ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that, given a commitment to basic human worth and thereby to human rights, people should frame the Just War Tradition (JWT) with a foundational presumption against war. The war is organized violence between bonded groups of human beings. Because a just war is a species of war, then a just war is organized violence between bonded groups that are related in some respect that makes the violence between those groups just. The chapter describes one important normative fact about human warfare: military violence can be employed to achieve an indefinitely large and exceedingly varied diversity of worthy goods, only a small fraction of which can help to fulfill the explanatory mandate constitutive of the just cause requirement. Just causes delimit permissible war aims and permissible war aims in turn delimit permissible targets. Aggression consists of one nation-states forcible violation of the right to territorial integrity or political sovereignty of another nation-state.
