Envisioning Peace: Just War, Just Peace

1. Envisioning Peace:Just War, Just Peace (c) Lawrence M. Hinman

2. Overview • Reactions to 9/11 • Just War Theory • When are we justified in going to war? • What conduct is justified in conducting a war? • A Just Peace • What is a just peace? • How does our vision of peace guide our conduct of war? (c) Lawrence M. Hinman

3. Reactions to Terror • Most of us have been profoundly affected by the terrorist attacks of September 11th. • For me, the result was to bring into focus the third edition of my book on ethical theory: an ethic of peace. • I also found myself writing op-ed pieces about the war. (c) Lawrence M. Hinman

4. Lesson #1:An Interconnected World Increasingly, we live in an interconnected world where injustice in some remote corner of the world (Afghanistan) can have a serious impact on the other side of the globe (New York). (c) Lawrence M. Hinman

5. Structure of Interconnectedness • Trade and commerce have grown steadily for centuries • Television has become increasingly global (moon landing, Olympics, MTV, etc.) • World Wide Web • Typically, I have people from over sixty different countries visit my web site on any given day. (c) Lawrence M. Hinman

6. How wide is the World Wide Web? Visitors in one day from: • United States; Canada; United Kingdom; Taiwan; Australia; Japan; France; Saudi Arabia; Belgium; Netherlands; Hong Kong; Spain; Portugal; Singapore; Malaysia; Germany; Brazil; Israel; Italy; Mexico; Sweden; Turkey; Thailand; Norway; Philippines; Austria; Ireland; New Zealand (Aotearoa); Denmark; Estonia; Greece; ; Ukraine; Poland; Finland; Russian Federation; India; Arab Emirates, United; South Africa; Croatia (Hrvatska); China; Belarus; Colombia; Switzerland; Egypt; Argentina; Yugoslavia; Hungary; Lebanon; Latvia; Romania; Iceland; Czech Republic; Cyprus; Slovak Republic (c) Lawrence M. Hinman

7. The End of Relativism "The era of moral relativism between those who practice or condone terrorism, and those nations who stand up against it, must end." --Mayor Rudy Giuliani • Relativism works as long as we live in isolated corners of the world. • Increasingly, the question we have to answer is how we live together in one world despite deep disagreements. • The answer, I think, is to pursue justice throughout the world. Justice in one place will never be secure unless we can achieve justice—social, economic, and political—everywhere. (c) Lawrence M. Hinman

8. Lesson #2: Beware of the language of evil • When we condemn our enemies of the embodiment of evil, we encounter several dangers: • We absolve ourselves of the responsibility for understanding our enemies. • We may justify extreme measures against evil. • We may be more intolerant on domestic dissent. (c) Lawrence M. Hinman

9. Does Evil Exist? • Am I thereby denying that evil exists? • Of course not. • The issue is whether it is helpful to think about foreign policy decisions in terms of evil. • My preference is to think about foreign policy in terms of the pursuit of global justice. (c) Lawrence M. Hinman

10. Lesson #3:Use the language of terrorism carefully • We tend to treat terrorism as an absolute evil. • Many countries have their origins in terrorism. (c) Lawrence M. Hinman

11. Traditional Just War Theory:St. Thomas Aquinas • St. Thomas Aquinas was one of the major figures in articulating the conditions of a just war. (c) Lawrence M. Hinman

12. Just War Theory Today: Michael Walzer • Michael Walzer’s Just and Unjust Wars has become the modern classic on this issue. (c) Lawrence M. Hinman

13. Just War:Overview Three principal areas: • The just conditions for entering into a war. • When is it just to go to war? • The just conditions for conducting a war. • What are we permitted to do in carrying out a war and what is forbidden as unjust? • The just conditions of peace. • What are the conditions of peace that insure the just conclusion of a war? (c) Lawrence M. Hinman

14. Acknowledgement • The organization of this presentation is based on the excellent article by Brian D. Orend, "War ,“ in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (c) Lawrence M. Hinman

15. Jus ad bellum:The Just Conditions for Going to War • Just cause • Right intention • Proper authority and public declaration • Last resort • Probability of success • Proportionality (c) Lawrence M. Hinman

16. Just cause • Protection from external attack is the first and foremost—and in the eyes of some, the only--just cause of war; based on the right of self-defence. • Some have maintained the humanitarian intervention is also justified, where we go to war to save the lives of innocent people who are being attacked by an aggressor. (c) Lawrence M. Hinman

17. Right intention • The war must be pursued for a just cause. • Unacceptable intentions: • Revenge • Political expansion • Land acquisition (c) Lawrence M. Hinman

18. Proper authority and public declaration • Traditionally, only nations have the authority to declare war. • Wars must be publicly declared, not pursued in secret. • Question: Can terrorist groups be said to declare war? If not, is the response to terrorism really war? (c) Lawrence M. Hinman

19. Last resort • If there are other means of achieving the same objectives, such as negotiations or economic blockades, they should be pursued exhaustively first. (c) Lawrence M. Hinman

20. Probability of success • The rationale here is clear and simple: war is a great evil, and it is wrong to cause such killing, suffering, and destruction in a futile effort. • Question: what about countries that feel they are resisting evil even when there is little or no chance of success? For example, small European countries being invaded by the Nazis. (c) Lawrence M. Hinman

21. Proportionality • Are the possible benefits (especially in terms of a just peace) proportional to the death, suffering, and destruction that the pursuit of the war will bring about? (c) Lawrence M. Hinman

22. Jus in bello:The Just Conditions for Conducting a War Three principal conditions: • Discrimination • Proportionality • No means that are evil in themselves. (c) Lawrence M. Hinman

23. Discrimination • The key requirement here is to discriminate between those who are engaged in harm (soldiers) and those who are not (civilians). • This has increasingly become an issue as countries such as the United States have turned to high altitude bombing campaigns that are more likely to put civilians at risk. (c) Lawrence M. Hinman

24. Proportionality • Onoe should only use the amount of force that is proportional to the (just) ends being sought. • This raises interesting issues in the use of massive air strikes against bin Laden by the United States. (c) Lawrence M. Hinman

25. No Means Evil in Themselves • Orend lists a number of means that count as evil in themselves. • “mass rape campaigns; • “genocide or ethnic cleansing; • “torturing captured enemy soldiers; and • “using weapons whose effects cannot be controlled, like chemical or biological agents.” (c) Lawrence M. Hinman

26. Jus post bellum:Creating a Just Peace Brian Orend gives 5 conditions for a just peace: • Just cause for termination. • Right intention. • Public declaration and legitimate authority. • Discrimination. • Proportionality. (c) Lawrence M. Hinman

27. Just cause for termination • Orend: “a reasonable vindication of those rights whose violation grounded the resort to war in the first place.” • Unjust gains from aggression have been eliminated • Victims’ rights reinstated • Formal apology • Acceptance of reasonable punishment (c) Lawrence M. Hinman

28. Right intention • Excludes motives such as revenge • Prosecution of war crimes needs to be applied to all, not just the vanquished. (c) Lawrence M. Hinman

29. Public declaration and legitimate authority • This requirement is fairly straightforward and uncontroversial: peace must be formally declared by the nations involved. • In many recent conflicts, where war has not been declared, it becomes impossible for peace to be publicly declared. (c) Lawrence M. Hinman

30. Discrimination • Differentiate between • Political and military leaders • Military and civilian populations • Punish the elite responsible for prosecuting the war, not the uninvolved civilians. (c) Lawrence M. Hinman

31. Proportionality • The vanquished do not lose their rights • No ‘witch hunts’ • Proportional to reasonable rights vindication (c) Lawrence M. Hinman

32. Models of Peace Our vision of a lasting peace will guide the conduct of war. Here are three conceptions of peace • The negative conception of peace as the absence of overt conflict. • The imperial conception of peace: the pax romana as the triumph of the Roman civilization over the entire world. • The justice conception of peace: genuine and lasting peace can only be built on a foundation of justice—social, economic, and political. (c) Lawrence M. Hinman

33. Conclusion:The Moral Challenge • The challenge of the moral life is not just to condemn others as wrong, but to find ways to transform evil into something good. • The vision of a just peace can help us to transform a great evil—war—into something good. (c) Lawrence M. Hinman