Just War Tradition and the Restraint of War: A Moral and Historical Inquiry

by James Turner Johnson

Overview

In this volume, a sequel to Ideology, Reason, and the Limitation of War, James Turner Johnson continues his reconstruction of the history of just war tradition by analyzing significant individual thinkers, concepts, and events that influenced its development from the mid-eighteenth century to the present.

Originally published in 1981.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691612225
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	07/14/2014
Series:	Princeton Legacy Library , #644
Pages:	418
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 6.10(h) x 1.00(d)

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Just War Tradition and the Restraint of War

A Moral and Historical Inquiry

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By James Turner Johnson

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 1981 Princeton University Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-07263-0

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CHAPTER 1

Approaches to the Restraint of War

Numerous perspectives have been brought to the study of efforts to impose moral and other restraints on warfare and violence. The effect might be compared to looking into a locked house through its various windows; each vista reveals only some of the contents and internal structure. In this and the three following chapters I will examine just war tradition through some of the "windows" that yield the most significant knowledge of it. All four of these chapters have to do with how to understand the sources and nature of the restraints on war comprised in this tradition. They are all, in this sense, "methodological," though there is considerable substantive material in these discussions also. My purpose throughout is not to deal with all possible approaches to the subject of this book or even all those that have been tried. Rather my intent is to examine perspectives and problems central to understanding the development, nature, and functioning of the just war tradition. The scope and detail of the treatment given in Chapters II-IV follows from the close relationship between the topics of these chapters and the remainder of this book.

The approaches treated in the present chapter are not central to my own effort to understand and interpret the tradition, and indeed they have little to do with interpreting the tradition, understood as a developing body of theory and practice as it has taken shape over history. They hold promise, nonetheless, for progress in understanding efforts to define and apply restraints to war. We will outline these methods and the service they have rendered and can render, as well as the limitations that must be observed with each. The first approach, that of searching for principles undertaken by some theologians and philosophers, needs to be understood as an historically and culturally conditioned series of attempts to abstract and simplify the contents of the just war tradition so as to make them meaningful in given historical and cultural contexts. The second approach, the cross-cultural, analytical efforts of contemporary social scientists, could be of inestimable value in strengthening international law by uncovering points of contact between the Western just war tradition, out of which historically international law has come, and the traditions of restraint of war and violence that have grown up in non-Western societies.

A. THE UNCOVERING OF MORAL PRINCIPLES

Much ethical theorizing proceeds by means of reflection upon the relation (or relations) between moral principles of more or less absolute character and particular problems or situations confronting persons, either actually or in the imagination. Thus Paul Ramsey has argued that Christian ethics generally, and Augustinian just war theory in particular, derive from Christian charity, a unique kind of love whose principle might be described as self-giving toward the needy neighbor. Christian absolute pacifists typically take the antiviolence tradition in the Bible as providing a statement of quite precise principles: "Do no murder" and "Turn the other cheek" seem to admit of no mitigating interpretation. But principles do not have to be absolute; for example, James Childress applies to just war doctrine the concept of prima facie obligations, which he borrows from moral philosopher W. D. Ross. Such an obligation "always has a strong moral reason for its performance although this reason may not always be decisive or triumph over all other reasons." For Childress the duty not to injure or to kill another human being is such a prima facie duty.

Principles may thus be absolute or relative, singular or multiple, grounded in theological or philosophical reasoning. Common sources have included revelation, natural law, and "right reason" employed in connection with both. In just war tradition all these conceptions are found, posing a serious problem of relativity. So many different principles, as well as ways of working with them, have been adduced as basic to this tradition that they sometimes oppose one another. Let us consider one illustration of this problem, the question of defining the meaning of "justice."

Is there a basic just war principle? If there is, then assuredly it must be justice. But the matter is far more complex than it first appears. What concept of justice is intended? One possibility is distributive justice, which embodied in the concept of proportionality implies that the evils of war and any goods it might bring should be distributed according to relative guilt and innocence among the persons affected by the war. This concept of justice seems strongest where there is greatest concern for noncombatants, war victims, and the problems of the aftermath of war. Another strong possible meaning for justice in the just war context is vindicative justice, which in the thought of Thomas Aquinas and, to a lesser extent, his followers is paramount. According to this conception, strongly urged by Alfred Vanderpol, what matters is setting right a wrong already suffered, punishing (in God's name and as his agent) those who created the wrong. The following summarizes this notion of the justice in just war tradition: "The prince (or the people) that declares war acts as a magistrate under the jurisdiction of which a foreign nation falls, ratione delicti, by reason of a very grave fault, a crime which it has committed and for which it has not wished to make reparation. As the depository of authority to punish a guilty subject, he pronounces the sentence and acts to execute it in virtue of the right of punishment that he holds from God: 'Minister enim Dei est, vindex in iram ei qui malum agit.' ('He is the minister of God to execute his vengeance against the evildoer.')" The concept of vindicative justice contains the ideas of real fault on only one side, the rightness of punishment and the need for repayment. That vindicative and distributive justice may sometimes collide is well illustrated by the example of Locke, who resolves the opposition by deciding in terms of the latter, requiring that full repayment (a form of vindication) be foregone by the just victor when it would cause the innocent dependents of the unjust vanquished to suffer. In other instances distribution and vindication may conflict less; yet because they are not identical, in some circumstances they will interact to produce a dilemma.

Further complexity is guaranteed when it is asked whether "justice" in this context means absolute justifiedness or only relative justification. The former is assumed in the assertion "There has never been a just war." Persons who stress the intention of just war theory to limit those conflicts that actually and inevitably occur, whether absolute justice is present on one side or not, assume that relative justification is the intent of the theory.

Again, since the specifically Christian component of just war thought derives in a large measure from Augustine, some theorists, notably Ramsey, have sought the meaning of justice in this context through examining Christian charity (caritas), which in Augustine's theological system is, through history, gradually transforming natural justice. On this view, neither distribution nor vindication is the aim, for charity does not seek to punish evil but to convert it to good, and its rewards do not flow according to merit but in accord with divine choice. Indeed, if Ramsey's interpretation is correct, a thematic root of the idea of simultaneous ostensible justice can be discerned in the charity-transformed natural justice of Augustine's theory: since God loves all men, and especially since all are as yet mixtures of sinner and saint, with fallen natures not yet fully transformed by charity, absolute discrimination between belligerents in a war on the basis of any pure form of natural justice is inadequate for the Christian. When I encounter an evil assailant about to assault an innocent victim, my action to protect the latter must accord with my love for both victim and assailant. Even if the result can be described in terms of justice, the justice involved is quite different from those kinds of justice rooted in some concept of purely natural right or order.

Indeed, the introduction of a principle of justice grounded in Christian charity raises the question whether the real basis of just war theory should be defined as justice after all. Two alternative principles suggest themselves. First, Richard Baxter argues that mercy, and not justice, properly motivates concern for the victims of war. These include not only persons whose activities and motivations have been aloof from the war effort of their nation; it also includes persons who have borne arms but now are rendered incapable of doing so, as for example wounded soldiers in hospitals. Either vindicative or distributive justice might suggest some sort of punishment or retaliation against these latter, who have after all actively participated in aiding the design of their government. But, instead, the law of war has been fashioned so as to protect such persons. Why? Justice alone does not answer this question. Charity might provide an answer, but how can it be held up as a motive for non-Christians, or indeed for civilian and military leaders of modern secular states? But mercy is much like charity; they might be regarded as secular and religious versions of each other. The same evidences of human mercy that have provided analogies for understanding Christian charity might be raised as examples of mankind's ability to treat one another more gently than justice might demand when there is present some incapacity, weakness, pain, or other disadvantage on one side. In its classical form, the virtue mandating gentleness or helpfulness toward a fallen foe or toward those less fortunate than oneself was termed magnanimity, and it was recognized as distinct from justice in human relations. Whether it be termed magnanimity or mercy, an element of just war tradition from its very earliest expressions to its most recent has defied inclusion under the principle of justice. Perhaps this element betrays the real underlying principle beneath the just war idea, so that Baxter is correct in giving it primacy as the principle of mercy.

Two other principles related to the idea of mercy are especially prominent in modern theory on the international law of war. These are the principles of civilization and humanity, typically set up in opposition to that of military necessity. The latter, it is argued, tends to make war more total, while the former tend to make it less destructive. Civilization and humanity are used more or less equivalently, though different authors prefer one or the other term, and they do carry different connotations. The former points in the direction of the values resident in a total culture, while the latter suggests those connected with mankind abstracted from a cultural setting. Understood in terms of their connotations, these two principles could be linked, respectively, to a sociological perspective and to a philosophical one. The fact that concern for humanity in the sense of the modern law of war has its origins in the Enlightenment might be taken to underscore this difference, except that even very early, as for example in Vattel, the principles are evoked simultaneously and to argue for a single end: restraint in war. Finally, when Myres McDougal and Florentino Feliciano combine humanity and military necessity together into one principle that for them expresses the meaning of the modern law of war, the principle of no unnecessary destruction of values, it is civilization as at once the expression of human values and their repository that is suggested, not values abstracted from their setting in human society. Whether civilization and humanity form a single principle or whether they are best understood through their differences, it is clear that to express their meaning through the term "justice" would truncate or distort it. Nor is "mercy" adequate here, nor "charity."

In short, there are several principles whose primacy has been adduced in connection with just war tradition: two distinct kinds of natural justice, Christian charity, mercy, civilization, and humanity. To these we might add Childress's notion of a prima facie duty not to kill. These principles do not all imply the same things, and in the writings of particular theorists within the just war tradition the basic differences have been compounded by combinations, choice of emphasis, neglect and ignorance, relativistic or absolutistic slant, and intellectual fashion. To try to understand just war tradition via one or another of the principles that have been held to be fundamental means ignoring those parts of the tradition where other principles are held to be primary; the result is to misinterpret by truncation. (This was Vanderpol's error.) On the other hand, to try to interpret the tradition by beginning with all the "fundamental" principles together is to confront repeated dilemmas, if not in fact intellectual and moral chaos. The conscientious interpreter who proceeds this way gives more weight to the diversity within the tradition, but he inevitably must make choices when confronted with opposing tendencies created by the variant principles, and the result must be to create his own version of just war thought, with its peculiar unique ranking of principles and means of connecting them with reality.

To begin with principles in either case leads to something less than full understanding of the tradition of just war thought. The approach via first principles is useful to unlock the mind of a particular theorist or set of closely related theorists in the tradition — a person or persons who consistently have recourse to one or more principles as they develop their own position. This is what Vanderpol does with Thomas Aquinas, and though the results are somewhat one-sided and unsatisfactory as far as understanding medieval just war theory is concerned, they do provide a unique vista upon Thomistic thought on war. Similarly Paul Ramsey's stress on charity in his interpretation of Augustine is misleading if taken as a comment on the historical use of Augustine in just war tradition, but it provides valuable insights into Ramsey's conception of the relation between Christian love and violence. In both cases one may wonder whether it is Thomas and Augustine whose thought is laid bare by such interpretation, or whether it is Vanderpol's and Ramsey's minds that are more exposed. Only in the case of a psychologically and intellectually sympathetic interpreter can the results of an interpretation that begins with first principles be trusted. But deciding whether such sympathy is present is less a matter of deduction from first principles than of something different, which we might call historical judgment — a concept to which we shall return in subsequent chapters.

This exposing of the relativity of past attempts to represent just war tradition through appeal to principles is meant positively rather than negatively. Once the limitations of this approach are known and understood — once such principles are recognized to be inevitably colored by specific historical and cultural circumstances, including the intellectual training and even the personality of each interpreter, then the effort to represent just war tradition through moral principles can become a useful tool for translating that tradition to meet the needs of particular, if always changing, contexts. The very lack of unity and consistency in the appeal to principles becomes a virtue: a way of representing a rich and complex reality that must, to be understood, always be expressed in the symbolic structures of an interpreter's own time.

B. CROSS-CULTURAL ANALYSIS

If the various approaches to understanding just war tradition are somewhat like inspecting the interior of a house and its contents by looking through several different windows, then there might come a time when the purpose and function of a given room or the nature of a particular piece of furniture could best be understood by looking into other similar houses in the same way. This, put rather simplistically, is what cross-cultural study attempts to do. Ever since Quincy Wright's massive and classic work, A Study of War, such comparison has played a major role in social scientific study of war and its restraint. Indeed, such comparative inquiry is virtually required by the emergence into autonomy of whole cultures that were, in the period before World War II, dominated by Western powers. But the deeper roots of interest in such study reach back into the developing historical consciousness of the nineteenth century, when the other cultures to be examined were those of the past. Wright's inquiry was cross-cultural in both these senses, the historical and the contemporaneous. At the same time it attempted to be interdisciplinary as well, in that Wright and his colleagues tried to take account of the knowledge of war offered by such diverse fields of study as biology, economics, theology, and social psychology. Yet the dominant methodology was that of social science, with a pronounced emphasis on quantitative measurement. In this section we will first briefly look at Wright's pioneering work, then turn to a contemporary example of a narrower kind of cross-cultural analysis in the service of conflict management. In both these cases the applicability of such study to the restraint of war by international law is a central concern, and indeed the practical utility of cross-cultural study of war is most obvious for the development of legal restraints that can be meaningful and effective across boundaries both international and cultural. The possibility of such utility is treated further below.

(Continues...)

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Table of Contents

• FrontMatter, pg. i
• Contents, pg. vii
• Preface, pg. ix
• Introduction, pg. xxi
• I. Approaches to the Restraint of War, pg. 3
• II. The Significance of History for the Restraint of War: Two Perspectives, pg. 19
• III. The Cultural Regulation of Violence, pg. 41
• IV.. Natural Law as a Language for the Ethics of War, pg. 85
• V. Perspectives on the Birth of a Tradition: The Middle Ages, pg. 121
• VI. The-Transition to the Modern Era, pg. 172
• VII. The Limited War Idea and Just War Tradition, pg. 190
• VIII. Historical Concepts of Total War and Just War Tradition, pg. 229
• IX. The Onset of Modern War and the DevelopmentofRestraints, pg. 281
• X. The Just War Tradition and Contemporary War, pg. 327
• Select Bibliography, pg. 367
• Index, pg. 377