ABSTRACT
Traditional post-Westphalian just war theory sees war as a distinct moral domain, one with different rules for the use of force than the civilian domain. A characteristically distinct element in the military domain is the moral equality of combatants, the idea that combatants on either side of a war have the same right to fight, according to the same rules, irrespective of the justice of their cause. By contrast, “revisionist” philosophers think combatants should be held to the same moral standards as civilians. It follows that combatants’ actions pursuant to an unjust end are unjustified, thereby making most combatants on the unjust side unilaterally liable to the just side’s combatants’ defensive violence. This book defends traditional just war theory in its conclusions and collectivist methods. Participants in certain kinds of collective activity can be justified in contributing to unjust collective actions, creating the conceptual possibility of the moral equality of combatants and associated egalitarian moral norms. The collective responsibility to deliver security to a community is at the heart of a contractualist theory which shows how conventional combatants of basically just states are equally justified in deploying to war, even if their state’s cause is unjust.
