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Unfinished Business: WAR
Readers may ask, what is my paper "War" all about?
My answer is, it is about the ethics and morals of War. Rawls has a convenient classification for my subject:
"... I consider primarily what I call strict compliance as opposed to partial compliance theory ... The latter studies the principles that govern how we are to deal with injustice. It comprises such topics as the theory of punishment, the doctrine of just war [emphasis mine], and the justification of the various ways of opposing unjust regimes, ranging from civil disobedience and conscientious objection to militant resistance and revolution."
(Rawls, John A Theory of Justice Revised Edition, 5th printing 2003, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass)
Prof Rawls goes on to say he treats the subject in a top-down manner, dealing with strict compliance so as to clarify the exceptions, such as just war.
As usual, I do everything in reverse. I share with Rawls a "Kantian background," meaning a desire to apply Kantian ideas to ethical problems. However, there are so many criticisms and troubles with that approach that I feel compelled to deal with the subject some other way. So, I work from the bottom up. I want to show that consideration of the the facts and ordinary situations leads us to Kantian notions. In doing things my way, some version of the "categorical imperative" is the result of generalization from experience. This, I believe, is a stronger use of the Kantian style than imposing ethical principles from above. If people are led to such ethical views out of their own experience, they will be the more strongly held.
The purpose of this work is to find out whatever I can about the ethics of war, which, loosely interpreting Rawls, is at least an injustice to be justified.
Reasons are not the same as causes, even if reasons can be counted among causes or in support of causes. The difference is partly a matter of timing, partly perspective. Reasons are often prospective, whereas causes are usually retrospective. Reasons might apply to a number of situations (i.e., they are general), whereas causes are particular. Or, causes are an accumulation of reasons applied to circumstances that is sufficient to amount to a justification.
In my look at causes and, particularly, casus belli, it seems justification for war always is negative. It is of the form, 'I was forced to do this because ...' That structure implies a premise that war is an evil, wrong or immoral, so requires some sort of justification and permission. In fact, war is not generally permitted and is considered the unusual state of affairs, even while wars are happening all the time.
When war is justified negatively, as an exception, pretexts and excuses are frequently used in attempts to gain permission. Another ploy is the recasting of the facts - the story - to make the situation look like something else; this is propaganda. The goal of propaganda is to deceive the audience into mistaking a C for an A, thus substituting rule ξ for the ψ which should apply. All of these are attempts to misappropriate reasons which would justify a war for other purposes.
Casus belli need not be negative. If casus belli can be positive, there must be positive reasons to support them. There may be situations in which a positive morality demands war. For example, war might be a "good thing" if one believed one's religion superior to all others, so killing or converting unbelievers (infidels) contributes to the public well being. Along the same lines, removing unpleasant or dissenting individuals or sub-populations may be necessary and even desirable, if that improves the public welfare. Utopian (absolutist) and utilitarian arguments can be made for war. [But, those sorts of arguments lead me to suspect both philosophies, and to look for another.]
Precedents may be cited as reasons for action; but, a precedent is not itself a reason, it is a 'similar circumstance' or anecdote which encapsulates a reason. ("The play's the thing, in which to capture the conscience of the King." - Wm Shakespeare, Hamlet) History, generally, provides plentiful stories and guidelines, if past wars may be treated as prologue. It is up to the decision makers and their auditors to pull the appropriate reason (principle) out of those stories. Whether or not they do so, the stories become precedents. Generally, precedents are not just the record of decisions previously made, but are imbedded in the stories (history) from which they are drawn (or which they represent). So, 'similar circumstances' in history are a source of reasons.
Here, I must stake out a claim about ethics. Reasons are something we take from a context, usually by generalization. In my view, primary reasons are not deduced from some a priori truth, although secondary reasons may be deduced from other, primary reasons. An 'ought' holds because it is drawn from experience, conforms to our desires and, thus, is accepted as "conventional wisdom." This claim about reasons conforms with my other philosophical positions: empiricist, materialist, relativist - alternatively, skeptic and solipsist. (More on this later ..)
On my view, it makes sense to look at precedents, anecdotes and history to find reasons relevant to a war, FOR and AGAINST. Again, ethical principles and a sense of morality may be drawn out of such studies, but there is no 'ought' implicit in the course of events. Any 'ought' we discover is what we make of our examination, nothing more and nothing less.
Here, I would like to remind you of previous examples: the struggle of beasts in nature. If a lion kills and eats a gazelle, we do not think it murder. Even if the lion kills and eats a human person, it is most likely still not murder. When, however, a human kills and eats another human, there is the presumption of murder and cannibalism following such acts. The difference is the "moral nature" of humans from other creatures.
[In this, I hold a typically modern view. Very ancient and primitive peoples appear to have attributed a spirit to non-human creatures, so, at least, people were required to beg forgiveness for acts against them. In the same vein, attacks upon humans were sometimes explained by the nature of those attacking creatures. Humans and other animals were seen as having similar intentional capabilities, thus responsibility.]
The presumption of moral responsibility (guilt) exists in all modern human cultures, and apparently has existed for at least 5,000 years in at least some cultures. The Maya may have excused manslaughter by their Kings, and ritual cannibalism may have been widespread among primitive tribes, but other things were considered criminal. Whatever the specifics of "right" and "wrong", people have been held accountable for their acts for a long time, whereas other creatures have not.
In Medieval times and later, there were acrimonious discussions about "free will." The cause of argument was the premise that moral behavior required "choice." Lions were to be exempted from punishment for murder, because they did not "choose" to kill gazelles; it was just their "involuntary" nature. These arguments were never resolved, nor, in my mind could they ever be. Behind the "free will" model of behavior and moral choice was the dualistic assumption of souls (minds) and bodies.
If we dispense with souls and minds in the dualistic sense, as I do, then "free will" doesn't seem to make much sense. After all, how can a material brain, the deciding organ, be free? The brain is composed of trillions of cells, a jumble of wiring, some of which we know about and much more that we don't. No one has ever discovered a "soul" there, or any other apparatus of intelligence and choice for that matter. We know the brain to be the seat of "thought" and bodily direction, but nowhere is found the center of moral choice, free will.
Suppose that such a search for "free will" is entirely irrelevant. Suppose that humans, like other creatures, are evolved examples of life on this planet. Suppose that it doesn't matter exactly how humans are wired, but only that they are sufficiently wired. Suppose, in other words, we apply the generalized Turing Test: in a double blind experiment, if you cannot tell the difference between the computer and the human, and you know there's at least one human, then both are human with respect to the quality sought. The outrageous claim is simply this: humans (and others) are morally responsible if they act as if they were. Morality is entirely puffery; a self-proclamation of worth. We need look no further in determining who is morally accountable.
There are consequences to this ethical principle. First, and to me most obvious, is no one can be excluded from citizenship or participation who claims it. Second, everyone who is admitted (admits himself) to the moral universe starts out equal. No being can be denied on account of race, species or place of origin. African blacks have the same merit as ET or North American WASPs. This equality arises from the fact that a claim to be a moral being is indivisible: one either is, or isn't. In the Turing test, no one knows who or what lies behind the screen; all anyone knows is how whatever is there interacts with our world, the world in front of the screen. Of course, this division of the world by a screen is symmetrical: the it on the other side sees things just as I (we) do. So, ultimately, the screen does not matter; it is only a way of specifying things to appear as an interaction.
Since I reject referring things to higher authority, in consequence I also reject the infamous explanations made at post-WWII Nuremberg: 'I was only following my orders.' Whether the authority is absolute or relative matters not to me, people are usually responsible for their acts.
Once admitted to the moral universe, it is not so easy to escape it. Those who make arguments that they are not responsible for their criminal or wartime acts must prove they are not moral agents. This amounts to a claim of zombification; they are merely robots in the service of another's will. This is a very difficult claim for, if true, those robotized are reduced to the status of a lion or an ant; i.e., they do not act as moral agents. In that case, there is no moral outrage or responsibility assigned to those who treat such a robot as a "mad dog," say by putting it out of its misery. In other words, opting out of the moral universe amounts to forfeiting one's existence as a moral being, thus any "rights" or privileges to which moral beings are entitled. Again, such an opting out is a descent to the "state of nature" (as they used to call it).
So, those who claim they "just followed their orders" are caught in a dilemma. If they were morally competent, then they are responsible for what they did and whatever consequences follow from those acts. If they are not morally competent, they have the same status as lions, gazelles and dogs, and whatever happens to them doesn't matter. So, if the Nazi SS guard threw people into the ovens, either he is a murderer or it doesn't matter if we murder him. Either way, claims of irresponsibility amount to throwing oneself on the mercy of the Court.
I will allow, however, in defense against responsibility, proofs of brainwashing, hypnosis, zombification and similar conditions known to prevent voluntary control of oneself. We cannot meaningfully talk about moral responsibility if the actor was merely a puppet; if the monkey's hands were manipulated by the cat for the cat's purposes. In such cases, we do have to pursue the manipulator. We might even be sympathetic and helpful to some monkey who was waylaid by a cat. Even if the bodily perpetrator is a sympathetic victim, it still falls on that puppet to demonstrate proof of abuse and to co-operate in bringing the real perpetrator to account. Anything less is bad faith. Keep in mind the puppet risks his life, his all, by claiming puppet status, which heaps even more responsibility on the puppet master.
I distinguish these things, right and good, as is made clear in the case of war. War is almost never good for anybody, but may be the right thing to do, or vice versa..
There are some people who believe war is good. For example, Islamic jihadists and suicide bombers believe martyrs will go to heaven upon their deaths, and be rewarded for their activities in a manner determined by Allah. War, for these believers, is a positive good when made in the name of Allah, because it rids the world of infidels (who are inherently evil, not good) and re-orders things into the pattern Allah intended. A Muslim who refused to go to war in these circumstances might be found wanting of doing his duty and, therefore, punishable.
Christian Crusaders used to believe similar things. Christians still believe similar things about those martyred for the faith.
War has generally been considered a "good thing" by those who felt the need to eliminate some bad people; always other people, not themselves. In this case, genocide or other liquidations are considered a good, because it reduces the presence of evil, despicable or lesser creatures. In order to justify this view, the "others" are often made out to be inhuman and incapable of being a moral agent. This removes negative barriers to having a war. The "classical" example of this sort of war was Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union, based on his views of Slavic peoples.
War has often been considered a good thing by militarists of all sorts. Arms manufacturers and all those who supply the military benefit hugely from war. Since war is a final settlement, a life and death affair, no expense is spared, no cost questioned. In that atmosphere, the "military-industrial complex" profits mightily (as recent American history attests). The military services themselves benefit, whether from an actual or expected war, because of their improved prestige, influence and pay. In every society convinced of the necessity of war, the military services and the arms merchants gobble up a huge proportion of the national income and often represent or control much of its wealth. Since these institutions usually survive even a lost war, arguments about the benefits of war are persistently made during peace, war and the interregnum.
War is also considered a good thing for training young men: it "toughens them up," selecting the strong and discarding the weak. Those holding this view usually believe military service "builds moral character" as well. The Spartans held views like that, and so do many Social Darwinians, Nazis, Fascists and (sadly) Americans.
Since war is a settlement by force of whatever issues were involved (included none at all), losers generally don't see much good in it or they aren't alive to comment. It is possible losers might see some good in a war; e.g., Iraqis recently freed of Saddam Hussein are thankful for the United States' Conquest which overthrew him. (On the other hand, as of this writing, only 2% of polled Iraqis appreciate the U.S. occupation of their country.) Germans and Japanese were sometimes appreciative of American help following Word War II, although they - especially the Japanese - also had misgivings based on cultural differences.
I think those who fought and won wars tend to be more warlike than those who lost. After all, there are many rewards for winning a war, at least equivalent to the punishments of the losers. In all recorded history, booty has been addictive, so one campaign leads to the next. Wars don't stop until an aggressor is badly beaten and, most often, destroyed. Until the last finale, aggressors portray war as a good thing. People love a winner, so they'll go along with winning wars. It is only when things go sour, when winning changes into losing, that most people have second thoughts. Somehow, even if they renounce war as a result of bad experiences, peace seldom becomes a way of life in subsequent generations. The next generation almost always starts new wars, having learned nothing from history.
Now, there is a difference between war being sometimes a good (a benefit), or good (effective) for some purpose, and war being good in general. Usually, those who claim war is good do so because of some greater principle or demand being made. Still, there are some people who hold that war is good in itself; e.g., soldiers of fortune. This is a very small group today, and I think it has always been a small group. For those who believe war is good, death or winning is not an issue. It is the practice of war, the adrenalin rush, or the insight into higher values that makes war good. This is war as waged by the ninja, samurai or Zen Buddhists, and by many professional soldiers. For these people, war is a way of life, a philosophy or a religion, usually identified with justice and setting things right. For them, war has the same status as fighting crime and punishing criminals. Those holding such beliefs argue that even a good society is never free of war, so war must be, at least, part of the good.
Clearly, war serves some purposes. Some people think it is a good thing now and then, some as a lifestyle. Nonetheless, I believe the vast majority of people have always held war to be a bad thing, not at all a good, even if sometimes it has its good points. But, then, everything has good points and bad points. What this shows is good things or good results cannot be the sole criterion by which moral action is judged. Even "the good," the best of all possible worlds, is possibly contaminated by conditions or events like war, depending on one's conception of that highest desirable state. So, we cannot even trust "the good" to be the standard of our ethical principles and moral judgements.
That war may be judged a good thing by some shows we cannot always rely on our intuition. If, as is presently the case in the United States, and was when this paper was originally due in 1996, government officials determine war is a good thing (effective for their purposes), how would I stand up to them without higher authority?
In the same vein, during the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s, many people were arrested, punished and imprisoned by the government for their "civil disobedience." The moral ground of civil disobedience is that protestors obey a "higher law." For those satisfied with the status quo, present conditions are "good," or a "good thing." To desire changing them is not good, and acting to change them is even worse. Civil disobedience not only proposes to break the law in the name of a higher law, but also to challenge the established order which its defenders believe is good.
If I am to justify opposing a war, or civil disobedience, there must be some tool I can use to overcome the presumptions of good things, the law, and any other extant arrangements. That tool is what is right.
In order for the tool to work, it must have certain properties. It must be sufficiently powerful to overcome determined resistance; i.e., it must not get worn with time and it must work in many situations against many different opponents. (The tool wouldn't be needed if there were no opponents, if everyone did the right thing all the time.) It must have the character of a directive or law, that which you ought to do; otherwise, why pay any attention to it? It must have mechanisms for determining different situations and applying itself to them.
I call this tool "right reason." It is an ethical tool, because it determines what is right. If applied consistently, it should lead us to a greater good, because it is good to do what is right. (I say "greater good," because I think nothing short of an infinite application of right reason will produce "The Good.") Right reason has the power to stand against lesser goods as well as evils, so helps us resist them. Right reason even has the power to overcome Good Intentions, which have been known to put people on the primrose path to Hell.
I associate right reason with Immanuel Kant's practical reason, the ability and facility to make correct, intelligent moral judgements. Prof John Rawls discusses it in extenso in A Theory of Justice, to which I refer the reader. (I don't feel a need to reinvent the wheel.) There, Rawls calls it rationality in demonstrating "justice as fairness." But, I am not a Rawlsian, even if I accept most of his conclusions, because I doubt the validity of some of his premises.
Rawls' book wasn't published until 1971, some 5 years after this paper was originally due. It does clarify many of the issues I was struggling with at the time. My difficulty may have been on account of the tradition I share with Rawls: the influence of Immanuel Kant. Kant presents a very attractive ethical scheme to those who are convinced democrats, but his transcendental idealism creates problems for latter day empiricists. As a materialist, I don't need a ding an sich, a noumenon, as a presupposition of a phenomenon. I am satisfied the phenomenon is whatever it is; I can live in a cave with ghostly appearances, Plato's flickering shadows.
When we remove the transcendentalism in Kant's idealism, what have we left? Just the material world, and a suspicion of something "behind" it. But, us more moderns (after Kant) prefer to explain away that suspicion as a trick of our brain, the same sort of trick that makes me believe I am an "I" and that I am "conscious." Take away the conscious sense of self, and perhaps the noumena will disappear, too.
Rawls interprets Kant's categorical imperative as a contract theory, using John Locke's notion of the Social Contract. But, coming to my subject, what have wars to do with contracts and conventions?
The United Nations and other bodies have rules governing war, rules which have the effect of law. There are also Geneva conventions concerning Prisoners of War. These conventions, derivative from ethical considerations, are international agreements governing human conduct in certain, delimited situations. The effect of such conventions is determined by the extent to which behavior is guided and judged by it.
There is a sort of ethical theory, 'Conventionalism,' which claims right or wrong is merely a matter of convention; i.e., what the parties have tacitly or otherwise accepted as such. Conventionalism is one form of contract theory, a form in which any higher standard than agreed authority has been thrown out. This is a very attractive theory to materialists such as myself, because it depends only on observables. Worries about what the gods want, or what is our "nature," all fade away. "Ought" comes down to a study of what is, of the prescriptions people make for themselves.
In conventionalism, "ought" and "good" may be a primitive terms which have no further reference other than common use. You can be an emotivist and also be a conventionalist, because the claim that 'good' and 'right' are feelings does not deny behavior. In the conventionalist cast, emotivism is merely an explanation of how ethical notions crop up in human intercourse. Intuitionism fits nicely as well, as an attempt to explain how humans have ethical ideas. Neither of those kinds of ethical theory challenge conventionalism, because they are just attempts to show that ethical notions are imbedded in human psychology. Conventionalism purports to show that ethical practices are imbedded in human social behavior, regardless of the details of psychology.
Conventionalism has the power to explain more than human behavior. We can infer ethical behavior in any intelligent social species, by observing what creatures do and correlating that with what they "say" (or its equivalent for that species). Conventionalism can be considered a scientific discipline, a specialized branch of anthropology or ethology. For all these reasons, I would like to retain conventionalist explanations of ethical behavior. But, I cannot accept treated "right" as an undefined primitive, even if I am willing to throw "good" to the emotivist and intuitionist wolves.
Much of the philosophy of law is guided by conventionalism. What's "good" is whatever you or I say it is; what's right is what was agreed. So, on the conventionalist view, the UN rules of war and the Geneva conventions prescribe the right thing to do; it's what any righteous being ought to do in the situations covered by those regulations.
The trouble with conventionalism is, I think, fundamentally oriented toward the status quo. In the conventional world, there is "conventional wisdom." There are precedents, guidelines, rules, regulations and laws, all of which intend to restrict behavior to what one ought to do. "Ought" is defined by the behavior it induces, regardless of what anyone "thinks" about it. While this certainly reinforces my idea of how a democratic society should (that's a goal) work in the Court room, it does not suggest how I am going to improve it. What is lacking in conventionalism is a larger sense of "right," of justice, that can motivate change when the system is unjust; the legislative urge.
So, if one is satisfied to lead the life of a "good businessman" (as in Dickens' Christmas Carol), conventionalism may be a perfectly satisfactory explanation of ethical behavior, and a sufficient basis for making choices. For those so inclined, it is sufficient that war be made according to the international (UN) and national rules to make it "legal" and ethical. While it may be difficult, a conventionalist might even justify Hitler's aggressions. The American presence in Korea (1950-) and Iraq (2003-) would clearly be OK, as they were properly authorized. Some other wars, such as Vietnam, may have been questionable. For this paper, the main point is that conventionalism does not have much to say about those who oppose wars, unless there was some defect in the process of making war.
As I previously noted, the idea of "right" can and must be strong enough to stand up to diversions, such as lesser goods. If one wants to question an otherwise approved war, commit civil disobedience, or refuse some other duty, it is necessary to go beyond conventions and other run-of-the-mill ethical considerations. There has to be a positive morality of refusal, of acting to bring about change.
Rawls considers this problem within the scope of his contractualism. He urges the argument that illegal or allegedly immoral acts would be permitted in a nearly (mostly?) just society, as such violations are an occasion on which injustice might be corrected and repaired. He believes those in the original position (the contract makers) would allow such exceptional conduct in the interest of improving their society; i.e., because everyone would benefit. While I accept his arguments within the context of his ethical system, it is not clear that every rational person would agree to some breaking of the rules right from the start. There is nothing to compel such agreement, or to prove a priori when or if anyone would benefit. Rawls has to rely on the enlightenment and disinterest of those in the original position to bring about the needed conditions.
The closest people have ever come to something like Rawls' original position was the Constitutional Convention which founded the United States. Almost always everywhere else, the Founders in the original position have succumbed to personal or class interests, and have not taken a long view of things. Thus, I don't think Rawls' theory is adequate when it comes to allowing violations of the social contract.
Continued: Just Wars, Moral Evolution
May 21- July 1, 2004
Last update: 11/07/2007
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