Just War?
In October The Center for Religious Inquiry sponsored a debate and discussion on the topic of “Just War Theory,” the concept that war may be “just” given certain circumstances. Part of a series entitled “The Moral Nation?” the event took place at St. Bart’s Cathedral in New York.
Moderator Joel Rosenthal, Ph.D., President of the Carnegie Council, says that the series originated because of the “significant moral and ethical issues at the heart of our public life that needed more attention” and that bringing together “a forum of like-minded institutions” was called for in order to debate the relevant issues and bring together diverse voices and perspectives. Dr. Rosenthal points out that on a day when CNN reported that U.S. troops in Iraq were ordered to undergo “values training,” the issues under discussion were of particular relevance.
Just War Theory, which traces its roots back as far as Cicero and includes St. Thomas Aquinas and Immanuel Kant among its many theorists, essentially states that in certain situations or scenarios, warfare can be justified but that there are criteria and rules that must be met in order for a war to be considered “just.”
Force should only be used in response to a “grave public evil,” for example, in which the injustice suffered by one side significantly outweighs that of the other and only after peaceful alternatives have been explored and exhausted.
The panel for the evening also included Thomas M. Nichols, Ph.D., former Chairman of Strategy and Policy at the U.S. Naval War College and author of the book, Winning the World: Lessons for America’s Future from the Cold War and Jean Bethke Elshtain, Ph.D., of The University of Chicago Divinity School and author of Just War Against Terror: The Burden of American Power in a Violent World.
Dr. Nichols opens his remarks by asking the audience to make a distinction between pre-emptive and preventive war.
“I believe that we have already entered an era of preventive war,” he says. “In the not so distant future, preventive, discretionary violence is going to become more acceptable and more practiced not just by the United States, but by the developed powers who feel themselves under a particular kind of threat.”
Dr. Elshtain’s point of departure is her argument that “war was certainly the only answer to Nazism†and that “armed intervention would have been a better course in Rwanda.” There is a danger, she says, both of doing too little and of doing too much when it comes to the question of war.
In the above discussion and debate, the three panelists tackle these complex issues and their relevance to the war in Iraq and the ongoing US deployment in Afghanistan.
Panelists
Joel Rosenthal, Ph.D.,
Carnegie Council: The Voice for Ethics in International Policy
Jean Bethke Elshtain, Ph.D.
The University of Chicago Divinity School
Thomas M. Nichols, Ph.D.
U.S. Naval War College
Discussion
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