National Defence, Self-Defence, and the Problem of Political Aggression Seth Lazar * 2.1 Introduction Wars are large-scale confl icts between organized groups of belligerents, which involve suff ering, devastation, and brutality unlike almost anything else in human experience. Whatever one's other beliefs about morality, all should agree that the horrors of war are all but unconscionable, and that warfare can be justifi ed only if we have some compelling account of what is worth fi ghting for, which can justify contributing, as individuals and as groups, to this calamitous endeavour. Although this question should obviously be central to both philosophical and political discussion about war, it is at the forefront of neither. In recent years, philosophical discussion of warfare has bloomed, but the debate has focused on whom we may kill, on the assumption that our aims are justifi ed. 1 Political debate, meanwhile, is more concerned with matters of prudence, international law, and public justifi cation, than with reassessing what is worth fi ghting for. 2 * Th is chapter was initially conceived while at the institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Confl ict, University of Oxford. It was written while a Research Fellow at the Centre for Moral, Social and Political Th eory, in the School of Philosophy, ANU, and completed under an ARC Discovery Early Career Research Award. Earlier versions were presented at Henry Shue's war workshop, the second ELAC annual conference, and at the ANU. Many thanks to the audiences of those talks, and in particular to Henry Shue, David Rodin, Cécile Fabre, Jeff McMahan, and Christian Barry. 1 For an overview of the recent debate, see Seth Lazar , 'War', in Hugh Lafollette (ed.), International Encyclopaedia of Ethics ( Oxford : Wiley Blackwell , 2013). Please update the reference 2 For example, of the fi ve diff erent inquiries into British participation in the Iraq war carried out in recent years, only the Chilcot Inquiry had the purposes and legality of the invasion within its remit, and it remains to be seen how prominent a role this will play in its fi nal report, as contrasted with the emphasis on process. See Richard Norton-Taylor , 'Iraq War Inquiry Report Delayed' , Th e Guardian , 16 November 2011 ; Mark Tran , 'Q&A the Iraq War Inquiry' , Th e Guardian , 24 November 2009 . Similarly, the 2010 Strategic Defence Review, which had the remit to consider the whole military posture of the United Kingdom, confi ned itself OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Mon Sep 02 2013, NEWGEN oxfordhb-9780199682836.indd 9 9/2/2013 6:49:06 PM 10 SETH LAZAR For wars of intervention to halt or prevent massive humanitarian crises, this gap is not so troubling. When warfare is the only means to prevent the mass killing or enslavement of the innocent, the purposes of military force are clear enough (though undoubtedly many other problems remain). Th e problem is more pressing, however, for the justifi cation of national defence. 3 Although common-sense morality and international law view national defence as the paradigm case of justifi ed warfare, grounding this consensus is surprisingly diffi cult. 4 We typically believe that any state is justifi ed in using lethal force to protect its territory against any form of uninvited military incursion by any other state. And yet we lack a good argument to explain why this should be so. In this chapter, I explain why one familiar and otherwise plausible approach to the justifi cation of killing in war cannot adequately ground common-sense views of permissible national defence. 5 Reductionists believe that justifi ed warfare reduces to an aggregation of acts that are justifi ed under ordinary principles of interpersonal morality. 6 Th e standard form of reductionism focuses on the principles governing killing in ordinary life, specifi cally those that justify intentional killing in selfand other-defence, and unintended but foreseen (for short, collateral) killing as a lesser evil. Justifi ed warfare, on this view, is no more than the coextension of multiple acts justifi ed under these two principles. Reductionism is the default philosophical approach to thinking through the ethics of killing in war. It makes perfect sense to ask what principles govern permissible killing in general, before applying them to the particular context of war. If it cannot deliver to budgetary questions, without asking just what we should be using our military for. See David Rodin, 'Defence Review Is an Opportunity, Not a Th reat, to Our Military', http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/13/defence-review-is-opportunity-not-threat (accessed 28 December 2011). 3 Th is locution is somewhat unfortunate, because, on most accounts, rights of national defence accrue to states, not to nations. 4 Th e most coherent articulation of conventional views about the ethics of war remains Michael Walzer's classic, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations ( New York : Basic Books , 2006 ) . For international law governing the permissibility of armed resistance against armed attack, see, for example, article 51 of the UN Charter, and the recent Annex to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. 5 Obviously to justify warfare we have to justify other acts besides killing; clearly, however, if the killing cannot be justifi ed, then the rest of the discussion is moot. 6 Th e term is coined in David Rodin , War and Self-Defence ( Oxford : Clarendon Press , 2002 ): 124 . Th e most prominent exemplar is Jeff McMahan, see for example Jeff McMahan , 'War as Self-Defence' , Ethics & International Aff airs , 18 / 1 ( 2004 ), 75–80 . Other adherents include Richard J. Arneson , 'Just Warfare Th eory and Noncombatant Immunity' , Cornell International Law Journal , 39 ( 2006 ), 663–88 ; Tony Coady , 'Th e Status of Combatants', in David Rodin and Henry Shue (eds.), Just and Unjust Warriors: Th e Moral and Legal Status of Soldiers ( Oxford : Oxford University Press , 2008 ), 153–75 ; Cécile Fabre , A Cosmopolitan Th eory of the Just War ( Oxford : Oxford University Press , 2012 ) ; Helen Frowe , 'Self-Defence and the Principle of Non-Combatant Immunity' , Journal of Moral Philosophy , 8 / 4 ( 2011 ) 530–46 ; Lionel McPherson , 'Innocence and Responsibility in War' , Canadian Journal of Philosophy , 34 / 4 ( 2004 ), 485–506 ; Seumas Miller , 'Civilian Immunity, Forcing the Choice, and Collective Responsibility', in Igor Primoratz (ed.), Civilian Immunity in War ( Oxford : Oxford University Press , 2007 ), 113–35 ; Gerhard Øverland , 'Killing Civilians' , European Journal of Philosophy , 13 / 3 ( 2005 ), 345–63 ; David Rodin , 'Th e Moral Inequality of Soldiers: Why Jus in Bello Asymmetry Is Half Right', in Rodin and Shue (eds.), Just and Unjust Warriors , 44–68 . OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Mon Sep 02 2013, NEWGEN oxfordhb-9780199682836.indd 10 9/2/2013 6:49:10 PM THE PROBLEM OF POLITICAL AGGRESSION 11 a plausible set of conclusions about when national defence is permitted, then we must either revise our beliefs about which conclusions count as plausible, or else face the signifi cant challenge of developing a diff erent theoretical model for justifying warfare-an exceptionalist model, which views war as an exception to the regular moral landscape, to which principles apply which apply to nothing else but war. 7 We must show, in other words, that there is something worth fi ghting for in wars of national defence, which is not engaged when we use force in any other context. Th e chapter proceeds as follows. Section 2.2 sets out the argument against reductionism. 8 Section 2.3 considers and rebuts one common response to the argument, which has oft en been thought suffi cient grounds to disregard its conclusion. Section 2.4 then asks whether a modifi ed reductionism would survive unscathed by the argument. Finally, section 2.5 sets out some desiderata on a plausible exceptionalist alternative. Section 2.6 concludes. 2.2 Th e Argument from Political Aggression Th e argument from political aggression, sometimes also called the bloodless invasion objection, is conceived as a reductio ad absurdum of standard reductionism. Th e following is an attempt to render it as precise as possible (commentary follows): 1. Th e reductionist theory of the ethics of war states that permissible acts of killing in war are permissible under the relevant principles of ordinary interpersonal morality. 2. Th e relevant principles of ordinary interpersonal morality are those justifying intentional killing in self-defence, and collateral killing as a lesser evil. 3. On the most permissive plausible account of self-defence, B may intentionally kill A in self-defence to avert an unjustifi ed threat T only if either a. T will harm some person's lesser interests, and A has culpably contributed to T or b. T will harm some person's vital interests, and A has culpably or nonculpably contributed to T. 7 Walzer for the most part simply assumed exceptionalism, without seeking to defend it (although see Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars , 128 and Michael Walzer , 'Response to McMahan's Paper' , Philosophia , 34 / 1 ( 2006 ), 43–5 . While others have recognized the fl aws in reductionism (e.g. Henry Shue , 'Do We Need a Morality of War?', in David Rodin and Henry Shue (eds.), Just and Unjust Warriors , 87–111 . ), I am not aware of any fully-fl edged attempt to provide plausible foundations for an exceptionalist alternative. Although see Yitzhak Benbaji's work, for one possible counterexample Yitzhak Benbaji , 'A Defence of the Traditional War Convention' , Ethics , 118 / 3 ( 2008 ), 464–95 ; Yitzhak Benbaji , 'Th e Moral Power of Soldiers to Undertake the Duty of Obedience' , Ethics , 122/1 (2011), 43–73 and chapter 7 in this volume. Please provide volume number and page range for the reference 8 Th is argument is an attempt at a more precise and compelling formulation of a familiar objection, discussed for example by Richard Norman and David Rodin. See Richard Norman , Ethics, Killing and War ( Cambridge and New York : Cambridge University Press , 1995 ), 133 ; Rodin, War and Self-Defence , 133–8, and chapter 4 in this volume. OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Mon Sep 02 2013, NEWGEN oxfordhb-9780199682836.indd 11 9/2/2013 6:49:10 PM 12 SETH LAZAR 4. On the most permissive plausible account of collateral killing, B may collaterally kill C to avert outcome O only if either a. O involves harm to some person's lesser interests, and C has culpably contributed to O or b. O involves harm to some person's vital interests, and C has culpably or nonculpably contributed to O. 5. In wars against aggression, the aggressor cannot be repelled without a. Intentionally killing many people who have not culpably contributed to the outcome that we thereby avert and b. collaterally killing many people who have not culpably contributed to the outcome that we thereby avert. 6. Th ere are some purely political wars, in which the aggressors threaten only the victims' interests in their state's continued political control of some territory- their purely political interests. 7. Individuals' purely political interests are not among their vital interests. 8. A theory of the ethics of war that cannot endorse lethal defence against purely political aggression should be rejected on those grounds. C1 (from 2 to 7): Combatants fi ghting against a purely political aggression cannot, under the relevant principles of ordinary interpersonal morality, permissibly kill all the people whom they must kill in repelling the aggression. C2 (from 1 and C1): Reductionism cannot justify fi ghting wars of defence against purely political aggression. C3 (from C2 and 8): Reductionism should be rejected as a theory of the ethics of war. Premise 1 formulates the genus reductionism, while premises 2 to 4 individuate one species, what I call standard reductionism. Premises 5 and 6 make descriptive claims about warfare in general, and a subset of actual and likely wars. Premise 7 is an evaluative claim, about the signifi cance of the interests at stake in the wars described in premise 6. Premise 8 is likewise evaluative, positing that the ability to justify warfare against purely political aggression is a sine qua non of a plausible account of the ethics of war. Th e following subsections discuss each segment of the argument in greater depth. 2.2.1 Standard reductionism Th e fi rst four premises of the bloodless invasion objection formulate its target. Premise 1 is the most general; it simply identifi es the defi ning commitment of a reductionist theory of the ethics of war. Premise 2 specifi es the principles that, on the standard reductionist view, justify intentional and collateral killing in ordinary life. Th ere are other possible variants of reductionism, which would not affi rm premise 2. For example, a thoroughgoing act-consequentialist might contend that the relevant principle of interpersonal morality is 'maximize value'. Th e objection targets only the standard form of reductionism (in section 2.4 below, I will consider whether reductionism can be saved from the bloodless invasion objection by proposing an alternative premise 2). OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Mon Sep 02 2013, NEWGEN oxfordhb-9780199682836.indd 12 9/2/2013 6:49:10 PM THE PROBLEM OF POLITICAL AGGRESSION 13 Premises 3 and 4 each identify one feature of the relevant principles governing, respectively, self-defence justifi cations of intentional killing, and lesser evil justifi cations of collateral killing. 9 Th e argument is intended to target all variants of standard reductionism, therefore it is important to remain neutral on most questions in the ethics of self-defence and collateral killing. Th e objection therefore focuses on one narrow area of each theory, one question to which any account of self-defence and collateral killing must have an answer: when is killing in self-defence, or collateral killing, proportionate? 10 Satisfying proportionality is necessary but not suffi cient to justify killing in self-defence or as a lesser evil. Th e other conditions on justifi ed killing are not important for the present argument. In general, the use of force to avert an outcome is proportionate if there is (at least) an appropriate fi t between the force used, and the outcome averted. Precisely what this amounts to will depend on numerous factors. 11 However, in extreme cases we know disproportionality when we see it: if A threatens to bruise B's leg, and B uses lethal defensive force to avert that threat, then B's action clearly does not satisfy proportionality; similarly, if B can avert the bruised leg only through action that kills C, an uninvolved bystander, as a side-eff ect, then B's action again does not satisfy proportionality. In neither case does the relevant fi t obtain. Th e proportionality constraint on self-defence and collateral killing can be more or less permissive. Th e argument from political aggression contends that standard reductionism is insuffi ciently permissive to justify killing in wars against purely political aggression, so it is stronger the more permissive the variant of reductionism that we presuppose (since it will apply a fortiori to any more restrictive variant). Premises 3 and 4 therefore identify the most permissive plausible take on proportionality in self-defence and collateral killing. In many legal systems, and in ordinary moral thinking as well, lethal defence is warranted only against an attacker who threatens the defender's vital interests. 12 Since the argument depends only on claiming that purely political interests are not vital, we do not need a full list of which interests are vital. However, most will agree that our interests in not being killed, seriously wounded, or tortured, raped or kidnapped are suffi ciently vital that we can justifi ably kill in their defence. Conversely, some interests clearly fall below the relevant threshold of importance, for example my interest in retaining some particular sum of money, or in avoiding all physical harm whatsoever. Although this view of proportionality in self-defence is widespread, some will regard it as insuffi ciently permissive. Th ey think that the proportionality constraint limits us 9 Th is locution encompasses justifi cations for collateral killing that appeal to the doctrine of double eff ect. 10 McMahan calls proportionality in self-defence narrow proportionality, and in collateral harm wide proportionality Jeff McMahan , Killing in War ( Oxford : Oxford University Press , 2009 ), 21 . 11 For a detailed discussion of some of these factors, see David Rodin , 'Justifying Harm' , Ethics , 122 / 1 ( 2011 ), 74–110 . 12 For example, the Model Penal Code permits the use of deadly force in self-defence only to avert death, serious bodily injury, forcible rape, or kidnapping (§ 3.04(2)(b)(i)). OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Mon Sep 02 2013, NEWGEN oxfordhb-9780199682836.indd 13 9/2/2013 6:49:10 PM 14 SETH LAZAR to killing in defence of our vital interests only if the person killed is morally innocent with respect to the threat we are thereby averting. However, if she is to some degree culpable for that threat, then lethal defence might be proportionate to protect even our less than vital interests. Her culpability justifi es discounting her interests, so that it is proportionate to kill her to avert a threat which it would be disproportionate to kill her to avert, if she were innocent with respect to it. 13 Precisely how that discount should be applied is open to debate. However, if our aim is still to ensure a fi t between the threat averted and the defensive force used, then presumably the degree of discount should vary with the degree of culpability. Th e more culpable the target, the greater the discount applied to her interests. Th us when a target is barely culpable-for example because she has a strong but not complete excuse for her action that contributed to the threat-the discount will be less than when her contribution is without excuse, and the threat averted by killing her must be proportionally more serious. Th is is the most permissive plausible position on proportionality in self-defence. As premise 4 suggests, proportionality in collateral damage should be understood in a similar way. How serious must the outcome averted by B be, to render killing C as an unintended but foreseen side-eff ect proportionate? 14 At fi rst glance, the most permissive view plausible would be that the prospective harm averted should at least be more than marginally greater than the harm suff ered by C (i.e. death). Th is follows if we believe that people's interests enjoy moral protection over and above their impartially considered worth. If I can permissibly infl ict x harm on you, in the course of averting x+1 harm to myself, then your interests enjoy no additional protection. 15 Th ey are merely quanta to be included in an overall aggregation of aff ected interests. Although a reductionist could hold this view, standard reductionism asserts that people's interests are protected by rights, so marginal interpersonal trade-off s of this sort are prohibited. If the victims of collateral harming are protected by rights against being harmed, as we will assume that they are, then the exchange rate between harm infl icted and averted must be steeper than this. Th e harm averted must be more than marginally greater than the harm infl icted. Since collateral killing involves irremediable harm to the victim's most vital interests, it can be justifi ed only if we thereby protect the vital interests of a greater number of others. 13 Kai Draper , 'Defence' , Philosophical Studies , 145 ( 2009 ), 69–88 : 81; Kimberly Ferzan , 'Justifying Self-Defence' , Law and Philosophy , 24 / 6 ( 2005 ), 711–49 : 735; Frances M. Kamm , 'Failures of Just War Th eory: Terror, Harm, and Justice' , Ethics , 114 / 4 ( 2004 ), 650–92 : 676; Tziporah Kasachkoff , 'Killing in Self-Defence: An Unquestionable or Problematic Defence?' , Law and Philosophy , 17 / 5 ( 1998 ), 509–31 : 528–29 ; Jeff McMahan , 'Self-Defence and the Problem of the Innocent Attacker' , Ethics , 104 / 2 ( 1994 ), 252–90 : 265– 66 ; Rodin, 'Justifying Harm'; Daniel Statman , 'Can Wars Be Fought Justly? Th e Necessity Condition Put to the Test' , Journal of Moral Philosophy , 8 / 3 ( 2011 ), 435–51 : 683. 14 I am assuming that there is a morally relevant diff erence between collateral and intentional killing; some, of course, would deny this. However, they would presumably argue that collateral killing is as seriously wrong as intentional killing, not the other way round. Th eir view, therefore, would be more restrictive than those discussed here, and so would be vulnerable to the same criticisms. 15 Seth Lazar , 'Th e Nature and Disvalue of Injury' , Res Publica , 15 / 3 ( 2009 ), 289–304 . OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Mon Sep 02 2013, NEWGEN oxfordhb-9780199682836.indd 14 9/2/2013 6:49:11 PM THE PROBLEM OF POLITICAL AGGRESSION 15 Th ere are two ways to make our account of proportionality in collateral harm more permissive. First, we can deploy just the same reasoning as applied in individual self-defence. When there is some reason to discount the interests of the victim of collateral harm, it can be proportionate to infl ict that harm even if lesser interests are at stake. Hence 4a mirrors 3a. 16 Second, we might argue that individuals enjoy an agent-centred prerogative to give their own interests more weight in their moral reasoning than is warranted by their impartially considered worth. 17 In that case, it might be possible to justify infl icting x harm on you, in order to avert x+1, or even x harm to myself, without evincing disregard for your right not to be harmed. Although your right against being harmed puts a thumb in the scales for you, my agent-centred prerogative puts one in the scales for me too. However, even if we do endorse this agent-centred prerogative (which raises its own problems), it is surely implausible to suggest that B may collaterally kill C in the course of averting an outcome that threatens anything other than B's vital interests, at least provided C is morally innocent with respect to the outcome that B is aiming to avert. In summary, on the most permissive plausible interpretation of ordinary interpersonal morality, unless there is some strong reason to discount our victim's interests- in particular, her culpability for the outcome that we are trying to avert-we may kill either collaterally or in self-defence only in the preservation of vital interests. 2.2.2 Warfare and purely political aggression Premise 5 makes two descriptive claims about wars against aggression: that they cannot be fought without collaterally killing many people, and intentionally killing many others, who are not culpable for the outcomes we thereby avert. Note that warfare also involves much else besides these two classes of act. Nonetheless, for warfare to be justifi ed, these collateral and intentional killings must be justifi ed. Premises 5a and 5b do not specify necessary truths about warfare. It is possible to conceive of wars where neither claim holds. Nonetheless, in practice I think each is a truism, denial of which evinces a troubling misapprehension of the moral seriousness of war. If we could fi ght wars in which all those whom we killed were culpable for the threats that we seek to avert, then warfare would not seem such a dreadful thing. Although the good guys will undoubtedly suff er losses too, they can be sure that they will kill only the bad guys, so although there are prudential risks in war, there are no or few moral risks. It just seems wildly unrealistic to imagine that warfare could be so morally congenial. Even with all the time, eff ort, and institutional structures that we 16 McMahan, Killing in War , 218. 17 See e.g. Cécile Fabre , 'Permissible Rescue Killings' , Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society , 109 / 1 pt2 ( 2009 ), 149–64 ; Helen Frowe , 'A Practical Account of Self-Defence' , Law and Philosophy , 29 ( 2010 ), 245–72 ; Jonathan Quong , 'Killing in Self-Defence' , Ethics , 119 / 2 ( 2009 ), 507–37 . For the idea of an agent-centred prerogative see Samuel Scheffl er , Th e Rejection of Consequentialism ( Oxford : Clarendon Press , 1994 ). OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Mon Sep 02 2013, NEWGEN oxfordhb-9780199682836.indd 15 9/2/2013 6:49:11 PM 16 SETH LAZAR put in place, we fail to ensure that only the guilty are harmed by our system of criminal justice. It would be extraordinary if, despite lacking any of the mechanisms by which the justice system targets its harms to the culpable, warfare were able to deliver results more congruent with people's degree of guilt. Premise 5b should go through unquestioned. Th e victims of collateral harms are usually (although not only) civilians (of either side-we are not solely concerned with collateral harms to the adversary, but to our co-citizens as well). Although counting the casualties of war is fraught with problems, as is drawing the line between civilians and combatants, and although highly infl ated fi gures are oft en touted, even conservative estimates suggest that in recent wars civilians suff er in at least as great numbers as combatants. 18 As long as the battlefi eld is on populated territory, we can be quite sure that innocent people will be collaterally killed. Some will be more sceptical about 5a, the thesis that winning a war presupposes intentionally killing many innocent people. Th ey will argue that wars can be won without ever intentionally killing noncombatants, and that all combatants are to some degree culpable for the threat that we avert by killing them. 19 I have discussed each of these arguments in depth elsewhere; moreover, it is precisely the focus on this aspect of the ethics of war which this volume is intended to redress. 20 Our goal here is to explore the purposes of military force, not to (again) consider the responsibilities of soldiers. Th ree observations, however, are in order. First, the truth of 5b (that warfare inevitably involves collaterally killing the innocent) is suffi cient for the objection to go through. Premise 5a gives it more purchase, but is not necessary. Second, the objection would still have considerable force if we focused not on total innocence, but on near-innocence. As noted above, where someone is only marginally culpable for contributing to an unjustifi ed threat that killing him helps to avert, the discount applied to his interests must be proportionate to his degree of culpability. Arguably where he is barely culpable, killing him to avoid a threat to lesser interests remains disproportionate. Th ird, the culpability of combatants can be diminished in two ways: by excuse, and by non-contribution. If victory presupposes intentionally killing combatants whose contribution to the outcome that we thereby avert is negligible or non-existent, then our basis for discounting their interests disappears. As I have argued elsewhere, and as Jeff McMahan notes in this volume: in 18 Prompted by widespread touting of the claim that 90 per cent of the victims of war are civilians, Adam Roberts has off ered a sceptical analysis of a wide range of datasets. His aim is to show that the idea of a 9:1 civilian to military casualty ratio is unfounded, but even on more measured evidence, civilians suff er at least as much, if not more than the military in modern wars. And not only in complex civil wars, note, where civilians are habitually targeted. Estimates for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, for example, suggest that between March 2003 and June 2006 between fi ve and three civilians died for every military casualty (he cites the Brookings Institution Iraq Index, and the Iraq Body Count respectively). Adam Roberts , 'Lives and Statistics: Are 90% of War Victims Civilians?' , Survival , 52 / 3 ( 2010 ), 115–36 . 19 See e.g. Rodin, 'Moral Inequality of Soldiers'. 20 Seth Lazar , 'Responsibility, Risk, and Killing in Self-Defence' , Ethics , 119 / 4 ( 2009 ), 699–728 ; Seth Lazar , 'Th e Responsibility Dilemma for Killing in War' , Philosophy & Public Aff airs , 38 / 2 ( 2010 ), 180–213 . OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Mon Sep 02 2013, NEWGEN oxfordhb-9780199682836.indd 16 9/2/2013 6:49:11 PM THE PROBLEM OF POLITICAL AGGRESSION 17 warfare in general, and in purely political aggression in particular, the contribution made by any individual combatant to the purely political threat is negligible at best. 21 Premise 6 identifi es the class of wars of purely political aggression. While history is undoubtedly replete with its murderous marauders, who make death and suff ering their aim, invaders' objectives are oft en more prosaic: mayhem is not their end, but their means; their goal is to attain some degree of political control of a territory and its population. Th ey kill only because they have to; if their victims would submit at the outset, no blood would be shed. Th eir ultimate aims might be, among other possibilities, resource extraction, imposing an exogenous ideology on the invaded state's institutions, installing a more favourable government or simply glorifying their expanding empire. But their aims are exclusively political: they seek to change the institutional structure that governs people's lives in a territory, not to otherwise harm the people themselves. Since premise 6 is probably the most contentious part of the argument from political aggression, I will defend it in depth in section 2.3 below. 2.2.3 Two evaluative claims Premises 7 and 8 make two evaluative claims; fi rst that individuals' purely political interests are not vital, and second that we should reject a theory of the ethics of war that cannot endorse lethal defence against purely political aggression. Each is intended to be suffi ciently intuitively plausible that it needs little further support-although of course one way to resist the force of the objection is to push back against these intuitions. A full defence of premise 7 would require a full theory of well-being, which is obviously beyond the scope of this chapter. However, it is prima facie plausible: my interest in my state's retaining political control of a particular territory can hardly be ranked alongside my interest in life or bodily integrity, for example. Suppose the Scottish Nationalist Party held a successful referendum on independence from the United Kingdom, and subsequently seceded. English, Welsh, and Northern Irish citizens of the UK would accordingly suff er a decisive blow to their interest in their state having political control of the Scottish territory. But they have surely not suff ered a loss in the order of being killed, kidnapped, or raped. Perhaps we should distinguish between the interests of citizens of the invaded state who inhabit the invaded territory, and those who do not. For inhabitants of the invaded territory, are more potent interests at stake? Th ey probably have a weighty interest in remaining in their homes, and indeed in their homeland-many people have a profound connection to each of these. 22 However, a purely political aggressor will not expel inhabitants either from their home or from their homeland. Th eir goal is 21 Lazar, 'Responsibility Dilemma'. See also McMahan, chapter 6 in this volume. 22 See Th omas Hurka , 'Proportionality in the Morality of War' , Philosophy & Public Aff airs , 33 / 1 ( 2005 ), 34–66 : 55–6 ; McMahan, 'War as Self-Defence', 78. OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Mon Sep 02 2013, NEWGEN oxfordhb-9780199682836.indd 17 9/2/2013 6:49:11 PM 18 SETH LAZAR to take control of the institutions governing a territory, which is quite consistent with letting the present inhabitants remain. However, what if the new institutional structure denies inhabitants of the occupied territory political representation? Th eir interest in enfranchisement is, again, greater than the mere interest in their state's continued political control of this territory. It is probably still not a vital interest, to preserve which we can justify killing the innocent. Suppose, for example, that A innocently prevents B from voting in an election-she has an accident outside B's home, which prevents him from driving to the polling station. Would B be justifi ed in harming A in order to clear a path for his car? It seems very unlikely. However, what if A's obstruction is not merely a one-off , but recurs every time B is supposed to vote. Would we think harming A permissible in this case? On the assumption that A is morally innocent, it still seems wrong to harm her in order to get to the polling station. Th is seems even clearer when it comes to collateral harm. Even a long-term disenfranchisement is not morally important enough to justify killing innocent people, whether intentionally or collaterally. Even if these purely political interests were vital, the permissibility of defence against such aggression does not depend on whether the invader proposes to enfranchise the inhabitants of the newly acquired territory, or, indeed, on whether the inhabitants of that territory were enfranchised before the invasion. Premise 8 is more controversial than premise 7. Why should we think being able to justify this particular class of wars is so important? Why not, if the argument works out that way, simply reject our common-sense view of national defence? Two reasons stand out. First, international law and national military practices refl ect a widespread practical commitment to the permissibility of lethal defence of sovereignty against purely political aggression. If we reject premise 8, then we must reject this consensus, and endorse radical and revisionist political prescriptions. Second, I think that even in wars where there are signifi cant threats to people's vital interests, part of what justifi es fi ghting is the importance of preserving those states' political independence. Any account which restricts our understanding of the goals of war to those that are pursued in force outside of war is to that extent incomplete or misleading. While I concede that we do not always fi ght only for our country, it seems odd to deny that preserving political independence plays any substantial justifying role. Th ese are considerations in favour of premise 8, not decisive arguments, and one response is simply to deny 8, and so deny that the argument's conclusions are troubling-to simply bite the bullet, and say that we are indeed not permitted to use lethal force to avert purely political aggression. I think this would be a profoundly revisionist move, but perhaps profound revision is precisely what is needed here. 23 For the sake of argument, however, let us assume that premise 8 is true, in which case the conclusions follow: under the relevant principles of ordinary interpersonal morality, we cannot 23 Hence, in my view, David Rodin's position in his chapter in this volume is the most consistent option open to reductionists. OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Mon Sep 02 2013, NEWGEN oxfordhb-9780199682836.indd 18 9/2/2013 6:49:11 PM THE PROBLEM OF POLITICAL AGGRESSION 19 justify lethal defence against purely political aggression, because the interests at stake are not vital, but fi ghting will necessarily involve killing the innocent, both intentionally and collaterally, thus both as a matter of self-defence and under the rubric of collateral killing, warfare is disproportionate, so impermissible. If we fi nd premise 8 convincing, then this is grounds to reject standard reductionism, and if standard reductionism is the most permissive, plausible variant of reductionism, then reductionism itself must go too. 2.3 Denying the Possibility of Purely Political Aggression Th e standard reductionist who wishes to reject the conclusion of the argument from political aggression can do so by rejecting one of premises 5 to 8. I think the most interesting approach is to deny the evaluative claims in premises 7 or 8. Perhaps the objection should give us grounds to rethink the importance of our purely political interests-that we believe them worth fi ghting for might indicate their innate worth. Developing an argument to this end would undoubtedly be challenging, since according to standard reductionism, institutions are wholly epiphenomenal to the morality of war, so it is hard to see how our interests in the continuation of a particular institutional arrangement could be worth killing for. However, perhaps such an argument could be provided, and if so it would certainly be a compelling addition to the reductionist armoury. However, if the reductionist rejects premise 8, then there is no need for a developed theory of the moral importance of our purely political interests. In my view, while a properly developed argument against premise 7 would be interesting, consistency really demands that reductionists should reject premise 8, and endorse their radically revisionist conclusions (this, indeed, was the attitude of Richard Norman and David Rodin, who presented the objection as a QED, not as a reductio ). During the last two centuries, the morality of war has been almost universally assumed to be sui generis , a property of relations among states, not among individuals, such that the normative principles governing military conduct could not possibly be derived from the principles appropriate to individual action outside of war. 24 Reductionism constitutes a profound, perhaps devastating challenge to this theoretical outlook-its principal contribution has been to radically undermine the most developed philosophical articulation of that conventional statist position, in Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars . 25 It would be an extraordinary coincidence if this radical rethink of how we should justify killing in war should yield conclusions that are in practice coextensive with the exceptionalist 24 See Gregory M. Reichberg , Henrik Syse , and Endre Begby , Th e Ethics of War: Classic and Contemporary Readings ( Oxford : Blackwell , 2006 ). 25 See in particular McMahan, Killing in War . OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Mon Sep 02 2013, NEWGEN oxfordhb-9780199682836.indd 19 9/2/2013 6:49:11 PM 20 SETH LAZAR and statist views that it replaces. One wonders what the point of a radical theoretical challenge is, if it is not going to lead to radical practical conclusions. Th ere is an interesting contrast with revisionism in another area of international morality, concerning global distributive justice. In that fi eld, there are similarly radical theoretical critiques, which seek to show how the current statist international order is inconsistent with defensible principles of interpersonal morality, but these theoretical critiques invariably lead to practical critiques as well. 26 One does not oft en fi nd a cosmopolitan about global justice who believes that the dominant common-sense view about what human beings owe to one another qua human beings has a clean bill of health. If we are to insist on the standard form of reductionism, then, I think we had better accept the bloodless invasion objection's conclusion that warfare against purely political aggression is unjustifi ed, but insist that, in this clash between theory and intuition, theory should win out. However, if we insist on defending a more conservative reductionism, we could proceed by denying either of the two descriptive claims, in premises 5 and 6. I have already discussed 5 in enough depth for our present purposes. Th e real action is in denying premise 6. 27 Th e denial of premise 6 takes two diff erent forms. Each concedes that a purely political aggression is conceptually possible, but one form of the response is more empirically contingent than the other. Th e more contingent response simply asserts that, as a matter of historical fact, there has never been a bloodless invasion, and as such the diffi culty of justifying the resort to force to avert one should be of no concern, since we can infer from the historical record that purely political aggressions will never occur. Th e bloodless invasion objection is thereby dismissed as a purely theoretical worry. Th e second response runs like this: in any invasion that might otherwise appear to satisfy premise 6, the threat to the defenders' purely political interests at time T 0 will in fact be backed up with a threat to attack their vital interests at T 2 , should the defenders seek at T 1 to avert the initial political threat. In virtue of this subsequent T 2 threat to their vital interests, the defenders can justify using lethal force at T 1 -although it would be disproportionate to avert the T 0 threat, it is proportionate (and can be justifi ed as a lesser evil) when the T 2 threat is taken into account. I discuss each response in turn. Th e fi rst counterargument infers from the claim that history has seen few if any bloodless invasions the conclusion that premise 8 is misguided-justifying defence against purely political aggression is not a plausible desideratum on theories of the ethics of war. However, this obviously presupposes a further premise, namely that whether 8 holds depends on whether there have been any actual cases of purely political aggression. Th is requires substantiation, and is prima facie wrong: even if no bloodless invasions had 26 See, for example, Simon Caney , Justice Beyond Borders: A Global Political Th eory ( Oxford : Oxford University Press , 2005 ) ; Th omas Pogge , World Poverty and Human Rights: Cosmopolitan Responsibilities and Reforms ( Cambridge : Polity Press , 2002 ). 27 To recall: '6. Th ere are some purely political wars, in which the aggressors threaten only the victims' interests in their state's continued political control of some territory-their purely political interests.' OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Mon Sep 02 2013, NEWGEN oxfordhb-9780199682836.indd 20 9/2/2013 6:49:11 PM THE PROBLEM OF POLITICAL AGGRESSION 21 ever occurred, and none were ever likely, the objection would still stand if we could conceive of a bloodless invasion, and believe that resistance against it would be justifi ed. Th e empirical counterargument is orthogonal to the central problem here. Interestingly, it also sits extremely ill with other elements of the standard reductionist account, which is typically constructed out of hypothetical cases with little or no practical application. 28 However, while I think that few reductionists are well placed to raise this empirical counterargument to the bloodless invasion objection, and that even if bloodless invasions were purely hypothetical possibilities the objection would survive, the objection would undoubtedly have more purchase, and premise 8 would be more plausible, if we could demonstrate it had practical application. Seeking fi rmer empirical foundations for the bloodless invasion objection, however, is complicated by two problems. First, the interpretation of historical events such as armed confl icts is likely to be even more contentious and contested than our arguments for normative principles to govern war. Second, a compendious knowledge of historical events is not suffi cient to establish whether history off ers cases of purely political aggression, because we need to know not only what actually happened, but what would have happened had the invaded state not resisted. As we seek arguably unnecessary empirical substantiation for the bloodless invasion objection, then, we must remember that we have moved squarely into the sphere of speculation, which must be treated as merely heuristic. With these caveats in mind, I venture that the problem of purely political aggression is not merely hypothetical. Consider, for example, the recent wars fought by the United States and its allies. Th eir goals are oft en purely political-they aim to replace an unfriendly government, impose a set of institutions, or secure control over resources. Even when their aims exceed these, they remain tightly constrained-for example, to pursue a small group of people responsible for a terrorist attack. Th ey use force with regret, and kill only as a means to their goals. If our adversaries would simply submit and concede, no blood, or at least very little, will be shed. Of course, in practice quite the opposite has occurred-nobody would call the invasion of Iraq or Afghanistan, or the bombing of Libya, bloodless. Evidently, however, our assaults on those countries were met with violent resistance, so the option of non-violent conquest was clearly off the table. It is at least reasonable to believe that, if our troops had met with surrender and submission, we would have confi ned ourselves to securing our purely political objectives. For example, the Rules of Engagement apparently operational for British forces in Iraq in 2006 (according to a leaked document, available from Wikileaks) state the following general principles governing the use of force: 3.1. Th e use of lethal force is permitted only to prevent loss of life or to protect materiel, the loss or destruction of which could be potentially life threatening for Coalition Forces. 28 A complaint made, for example, by Walzer in 'Response to McMahan's Paper' , Philosophia , 34 / 1 ( 2006 ), 43–5 : 34 . OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Mon Sep 02 2013, NEWGEN oxfordhb-9780199682836.indd 21 9/2/2013 6:49:11 PM 22 SETH LAZAR 3.2 Force should be used as a last resort only. Whenever feasible other means of escalation control should be applied. E.g. verbal warnings and/or show of force. 3.3 Th e degree of force used must be no more than is reasonably necessary to control the situation. In all cases the utmost care must be taken to avoid harm to civilians or damage to civilian property. 29 It is quite conceivable that a state's armed forces could adhere to rules of engagement like these, while engaged in a purely political aggression, so long as they met with no resistance. Moreover, when testing the implications of an account of the ethics of war, we should consider not only the actual historical record and the current political climate; we should also ask what would happen if this account were widely endorsed. And it seems that if the standard reductionist view were widely acknowledged, then purely political aggressions would become far more common, since expansionist governments would know that the invaded could not justifi ably resist them. We might then reasonably expect states like Russia and China, which have long-simmering territorial disputes with their neighbours, to take advantage of the opportunity to settle those disputes through bloodless invasion. A mere appeal to history, then, is inadequate. If we want to save standard reductionism, we had better argue that any likely form of purely political aggression will in fact be backed up with threats to vital interests, in virtue of which using lethal force can be proportionate. Th e most promising response to the argument from political aggression focuses on the predictability that the aggressor will come to pose some threat to the defenders' vital interests in future, even if at present only lesser interests are at stake. 30 Th ere are two plausible approaches. Th e fi rst simply notes that, since the aggressors will pose a lethal threat to the defenders if the latter resist, the defenders now face an imminent threat of unjustifi ed harm to their vital interests, such as can render self-defence and collateral killing proportionate. Th e second observes that, even if the defenders now refrain from using force to defend themselves, by allowing this purely political aggression to succeed, they leave themselves vulnerable to future harms to their vital interests. 31 Both of these responses argue that defenders may permissibly use lethal force now, to avert a threat to their vital interests that is not now imminent. In the standard terminology, they are arguments for preventive, not pre-emptive defence. Although imminence of the threat has sometimes been thought one of the necessary conditions for liability, most now agree that it is no more than a useful proxy to overcome uncertainty over whether a threat will eventuate, and whether using lethal force is a necessary 29 UK Ministry Of Defence, 'UK and Danish Rules of Engagement for Iraq', Wikileaks http://wikileaks.org/ wiki/UK_and_Danish_Rules_of_Engagement_for_Iraq_2006 (accessed 26 July 2013) . 30 Hurka, 'Proportionality', 54–5; McMahan, 'Innocence', 196; McMahan, 'War as Self-Defence', 78. 31 McMahan and Fabre, in this volume, make both arguments. OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Mon Sep 02 2013, NEWGEN oxfordhb-9780199682836.indd 22 9/2/2013 6:49:11 PM THE PROBLEM OF POLITICAL AGGRESSION 23 response. 32 If the unjustifi ed threat is imminent, then we can be more confi dent that it will eventuate, and that lethal force is necessary. But if imminence is a proxy for suffi ciently justifi ed belief, then we can have such a belief when the threat is further downstream. Of the two appeals to preventive defence, the fi rst is stronger than the second. Th at the aggressors will fi ght back if we resist is a given in all actual cases-although not in hypothetically conceivable ones, which remains a problem. Th e possibility of subsequent unjustifi ed threats emerging, however, is much more contingent and speculative. Moreover, recall that it is harder to justify using lethal force now, the weaker our targets' responsibility for, and so contribution to the unjustifi ed threats that we seek to avert. Th e further downstream the relevant threats, the less plausible it is to hold our immediate targets responsible for them, and so liable to be killed in self-defence to avert them. We should concentrate, then, on the fi rst version of this second counterargument to the bloodless invasion objection. 33 It is usually illustrated with a counterexample. Suppose you are accosted by a mugger, who demands your money or your life. You cannot prevent him from taking your money, except by killing him. It seems that lethal defence would be disproportionate in this case. However, if you were to attempt a proportionate response, such as pushing him away, he would then act on his initial threat, and kill you. Th is suggests that you do, in fact, face an unjustifi ed threat to your vital interests, which can render killing the mugger proportionate. In other words, at T 0 the mugger poses a threat only to your wallet. If you try to defend yourself proportionately in response to that threat at T 1 , then at T 2 he will try to kill you. 34 If you could kill him in self-defence at T 3 , in response to the T 2 threat, then why must you wait until T 3 to do so? Aft er all, you know at T 0 what he will do at T 2 . Moreover, suppose that if you wait until T 3 to defend yourself against the T 2 threat, your prospects of averting it diminish. One might plausibly argue that it is permissible to defend yourself with lethal force at T 1 in order to avert the unjustifi ed threat to your vital interests at T 2 , even though the initial threat at T 0 is only to your lesser interests. Th e relevant proportionality calculation is with the T 2 threat to your vital interests, not the initial T 0 threat to your lesser interests. It is easy to see how this argument would be applied to the context of war. When at T 0 the adversary combatants invade, they threaten only our political interests. If we should attempt a proportionate response at T 1 , however, they would fi ght back, threatening 32 See e.g. David Luban , 'Preventive War' , Philosophy & Public Aff airs , 32 / 3 ( 2004 ), 207–48 ; Suzanne Uniacke , 'On Getting One's Retaliation in First', in Henry Shue and David Rodin (eds.), Preemption: Military Action and Moral Justifi cation ( Oxford : Oxford University Press , 2007 ), 69–88. 33 Although see McMahan, chapter 6 in this volume, for a more sympathetic view of the second line. 34 Th e points in time are diff erentiated to show that defender's action at T 1 is a response to the T 0 threat, and prevents the T 2 threat from coming about. Th e T 2 threat is likewise a response to defender's action at T 1 . When I write that the attacker poses a threat at T 0 , this does not mean the threat will eventuate at T 0 -it will eventuate imminently, if the defender does nothing, but by defending himself at T 1 he could prevent the threat being realized. OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Mon Sep 02 2013, NEWGEN oxfordhb-9780199682836.indd 23 9/2/2013 6:49:11 PM 24 SETH LAZAR our vital interests at T 2 . We should, at T 0 , be allowed to use the T 2 threat posed by our adversaries in the calculation of proportionality. Because we are certain that the T 2 threat will eventuate, we do not need to wait until T 3, when the threat is already in train and our chances of averting it might have been diminished. Although advocates of this argument have not said so explicitly, it extends quite naturally over to the justifi cation of collateral killing. When determining proportionality in collateral harm, the relevant threat is not the T 0 threat to our political interests, but the T 2 threat to our vital ones. Th is counterargument does not resolve the bloodless invasion objection at the level of principle-it is easy to conceive of a purely political aggressor that resolves not to fi ght back if we resist, in a form of non-violent political aggression. However, if it went through, it would seriously mitigate the objection's practical implications. Unfortunately for standard reductionism, however, I think it begs the question against the more plausible form of this objection. We must fi rst distinguish between two forms of conditional threat that the aggressor can pose. Th e aggressor might directly threaten the victim, so that she knows that if she resists, she will be killed. Or the aggressor might simply resolve to defend himself, should the victim use the threat of lethal force against him. In the fi rst case, the aggressor's threat is conditioned on the victim's resisting in any way; in the second, the aggressor does not literally 'threaten' the victim, but instead will use lethal force, if he has to, to defend himself. Th e fi rst, coercive model is where the thief says 'your money or your life'; the second, defensive model is where the thief simply takes your money, and defends himself if you try to use force to stop him doing so. Although some of my arguments apply to the coercive model, I'm going to focus on the second, purely defensive model, which is I think most apt for the problem of purely political aggression. Lethal defence against an aggressor that rolls over the border, promising to kill anyone who resists, is probably justifi able in individualist terms, either on grounds of the attempt at coercion that it involves, or on the likelihood of future threats to vital interests (an aggressor prepared to issue a threat to kill all who resist is unlikely not to act on that threat). 35 Th e second model is also important, however. It is quite conceivable that a purely political aggressor should seek to achieve its political objectives not through direct coercion, but by establishing facts on the ground that give them control of the decisive resources or institutions. Th ey could advance towards their goals without issuing any threats to the aggressed-against populace, but simply make it known that they will use force in defence of their lives and their mission, when it is necessary to do so, and against those who pose such threats. Indeed, these principles are similar to the rules of engagement by which British soldiers in Iraq were supposed to abide. 36 In this case, the aggressors are similar to the thief who resolves to take the victim's wallet by force, but does not issue the threat 35 Although see Rodin, chapter 4 in this volume, for an argument that works against even these cases of coercive conditional threats. 36 See MoD, 'UK and Danish Rules of Engagement for Iraq'. OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Mon Sep 02 2013, NEWGEN oxfordhb-9780199682836.indd 24 9/2/2013 6:49:11 PM THE PROBLEM OF POLITICAL AGGRESSION 25 'your money or your life', instead only using force to defend himself against the victim's resistance. In these cases, where the aggressor uses force only in self-defence, his actions at T 2 are a response to the victim's actions at T 1 . If the victim's actions at T 1 were impermissible, then the victim could obviously not use the threat she would face at T 2 in her proportionality calculations at T 0 . Suppose, for example, that at T 0 the mugger does not intend to kill the victim. Th e victim, however, responds to this threat wildly disproportionately at T 1 , making to throw a grenade at the mugger, who (suppose) is surrounded by children, who will be killed alongside him. At T 2 , the mugger will try to prevent the victim throwing that grenade, by shooting him. Clearly, in this case the victim cannot use the threat he will face at T 2 in his proportionality calculations at T 0 . In general, the appeal to preventive defence must presuppose that any relevant actions taken by the victim between now and when the threat eventuates should be permissible. Or consider this example. A is insulting B. He ought not to do so, but he clearly does not threaten a serious interest of hers. B knows that if she tries to prevent A insulting her by using lethal force against him, he will try to kill her. So, can she conclude that since A will try to kill her if she uses lethal force to stop him insulting her, it is proportionate for her to use lethal force, before he has the chance to do so? Clearly she cannot. Lethal force is not a proportionate means to stop someone insulting you, and it cannot be rendered proportionate by the fact that, if you attempt to use lethal force, the insulter will try to defend himself lethally. It follows that the argument from preventive defence begs the question, at least when the attacker's lethal threat is conditioned on the defender fi rst threatening his life (in other words, when the attacker will use force only in self-defence). If the mugger resolves to use force at T 2 only to defend himself against a lethal threat at T 1 , then we cannot argue that lethal defence by the victim at T 1 is proportionate, without presupposing that it is justifi ed-which is precisely what we are trying to show. Th e threat posed by mugger at T 2 is admissible in the T 0 proportionality calculation only if the victim's actions at T 1 are justifi ed; the victim's actions at T 1 are justifi ed only if the threat posed by the mugger at T 2 is admissible in the T 0 proportionality calculation. Applied to the military context, provided the purely political aggressors resolve to use force at T 2 only in response to lethal threats at T 1 , then we cannot argue that this lethal response by the victims is proportionate except by assuming that it is justifi ed. Notice that the argument does not depend on showing that the victim's response to the initial threat is disproportionate. Th ese examples are merely illustrations of a more general logical point. A cannot without circularity at T 0 justify using lethal force at T 1 to prevent a threat, to be posed by B at T 2 , which is conditioned on A's using lethal force at T 1 . A's use of lethal force at T 1 is permissible only if B's threat at T 2 renders lethal force proportionate in the T 0 proportionality calculation. But B's threat at T 2 is admissible in A's justifi cation at T 0 only if A's action at T 1 is permissible. Th e preventive defence-based response to the bloodless invasion objection therefore works only if it OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Mon Sep 02 2013, NEWGEN oxfordhb-9780199682836.indd 25 9/2/2013 6:49:11 PM 26 SETH LAZAR assumes that lethal defence against purely political aggression is justifi ed, which is precisely what it is supposed to prove. How might a reductionist respond to this circularity objection? One might argue that, provided we know that B's threat at T 2 will be unjustifi ed regardless of A's intervening actions, the justifi cation from preventive defence is admissible, and A can use the T 2 threat in his T 0 proportionality calculations. What matters is not the chain of events that leads to the threat at T 2 , but simply whether that threat is unjustifi ed. Th e circularity objection is particularly forceful when the justifi cation of the T 2 threat depends on the justifi cation of the defender's actions at T 1 . Suppose, for example, that the combatants fi ghting for the purely political aggressor are publicly resolved to use force only in defence of their lives, when it is necessary to do so, and against those who are responsible for posing those threats. One ground on which the threat they pose at T 2 could be unjustifi ed, then, is that the threat to which they respond is itself justifi ed. But the argument from preventive defence justifi es lethal defence at T 1 by assuming (at T 0 ) that the threat posed by the aggressor at T 2 will be unjustifi ed. To show that the T 2 threat is unjustifi ed, we must show that the T 1 threat is justifi ed; but to show that the T 1 threat is justifi ed, we must assume that the T 2 threat is unjustifi ed. However, there are other reasons besides the fact that it responds to an unjustifi ed threat which can make the T 2 threat unjustifi ed. If these are in play, then does the circularity objection still apply? One could argue that any use of force by a purely political aggressor, even in self-defence, can be justifi ed only if it is in some sense necessary (the precise interpretation of necessity does not matter here). 37 Since purely political aggressors could defend themselves by retreating, thereby foregoing their military objectives, any force they use in self-defence is unnecessary, and therefore impermissible on those grounds alone, irrespective of whether the defenders' actions at T 1 are justifi ed, so there is no circularity problem. One way to respond would be to question whether the aggressors really could not satisfy necessity. Whatever our theory of necessity, it seems misguided to imply that purely political aggressors could simply down arms and pull out. Th is may be true of them en masse, but for each individual soldier, retreat or surrender is oft en likely to increase, not diminish, his chances of being harmed. Using force to defend himself and his comrades may well be his only way to get out alive. So, the counterargument has limited scope. Nonetheless, it will apply in some cases, so deserves a response. I think it fails as a response to the circularity objection. If a threat posed by B at T 2 will eventuate only if A acts unjustifi ably at T 1 , then even if that future threat will be unjustifi ed on independent grounds, it remains inadmissible in A's proportionality calculation at T 0 , because it is conditioned on his intervening wrongful action at T 1 . If that action is wrongful, he ought not to do it, and the T 2 threat will not eventuate. He may not harm another now to avert a threat that will come about only if he acts 37 Although for a sustained analysis, see Seth Lazar , 'Necessity in Self-Defense and War' , Philosophy & Public Aff airs , 40 / 1 , ( 2012 ) 3–43 . OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Mon Sep 02 2013, NEWGEN oxfordhb-9780199682836.indd 26 9/2/2013 6:49:11 PM THE PROBLEM OF POLITICAL AGGRESSION 27 unjustifi ably. It follows that if B's T 2 threat is conditioned on A's use of lethal force at T 1 , A cannot appeal to the T 2 threat posed by B in his T 0 proportionality calculation without assuming that his use of lethal force at T 1 is justifi ed, and so begging the question that the argument is supposed to answer. Notice that this reasoning applies as much to the coercive as to the defensive version of the conditional threat case. B's reasons for harming A at T 2 can be either in self-defence, or in order to make good on her initial threat to A. In summary, then, the argument from preventive defence can presuppose its conclusion in two ways. First, by assuming the threat posed by the aggressor at T 2 is unjustifi ed, when whether that is true depends on whether the T 1 threat is justifi ed. Th is will not always apply-sometimes there will be independent grounds for believing the T 2 threat unjustifi ed, regardless of whether the T 1 threat is justifi ed. However, the second circularity is not contingent in this way. Th e T 2 threat is inadmissible to the T 0 proportionality calculation if it is a response to unjustifi ed action by A at T 1 . To include the T 2 threat in A's T 0 proportionality calculation, then, is to assume that A's action at T 1 is justifi ed. But it is precisely that action (on which B's response is conditioned) that the argument is supposed to justify. On this argument, we can justify A's T 0 response only by assuming that it is justifi ed. Th is second circularity is present even when we have independent grounds to believe the T 2 threat will be unjustifi ed. Might one nonetheless counter that it is strange that the mugger can, merely by making his conditional threat, leave you no other morally acceptable option but to capitulate? 38 Although this does not address the circularity problem, it might indicate that we need to rethink it. However, this does not seem a compelling response. Th ere are many ways besides through making a conditional threat that a mugger can leave his victim with no morally acceptable alternative besides capitulation-he could position himself so that there is no way for the victim to defend herself without infl icting disproportionate harm on bystanders; or, if he is strong enough, he could make it so she has no way to protect her wallet except to kill him; alternatively, the same situation arises if he is so frail that any resistance would kill him. In each case, assuming it is disproportionate to kill just to retain her wallet, the victim has no choice but to yield. Nor should this surprise us. Principles of self-defence constrain otherwise justifi ed defence in ways that an unscrupulous attacker can manipulate. Th e only way to avoid this outcome is either to deny that those principles should be genuine constraints, or to argue that using lethal force to retain one's wallet is in fact proportionate. Th e circularity objection could be escaped if we could provide grounds for the victim's initial defence being justifi ed, which do not depend on including the conditional threat (CT) that is conditioned on that defence in the argument for its justifi cation. 39 One might think, however, that this counterargument is a non-starter. Insofar as the 38 McMahan, 'War as Self-Defence', 78. Hurka makes a very similar point at Hurka, 'Proportionality', 54. 39 Th anks to Cécile Fabre for helping me think this through. OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Mon Sep 02 2013, NEWGEN oxfordhb-9780199682836.indd 27 9/2/2013 6:49:11 PM 28 SETH LAZAR eventuation of CT is a foreseeable consequence of the victim's defensive actions, it must be included in our assessment of those actions' proportionality. If the threat is great enough, then perhaps any defensive action would be disproportionate. 40 For the sake of argument, however, let us set that worry aside, and suppose that we could, in principle, establish that the victim's initial defence is justifi ed without CT telling either for or against that defence. Here is one possibility. Even if lethal defence is disproportionate, presumably (if CT is set to one side) some use of force by the victim to avert the initial threat (IT) posed at T 0 by the aggressor would be proportionate. Suppose that if the victim were to protect herself against IT using proportionate force (call this PF), the aggressor would use some additional force (call this AF) to secure his objectives. In that case, the victim can presumably use the latter quantum of threat (IT+AF) in her initial proportionality calculations, thus increasing the amount of force that would be proportionate, than if it were only a matter of averting IT-call it PF*. Th ere is no circularity yet, because PF is justifi ed without reference to CT. But suppose that if the victim uses PF* force, the aggressor will respond with more additional force-AF*. Th en the victim would be able to use force proportionate to (IT+AF*), i.e. more than PF*, say PF**. If our reasoning proceeds incrementally in this way, we could reach a situation where it is proportionate for the victim to use lethal force to defend herself, not because of the conditional threat CT, but because of the additional force AF*** which the aggressor would use in order to achieve the initial threat IT should the victim use PF*** force to defend herself. In the mugger example, the idea is something like this. Th ough it's disproportionate for the victim to just kill the mugger outright, suppose she uses proportionate force- she pushes him back. Suppose he would respond by using more initial force against here; can we not then say that she is permitted to use defensive force proportionate to this additional threat? We might then proceed incrementally to the justifi cation of victim using lethal defensive force, without any circularity. In the military case, suppose we respond to the purely political aggression by forming a human chain around the aggressor's targets, so that they cannot secure them except by threatening our lives. In that case, we would be entitled to kill them in self-defence. So why should we have to actually put ourselves at risk by forming the human chain? Why not proceed immediately to the lethal defence? Although I think that this incrementalist response has some virtues (albeit that simplicity is not one of them) it ultimately fails. Intuitively, it fails because it proves too much. Suppose that the initial threat posed by the aggressor is that he is going to pinch the victim. But suppose that he will defend himself and his mission (to pinch her) against any force the victim uses in her defence. So the victim responds proportionately, by trying to pinch him fi rst (this is PF). Th e aggressor averts that pinch by 40 Th is is one of David Rodin's key arguments in chapter 4 of this volume. OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Mon Sep 02 2013, NEWGEN oxfordhb-9780199682836.indd 28 9/2/2013 6:49:11 PM THE PROBLEM OF POLITICAL AGGRESSION 29 making to pinch and also punch the victim. Th at's the initial threat IT and the additional force AF. Th is larger threat renders a graver defence by the victim proportionate-PF*. But that additional force used by the victim leads to the aggressor using still more additional force-AF*, which in turn renders a still graver defence by the victim proportionate-PF**. And in this incremental way we can reach a situation where the only way to stop the aggressor pinching her (and infl icting the additional force AF*** on her) is to kill him. If this response to the circularity objection works, then it is proportionate for the victim to kill the aggressor, ultimately, to prevent him from pinching her. Th e second problem with the incrementalist response is more internal. It rests on a very specifi c and involuted series of counterfactuals. Th is is how it achieves the bootstrapping whereby the threat of a pinch can become grounds for killing someone. Th e argument depends on saying that 'if I were to X, then you'd Y, but if you would Y, then I could X1, but if I X1'd, then you would Y1, and if you would Y1, I could X2,' and so on to the nth and n-1th value of X and Y. Th is leads to at least two problems. First, we can legitimately question whether the permission to use lethal force can depend on speculation about such complex counterfactuals. Arguably rather than simply rest on assumptions about what would happen if we took all these intermediate steps, we actually ought to take those steps. Rather than say 'we're entitled to use lethal force now, because if we resisted non-violently, they would use greater force, which would entitle us to use greater force, which would lead to greater force from them, which would entitle us to use greater force, ultimately leading to us being entitled to use lethal force', this incrementalist argument looks like it enjoins us to actually take those intermediate steps. In practice this would mean fi rst resisting political aggression non-violently, and using lethal force only once the aggressor has started to threaten our vital interests. Second, there is an important range of cases where the counterfactual story required for the incrementalist response to work will simply not obtain. Th e incrementalist response fails just in case there is no way for the victim to avert the initial threat except by using lethal force against the aggressor. In the mugger example, suppose that the mugger is much stronger than the victim, and simply immobilizes her while he takes her wallet. Her only means of protecting the wallet is to kill him. Or that he takes her wallet and runs off -she can bring him down only by shooting him. In a military context, suppose that the aggressor establishes facts on the ground that can be changed only by using lethal force. In each of these cases the incrementalist response fails. Th e only way to avert the initial threat is to kill the aggressor; this is by hypothesis a disproportionate means of averting that initial threat; and the prospect of the aggressor defending himself with lethal force against the victim's attempt to kill him cannot be used to render that attempt proportionate without circularity. OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Mon Sep 02 2013, NEWGEN oxfordhb-9780199682836.indd 29 9/2/2013 6:49:11 PM 30 SETH LAZAR 2.4 Alternative Reductionisms Neither the contingent empirical counterargument, nor the conceptual challenge from preventive defence, succeeds in undermining premise 6. If we endorse the other descriptive and evaluative premises 5, 7, and 8, then we must either endorse the conclusion, and reject reductionism, or we must show how by modifying premises 2, 3, or 4, we can develop a version of reductionism that can ground the permission to fi ght defensive wars against purely political aggression-what Emerton and Handfi eld call the 'political defensive privilege'. 41 In this section and the next, I consider three ways to ground the political defensive privilege, each of which does more violence to standard reductionism than the last. Th e fi rst merely modifi es premises 3 and 4, the second proposes an alternative to premise 2, while the third, discussed in section 2.5, rejects reductionism in favour of exceptionalism. One way a reductionist might ground the political defensive privilege is by modifying, or at least adding to, premises 3 and 4. Aft er all, they specify only a narrow range of the relevant principles of interpersonal morality. Perhaps they leave something out that might help here. Although when defending oneself, or a small number of others, vital interests must be at stake for killing the innocent either intentionally or collaterally to be justifi ed, perhaps if enough people's lesser interests are at stake, they can together justify lethal force. Th e problem of proportionality in self-defence and collateral damage is overcome, on this view, by aggregating the lesser interests of the invaded state's citizens. 42 Although the move to aggregation is popular among reductionists, it is not a promising response to the bloodless invasion objection, for at least three reasons, of which at least the third is decisive. First, aggregation cuts both ways: although the victims of a purely political aggression are numerous, the innocent victims of war (on both sides) will be numerous too. I am not sure whether these two aggregations will cancel each other out, and indeed I wonder whether we can confi dently weigh such numerous and disparate interests. Second, I wonder whether this move to aggregation is consistent with the core thesis of reductionism. I cannot think of any other cases, outside of war, where the same phenomenon would apply-where a large number of aggregated lesser interests can justify killing innocent people in self-defence and collateral harm. It seems, then, that war is indeed morally exceptional, since the principles that justify killing in war do not justify any other acts besides those of war. Th ird, and most importantly, though, aggregation of lesser interests is simply an implausible foundation for the political defensive privilege, because it entails that the scope and weight of that privilege will vary in proportion to a political community's 41 Emerton and Handfi eld, chapter 3 in this volume. 42 Hurka, 'Proportionality', 54; McMahan, 'War as Self-Defence', 79. See also Fabre, chapter 5 in this volume. OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Mon Sep 02 2013, NEWGEN oxfordhb-9780199682836.indd 30 9/2/2013 6:49:11 PM THE PROBLEM OF POLITICAL AGGRESSION 31 population size. Th e more citizens, the more people whose lesser interest in their state retaining political control of a territory is at stake. Th e more people, the greater the aggregated sum of their lesser political interests. Th e greater that sum, the easier it is for them to justify resorting to force against a purely political aggression, and the more innocent people they can justify killing to defend their political independence. So, in a war over territory between Pakistan and India, the latter would be entitled to kill more Pakistanis than Pakistanis could kill Indians, because 1.2bn Indian citizens purportedly have an interest in control of that territory, while only 0.2bn Pakistanis have the same interest. And yet clearly if we endorse something like the political defensive privilege, we ascribe it equally to states regardless of their population size. While there might be grounds for questioning the international legal doctrine of sovereign equality-some states are presumably insuffi ciently valuable to warrant defence-mere differences in population size are surely morally irrelevant. One could perhaps respond by arguing that political interests have diminishing marginal moral importance, such that once you have a country with a certain population, any additional citizens do not increase the moral importance of the political interests at stake. However, this would be a signifi cant move away from the individualist approach, since it presupposes that the moral weight of an individual's interests is a function of how large a group of similarly interested individuals he is in. Th is looks like an argument for war in defence of irreducibly collective rights, not a thoroughgoing individualist account. Merely shift ing the focus to aggregation, then, is not enough. Reductionists remain incapable of grounding the political defensive privilege. Th eir next available move is more radical, but perhaps more promising. It involves rejecting not only premises 3 and 4, but premise 2 as well-in other words, it proposes a non-standard form of reductionism. Perhaps if we look to other principles of ordinary interpersonal morality besides those covering self-defence and collateral harm, we can develop a basis for the political defensive privilege. Standard reductionism, as formulated in the bloodless invasion objection, is clearly correlated with a nonconsequentialist view of morality, which sees people as enjoying fundamental protections against being used and harmed in various ways, even if harming them would realize a more valuable state of aff airs. 43 Perhaps reductionists would do better to adopt a consequentialist view of the ordinary interpersonal morality governing permissible killing. Th ey might endorse either act or rule consequentialism, while remaining reductionists about the ethics of war-since they would argue that in war as in ordinary life, we should follow the maxim 'act so as to realize the most valuable state of aff airs', or 'act in accordance with the rule that, in the long run, realizes the most valuable state of aff airs'. 43 See e.g. Frances M. Kamm , 'Nonconsequentialism', in Hugh Lafollette (ed.), Th e Blackwell Guide to Ethical Th eory ( Malden : Blackwell , 2001 ), 205–26 ; Warren S. Quinn , 'Actions, Intentions, and Consequences: Th e Doctrine of Double Eff ect' , Philosophy and Public Aff airs , 18 / 4 ( 1989 ), 334–51 . OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Mon Sep 02 2013, NEWGEN oxfordhb-9780199682836.indd 31 9/2/2013 6:49:11 PM 32 SETH LAZAR In theory, shift ing to a consequentialist position should lower the bar to justify killing. However, I think premises 3 and 4 genuinely specify the most permissive plausible take on when killing is allowed, whether one is a consequentialist or a nonconsequentialist: killing the innocent to preserve less than vital interests is simply never going to be justifi ed. We have already seen that moving to aggregation does not help resolve this problem. If consequentialist reductionists are going to fare any better than the nonconsequentialist, they have to identify some other values besides individuals' interests that are worth fi ghting for. If they concede that individuals' purely political interests are not that important, they must argue one of the following: that there are distinct collective interests in the political independence of a particular community, which can justify killing; that there is some impersonal value in the continued independence of a political community; or that there are some broader long-term values that must be brought into our calculation. I doubt whether any of these moves is genuinely consistent with the reductionist perspective-although the consequentialist pays lip service to reductionism, the values that are at stake in war include some that are quite diff erent from the values at stake when force is used in ordinary life. Moreover, it is far from clear that an act-consequentialist approach to the ethics of war would end up grounding a political defensive privilege. Certainly, it would depend on the particular case; choosing to resist a purely political aggression with force involves realizing a state of aff airs in which each side infl icts suff ering and devastation on the other. Th e alternative involves sacrifi cing only the purely political interests of the citizens of the invaded state. It is hard to imagine that war would not constitute a worse state of aff airs, such that the act-consequentialist would deny states the privilege to defend themselves. A rule-consequentialist might fare better here. Th e rule-consequentialist could argue that, if we do not resist purely political aggression now, it will become widespread, and lead to even more numerous and greater harms than would fi ghting now. 44 For example, one might argue that in order to have a stable system of relations among states, which is in turn necessary for people to live good lives, we need something like a principle of respect for political independence. Since there is no other means to enforce this principle except through self-help, states must be entitled to defend themselves against purely political aggression. Th e defenders are fi ghting not only for their own purely political interests, but for the purely political interests of all people everywhere, who are all made more vulnerable each time a purely political aggressor claims territory unchallenged. Th ere is probably considerable mileage in this argument, although it does involve making some very substantial theoretical commitments, which might have more troubling implications when set in other contexts. Ultimately, though, I do not think it can plausibly be described as reductionist, except in the thinnest sense. If what justifi es 44 See McMahan, chapter 6, and Moore, chapter 8 in this volume. OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Mon Sep 02 2013, NEWGEN oxfordhb-9780199682836.indd 32 9/2/2013 6:49:11 PM THE PROBLEM OF POLITICAL AGGRESSION 33 killing the innocent in war is the importance of preventing future purely political aggressions (as well as this one) then we are defi nitely far from the realm of ordinary interpersonal morality; the justifi cation for these acts of killing cannot be understood without acknowledging that they are acts of killing in war, not ordinary life. Justifi ed wars fought for these reasons will not simply be justifi ed acts of selfand other-defence. Th ey will also be justifi ed by their contribution to maintaining a stable international system. 2.5 Desiderata for an Exceptionalist Alternative If we are going to give a plausible account of what is worth fi ghting for in wars of national defence generally, and wars against purely political aggression in particular, then it looks like we need to reject reductionism. Th e goods that it is worth killing for in ordinary life simply are not suffi cient to explain the permissibility of killing in war. Th e challenge, then, is to develop a plausible exceptionalist account of what is worth fi ghting for, which can fi ll the gap identifi ed by the bloodless invasion objection, without inviting further unanswerable objections. Evidently, I cannot attempt that task in what remains of this chapter; however, I can identify some desiderata on what such an account should look like, specifi cally three positive requirements, and two negative ones. Th e bloodless invasion objection shows that the individual interests immediately at stake in a war of purely political aggression are not suffi ciently weighty to justify killing the innocent. If killing the innocent is nonetheless justifi ed, then either there must be other individual interests that a simple description of the case has missed, or there must be other goods besides individual interests that are at stake. Th e fi rst positive requirement on an exceptionalist account of what justifi es wars of national defence is that it must identify the goods, beyond the immediately threatened individual interests, which justify fi ghting. Th ere are three plausible avenues (which need not be mutually exclusive). As we have just seen, the fi rst, and least controversial, is to appeal not only to the immediately implicated individual interests, but also to the long-term interests of all people. Th is is the (in spirit) rule-consequentialist argument that submission to aggression now, even if it is purely political, will invite future harms, to avert which we are justifi ed in killing the innocent now, as a lesser evil. Speculative though it is, this argument is undoubtedly an important constituent in the justifi cation of wars of national defence in general, although it does not, to my mind, capture the full force of what is worth fi ghting for in defence against purely political aggression in particular. Aft er all, if the aggressor's success in this bloodless invasion were only to lead to more purely political aggression in future, then the interests at stake in the future will be precisely the same ones as do not justify killing the innocent when the present case is taken in isolation. Of course, by looking to the future we increase the number of people whose political interests are potentially at stake, but we have seen that grounding the OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Mon Sep 02 2013, NEWGEN oxfordhb-9780199682836.indd 33 9/2/2013 6:49:11 PM 34 SETH LAZAR permission to kill in individuals' aggregated purely political interests leads to deeply implausible implications about what can permissibly be done to defend more and less populous political communities. For these reasons, I think the most interesting alternatives to the reduction of warfare to selfand other-defence will not only invoke other individual interests besides those immediately at stake, but will look to collective and impersonal goods to explain what justifi es fi ghting. Impersonal goods are values the signifi cance of which is irreducible to some contribution to or constituent of individual well-being; one might think that the value of a just or a solidaristic community, for example, does not reduce to the contributions its justice and solidarity make to its members' well-being. Collective goods are a subset of impersonal goods, but can be thought of in one of two ways. Either we could argue that (some) groups of people can have interests distinct from and irreducible to the interests of their constituent members. Or we could argue that the advancement of (some) groups is impersonally valuable, without making the metaphysical claim that a group can have interests. Either way, if wars are not fought only for individual interests, then we need some account of precisely what the other values at stake are. 45 Both impersonal and collective values are philosophically fraught. 46 Th e thesis that nothing has value besides the constituents of individual well-being is both plausible in itself, and widely assumed in moral and political philosophy. Demonstrating that there are indeed other sources of moral reasons besides individual interests is diffi cult enough; showing that these are suffi ciently weighty to justify killing innocent people is a further stretch still. However, if we want to retain our common-sense view of a political community's right to defend itself against purely political aggression, then I think we need to forge some argument along these lines. Moreover, we need to do so without proving too much: the view that collective or impersonal goods can justify overriding individual interests has been the normative opening for some of history's worst atrocities. Reclaiming these arguments from their history of heinous abuse is a profound challenge in itself. Th e second positive requirement is an extension of the fi rst, identifying the descriptive terrain in which the values that are worth killing for must be discovered. Wars 45 McMahan never added to this, but he recognized it in an earlier paper: 'Extrapolation has to proceed by composition rather than by analogy, but even the most reductive form of individualism must take account of distinctively collective goods, such as collective self-identifi cation or collective self-determination, and thus recognize that there may be wrongs that are not entirely reducible to wrongs against individuals because they have a collective as their subject.' Jeff McMahan , 'Just Cause for War' , Ethics & International Aff airs , 19 / 3 ( 2005 ), 1–21 : 12. In this volume, Moore and Kutz in particular attempt to give some account of what other values are at stake in war, besides individual rights. 46 For discussion of impersonal value in the context of distributive justice, see e.g. Andrew Mason , Community, Solidarity and Belonging: Levels of Community and Th eir Normative Signifi cance ( Cambridge : Cambridge University Press , 2000 ) ; Andrew Moore and Roger Crisp , 'Welfarism in Moral Th eory' , Australasian Journal of Philosophy , 74 / 4 ( 1996 ), 598–613 ; Larry S. Temkin , 'Harmful Goods, Harmless Bads', in R. G. Frey and Christopher W. Morris (eds.), Value, Welfare, and Morality ( Cambridge : Cambridge University Press , 1993 ), 290–324 . OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Mon Sep 02 2013, NEWGEN oxfordhb-9780199682836.indd 34 9/2/2013 6:49:11 PM THE PROBLEM OF POLITICAL AGGRESSION 35 of national defence, especially against purely political aggression, are fought in part to preserve a particular institutional arrangement, whereby one political community has political control over a given territory and its population. If we think wars against purely political aggression can be justifi ed, and that even in regular wars of national defence, preserving the present institutional arrangement plays some justifi catory role, then we need to explain why preserving this institutional arrangement matters. Th is is the site of the collective and impersonal values identifi ed in the fi rst requirement. Th ree interrelated lines of argument could be developed (again, they need not be mutually exclusive). Th e fi rst focuses on why political communities have value, and in particular, the sort of value that is worth killing to preserve. It can proceed by examining both the internal qualities of the community, for example its achievement of justice, 47 or a vibrant solidarity, and its external qualities-for example, how it contributes to maintaining an internationally stable system. Th e second line would be to ask why it should matter that political communities should be independent from outside interference (beyond some threshold)? 48 Why should we care about the survival and independence of political communities that are oft en historically contingent? Does it matter only insofar as it allows the political community to achieve the values identifi ed in the fi rst line of argument, or is there some distinct value in the community achieving these goods in their own way? Th e third line of argument starts with the observation that, to arrive at a plausible view of national defence, we would need to ask not only why it matters that this group of people should be able to determine their collective existence together, but also why they should do so in this particular place, on this territory. Purely political aggression undermines the victim community's independence, but it does so by taking control of territory in particular. Does this territorial dimension matter? 49 Is there an important connection between the political community and the specifi c territory it happens to occupy? Can this be understood in individualist terms, or do we need to appeal to collective or impersonal values to explain why retaining control of this particular territory should matter so much? Th e fi nal positive requirement is that the exceptionalist justifi cation for national defence should be to some degree partialist. It should explain why the value that is worth fi ghting for in wars of national defence is in part relative to the identity of the agents doing the fi ghting. To see why, consider the following example. Two countries are involved in a confl ict of disputed origin over a contested territory. Whether they are justifi ed in fi ghting depends in part on the set of collective and/or impersonal goods alluded to above. Suppose that one community better instantiates these values than the other. Does it follow that citizens of the less valuable community are not justifi ed in defending themselves-that they must concede to the more valuable community? If 47 See Seth Lazar , 'A Liberal Defence of (Some) Duties to Compatriots' , Journal of Applied Philosophy , 27 / 3 ( 2010 ), 246–57 . Also Kutz, chapter 10 in this volume. 48 See Moore, chapter 8 this volume. 49 See Stilz, chapter 9 in this volume. OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Mon Sep 02 2013, NEWGEN oxfordhb-9780199682836.indd 35 9/2/2013 6:49:11 PM 36 SETH LAZAR we construed the values at stake impartially, then this would follow, but it appears obviously implausible. Presumably, our community must meet some threshold of value to be worth fi ghting for, but once it meets that threshold, then we are entitled to fi ght for our own community, even if the adversary community is more valuable in every way. A viable exceptionalist justifi cation for national defence would also have to meet at least two negative desiderata. First, it must either explain why the principles of ordinary interpersonal morality do not apply in war, or it must show that its arguments operate in addition to ordinary moral principles, not instead of them. Th e fi rst path is unlikely to be an easy one. Reductionists can quite reasonably insist that even if their account does not cover the whole scope of the ethics of war, absent some compelling argument to the contrary we must surely acknowledge that the principles governing the use of force outside of war still in large part apply. Showing the opposite would mean arguing that the initiation of confl ict between large groups of belligerents also initiates a fundamental and profound change in the moral protections that people enjoy against suff ering harm. Although such an argument can be made, it would require a tremendous amount of work to be convincing. 50 One possible approach is to deny that we enjoy these protections except in an institutional context, and then argue that the shift in institutional context from ordinary life to war changes the protections that we enjoy. 51 But it is quite implausible to suggest that, absent an institutional context, we can kill innocent people without wrongdoing. If the exceptionalist cannot show that reductionist principles are irrelevant to war, she must show how her theory incorporates those principles. Of course, she must also identify further values that can override the considerations identifi ed by a reductionist account, or go beyond what they alone would permit. But those considerations will remain relevant to the morality of war, and might indeed still carry a considerable explanatory and justifi catory weight. Th e second negative desideratum is complementary to the fi rst. Just as the exceptionalist must either explain why the ordinary principles governing the use of force do not apply in war, or else incorporate them into her account, so she must either explain why the exceptionalist principles to which she appeals to justify war do not apply outside of wartime, or show that although they are relevant in ordinary life, they do not have troubling and untenable implications in other contexts. Th is is particularly true of the appeal to collective or impersonal values: if they can justify killing in war, then are there other circumstances outside of war when they can justify killing? What are the implications of adopting views such as these about war for our attitude to national liberation movements, and political secession, for example? If the values that we appeal to, in order to justify and explain our judgments about national defence, 50 Some of that work is being done in this book, by Benbaji, chapter 7. 51 One could draw inspiration here from Allen Buchanan and Robert O. Keohane , 'Th e Preventive Use of Force: A Cosmopolitan Institutional Proposal' , Ethics & International Aff airs , 18 / 1 ( 2004 ), 1–22 . OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Mon Sep 02 2013, NEWGEN oxfordhb-9780199682836.indd 36 9/2/2013 6:49:12 PM THE PROBLEM OF POLITICAL AGGRESSION 37 have problematic implications in these other areas, then we might be forced to accept a wholly reductionist approach as the lesser of two evils. 2.6 Conclusion Our ordinary view of the ethics of war grants states the right to use lethal force to resist purely political aggression by other states. Providing an adequate philosophical foundation for this political defensive privilege, however, proves remarkably tricky. Th e most natural way for philosophers to approach the justifi cation of killing in war-to see it as a particular case, to which general principles governing permissible killing can be applied-has proven inadequate to the task, at least on some very plausible assumptions. If I am right that wars cannot be fought without killing the innocent, and that individuals' interests in their state's retaining political control of some territory are not vital, then the most permissive plausible version of reductionism cannot justify national defence against a purely political threat, since it cannot endorse killing the innocent to preserve less than vital interests. Th is could spell the end either for reductionism, or for the political defensive privilege. I considered whether reformulating the reductionist position would resolve the problem, but it led either to implausible views about the relation between population size and the scope and weight of the political defensive privilege, or to a rule-consequentialist position that is not meaningfully reductionist. If we want to retain the political defensive privilege, we need to look beyond reductionist arguments to an exceptionalist account of the legitimate purposes of military force. We need to ask why political independence is worth fi ghting for, and show that it matters not only because of its contribution to the interests of the individual members of the political community, but in some irreducible impersonal and/ or collective sense as well. We need to show why this value matters enough to justify killing the innocent in war, without proving too much. And we need to show how this exceptionalist framework for war's morality either supersedes or complements the reductionist principles with which we began. Th e task is formidable, but necessary if we are to make sense of our pre-theoretical beliefs about the ethics of war. OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Mon Sep 02 2013, NEWGEN oxfordhb-9780199682836.indd 37 9/2/2013 6:49:12 PM