The Journal of Ethics 16 (4):339-366 (2012)
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Abstract |
According to the dominant position in the just war tradition from Augustine to Anscombe and beyond, there is no "moral equality of combatants." That is, on the traditional view the combatants participating in a justified war may kill their enemy combatants participating in an unjustified war - but not vice versa (barring certain qualifications). I shall argue here, however, that in the large number of wars (and in practically all modern wars) where the combatants on the justified side violate the rights of innocent people ("collateral damage"), these combatants are in fact liable to attack by the combatants on the unjustified side. I will support this view with a rights-based account of liability to attack and then defend it against a number of objections raised in particular by Jeff McMahan. The result is that the thesis of the moral equality of combatants holds good for a large range of armed conflicts while the opposing thesis is of very limited practical relevance.
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Keywords | collective action just cause liability to attack McMahan, Jeff moral equality of combatants rights Thomson, Judith Jarvis war |
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DOI | 10.1007/s10892-012-9120-z |
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References found in this work BETA
Complicity: Ethics and Law for a Collective Age.Christopher Kutz - 2000 - Cambridge University Press.
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Citations of this work BETA
Just War Theory, Legitimate Authority, and Irregular Belligerency.Jonathan Parry - 2015 - Philosophia 43 (1):175-196.
Justifying Defense Against Non-Responsible Threats and Justified Aggressors: The Liability Vs. The Rights-Infringement Account.Uwe Steinhoff - 2016 - Philosophia 44 (1):247-265.
The Liability of Justified Attackers.Uwe Steinhoff - 2016 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 19 (4):1016-1030.
View all 14 citations / Add more citations
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