Ethics and War: An Introduction
Steven Lee2012, Journal of Military Ethics
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Abstract
The law of nations may be deduced, fi rst, from the general principles of right and justice applied to the concerns of individuals, and thence to the relations and duties of nations. Justice Story 2 In the last chapter, we discussed jus ad bellum under the national defense paradigm, according to which only defensive war is justifi ed. Given the priority principle, which is part of this idea of just cause, the fi rst use of force is never justifi ed. 3 This understanding of just cause is different from that during much of the history of the just war tradition. In particular, the just war paradigm, which characterized the tradition through the seventeenth century, did not accept the priority principle, and aggression was not the only wrong that could justify war. In this chapter, we continue our discussion of jus ad bellum by examining whether there is a need to revise our account of just cause in ways more consonant with the just war paradigm. In recent decades, a number of wars have been justifi ed on humanitarian grounds. A humanitarian intervention is a war launched to rescue persons in another state suffering under a grave humanitarian crisis, such as genocide, mass enslavement, starvation, or ethnic cleansing, usually at the hands of their own government. Among the recent interventions 4 Sovereignty and human rights
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