapter is primarily legal. According to the most widely accepted beliefs about the legality and morality of war, there is a conceptual distinction regarding duties to obey orders. On one hand, politicians are morally responsible for ordering combatants to resort to war, but combatants are not morally responsible for following politicians' order to resort to war. On the other hand, combatants are almost always morally responsible for following orders to commit crimes during the conduct of war. In other words, there is almost always a respondeat superior (let the commander answer) justification for a combatant's participation in war even though there is almost never a respondeat superior justification for a combatant's conduct during war. I will challenge this conceptualization of a combatant's duty to obey orders, arguing that the respondeat superior defense is often available to combatants who violate rules that regulate conduct in war. In situations where the law and morality are unclear, (1) commanders who issue orders almost always bear sole moral and legal responsibility and (2) subordinates almost never bear moral and legal responsibility. Rather than being revisionist, my view is represented in case law. Therefore, many of the most widely accepted moral beliefs about combatants' duties to obedience are contrary to legal and historical precedent. The third interdisciplinary chapter, which is primarily psychological, is about a principle that distinguishes between doing harm and allowing harm. Rational intuitionist revisionists use intuitions about particular cases to justify a moral principle that distinguishes between doing harm and allowing harm such that doing harm is morally worse than allowing harm (DDA). Experimental philosophy, social psychology, and moral psychology often seem to support this sort of argument. However, some psychological experiments seem to cut the other way, undermining the epistemic status of the DDA. I'll review the force of these critiques and argue that they overstate their case.Deep Blue DOI
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