ABSTRACT
By means of a historical analysis in search of common elements, the historian might construct an idealized theory, something that no single person ever devised—namely, the traditional just war theory. How should the traditional just war theory be revised? The chapter focuses on Helen Frowe's individualist just war theory. Her books The Ethics of War and Peace and Defensive Killing are cogent and illuminating. Her reflective claims about her theory are particularly instructive. The chapter shows that her theory is sufficiently representative of an individualist approach to just war theory. The subject of reductionism versus antireductionism is complex and controversial. In a particular reductive-individualist just war theory, there might be both theory reduction and ontological reduction. When critically examining that reductive theory, it is essential to disentangle various reductive claims. Moral constraints on the group action can be derived from moral constraints on the interrelated actions of those individual humans.
