This paper examines whether patriotism and other forms of group partiality can be justified and what are the moral limits on actions performed to benefit countries and other groups. In particular, I ask whether partiality toward one’s country can justify attacking enemy civilians to achieve victory or other political goals. Using a rule utilitarian approach, I then defend the legitimacy of “moderate” patriotic partiality but argue that noncombatant immunity imposes an absolute constraint on what may be done to promote the (...) interests of a country or other group involved in warfare or other forms of violent conflict. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article counters Michael Walzer's argument against tight blockades. It shows that the interdiction of food shipments need not violate the principle of noncombatant immunity. Whether it...

Do a threatened state’s obligations of assistance extend to the enemy’s needy people and the needy people in non-hostile countries equally? This paper examines five arguments defending the political boundary between hostile and non-hostile countries. The aid workers, defence capacity, and pre-emptive self-defence arguments highlight the unreasonable burdens for a threatened state to protect its own citizens, as a result of its assistance to the enemy’s needy people, while the limited and comprehensive negative duties arguments underscore a threatened state’s involvement (...) in harmful activities. Unfortunately, these five arguments cannot accomplish the task. Certain arguments (i.e. the aid workers argument and the negative duties approach in general) encounter the insufficiency problem by not completely denying the potential for assisting the enemy’s needy people, while other arguments (i.e. the defence capacity, the limited and comprehensive negative duties, the pre-emptive self-defence arguments) face the over-extension problem by prohibiting assistance to needy people in nonhostile countries. Therefore, when a threatened state provides assistance to needy foreigners, the distinction between hostile and non-hostile countries should not constitute a decisive reason to affect the distribution of its assistance, because it cannot clearly maintain this distinction. (shrink)

The nature of warfare is changing. Increasingly, developments in military technology are removing soldiers from the battlefield, enabling war to be waged from afar. Bombs can be dropped from unmanned drones flying above the range of retaliation. Missiles can be launched, at minimal cost, from ships 200 miles to sea. Micro Air Vehicles, or 'WASPS', will soon be able to lethally attack enemy soldiers. Though still in the developmental stage, progress is rapidly being made towards autonomous weaponry capable of selecting, (...) pursuing, and destroying targets without the necessity for human instruction. These developments have a profound — and as yet under-analysed — impact on just war theory. I argue that a state under attack from remote weaponry is unable to respond in the traditional, just war sanctioned, method of targeting combatants on the battlefield. This restriction of options potentially creates a situation whereby a state is either coerced into surrender, or it must transgress civilian immunity. Just war theory in conditions of remote warfare therefore either serves the interests of the technologically advanced by demanding the surrender of targeted states, or else it becomes redundant. (shrink)

In a recent analysis of the principle of civilian immunity, Igor Primoratz asks whether the circle of legitimate targets in war might be expanded so as to include at least some civilian bystanders. However Primoratz’ formulation of the ‘responsible bystander’ argument depends for its cogency on there being natural or non-acquired positive duties, and this is controversial. Furthermore, we feel that the citizens of a government unjustly at war are primarily and specially obliged to undermine that war, and that this (...) is not simply a function of their being in the best position to do so, (which may not always be the case). Primoratz’ version of ‘responsible bystander’ cannot account for this. Here I develop an alternative formulation that does, and which is not reliant on controversial premises. I argue that to empower a government democratically is to assume a positive obligation to prevent that government from using its power to prosecute an unjust war, and that the neglect of this duty may render a significant portion of the duty-bound collective legitimate targets of necessary and proportionate violence. In closing I dispute Primoratz’ claim that this conclusion has “very little purchase on reality” or is irrelevant for practical purposes. (shrink)

Terrorist violence is often condemned for targeting innocents or non-combatants. There are two objections to this line of argument. First, one may doubt that terrorism is necessarily directed against innocents or non-combatants. However, I will focus on the second objection, according to which there may be exceptions from the prohibition against killing the innocent. In my article I will elaborate whether lethal terrorism against innocents can be justified in a supreme emergency. Starting from a critique of Michael Walzer’s account of (...) supreme emergency, I will argue that the supreme emergency exemption justifies the resort to terrorism against innocents to avert moral disasters such as genocide and ethnic cleansing, provided that the criteria of last resort, proportionality and public declaration are satisfied. (shrink)

An examination of the applicability of conventional and revisionist just war principles to the global war on terror.