ABSTRACT
This chapter begins the positive defense of the moral equality of combatants by building the foundation of a contractualist just war theory. People living in communities have a collective responsibility to protect the rights of community members (theirs and others). This responsibility directs people to create and support just institutions able to protect people’s rights expertly over time. The responsibility creates professional duties for members of just institutions to execute their properly-constituted professional norms as a way of protecting the rights of community members. Properly-constituted professional norms for government actors are those that are the most rights-respecting of those norms and tactics that themselves, are the most efficacious at accomplishing the institution’s morally important ends.
