Shue: War Flashcards
Which three fundamental ethical questions does Shue identify at the beginning of the reading?
a. the Justification of the Resort to War
b. the Justification of the Conduct of War
c. the Relation Between the Resort to War and the limits on its conduct
What does Shue say about justifications for war?
a. They are all excuses for doing what, without the excuse would be unforgivable and even with the excuse is at least deeply regrettable, usually tragic, possibly a necessary evil
b. Begins from the acknowledgment that infliction of death and destruction is normally wrong and, can at best, be justified only as an exception to the general rules against the inflictions of such harms
What is the difference between extraordinary and justified?
a. Extraordinary: extreme case that doesn’t warrant justification
b. Justified: you have moral reasoning that you could get others on board with
What do jus ad bellum and jus in bello refer to?
doctrines about justified resort or recourse to war
a. Jus ad Bellum - justice toward war
b. Jus in Bello - justice in war
What are non-combatant immunity and discrimination?
a. Legal and moral immunity from attack, most widely acknowledged specific constraint on war today, normally taken to be apart of the justified conduct of war, discriminate to only fighting legitimate targets (military targets i.e. combatants)
b. Principle of Discrimination - very broad, covering discrimination over property and objects, as well as persons that may or may not be the object of attack
c. Discrimination - Deciding what are legitimate targets to fight and only attack THEM, not illegitimate targets
d. Noncombatant Immunity - legally protected by being excluded from the class of legitimate targets (legalized document)
What is the pacifist argument concerning ideas of just war?
Pacifists worry that even “narrow” permissions may still in practice permit too much, their argument is that when one unleashes the dogs of war, telling them to have a clean fight, what one actually gets almost always, is a dirty fight. and knowing this one ought simply not to unleash them
Who are civilians and what does Shue mean by ‘innocent’?
a. Those who are not to be targeted or intentionally harmed, those who are doing no harm - “innocent”
b. Civilians - people who are not apart of the military threat, may not be attacked
Which four factors are mandated within the doctrine of double effect?
a. Nature of the Act Condition
b. The Ends Intended
c. The Means Intended
(the actual moral effects of the military action should not have been intended either for their own sake or as a means to an intended end, only the morally accepted affects of the action may have been intended as either end or means)
d. The unintentional damage must also be proportional to the good achieved (Proportionality) comes into effect to hold the agent responsible for the unintended effects as well as the intended ones
What is proportionality?
a. Weighing your options
b. Military needs might outweigh civilian need and vice versa
c. “Would the evil to be prevented by military action in this case be worth engaging in a war overall, and ask throughout and war engaged in, would this particular military engagement make a sufficiently great contribution to potential victory to be worth the death and destruction likely to result”
