As has been widely discussed, and Roger Alford at Opinio Juris notes, President Obama’s Nobel Prize speech drew extensively upon just war ethics. I will try to come back to this very interesting topic of just war ethics later on, but not before the ... corporate finance and IBT exams are graded! Meanwhile, the distinguished neoconservative Catholic theologian and critic George Weigel, a leading interpreter of the just war in the conservative tradition, comments on the deployment of just war theory in the speech.
Weigel led the charge against the American bishops’ 1980s pastoral letter on peace and nuclear arms, on the grounds that the bishops formally claimed allegiance to just war criteria, but in any actual case somehow concluded against war — “functional pacifism,” he called it, and it was an apt description. The formal apparatus for examining war was just war ethics, but somehow the calculus was set in every case so as to rule out war. It is a charge that is echoed in secular analytic settings today — I, for example, have sometimes criticized the human rights monitoring community of setting standards that in principle allow the United States to engage in war, but in the important actual situations, the use of force always turns out to be wrongfully performed; functional pacifism is, from my standpoint, a useful characterization.
In the linked essay, Weigel makes a similar point about its use today, including in part in the Obama Nobel speech — although, he notes, other things in the speech cut different directions. The original Augustine-Aquinas framing of the theory, Weigel argues, was a theory about just order and legitimate authority, tranquillitas ordinis as against the transcendental peace of the end of days; in recent decades in the United States in particular, it has been taken as a set of hurdles against war itself, which legitimate leaders must satisfy in order to undertake armed conflict:
In fact, however, the classic just-war tradition began, not with a presumption against war, but with a passion for justice: The just prince is obliged to secure the “tranquility of order,” or peace, for those for whom he accepts political responsibility, and that peace, to repeat, is composed of justice, security, and freedom. There are many ways for the just prince (or prime minister, or president) to do this; one of them is armed force. Its justified use can sometimes come after other means of securing justice, security, and freedom have been tried and failed; but it can also sometimes mean shooting first ...
[T]he notion that just-war analysis begins with a “presumption against war” (or, as some put it, with a “pacifist premise”) is simply wrong. The just-war way of thinking begins somewhere else: with legitimate public authority’s moral obligation to defend the common good by defending the peace composed of justice, security, and freedom. The just-war tradition is not a set of hurdles that moral philosophers, theologians, and clergy set before statesmen. It is a framework for collaborative deliberation about the basic aims of legitimate government as it engages hostile regimes and networks in the world.
The President’s speech was not functional pacifism in just war guise, however. Weigel is warning against understanding just war ethics in that way, including an interpretation of its deployment in President Obama’s speech. The tradition most at work in the speech is Niebuhrian realism. It is a form of moral realism that has elements of just war ethics but also a much stronger sense of traditional realism — the “world as it is” of the speech — and which run against just war ethics as functional pacifism. There are tensions between this moderate moral realism and stricter versions of just war ethics, however, depending on the elements of each that one might emphasize.
However, perhaps more important is that although to American ears, the just war tradition and its requirements seem, today, quite ordinary and natural, it is both a relatively new way of speaking about war in the American political tradition; also one that to European intellectuals and its international elites strange if not disturbing in the age of the UN Charter; and finally one that is not embraced directly by the Vatican.
With respect to the American tradition, it needs to be understood just how obscure just war ethics was prior to its resurrection, first by Paul Ramsey and his student, the distinguished historian and theologican James Turner Johnson, and then, in the wake of Vietnam, by Michael Walzer in Just and Unjust Wars. It was emphatically not the ethics of war that informed the United States earlier than Vietnam — the long running tradition of the United States from the Civil War forward was ‘moral realism’ about the use of force, in both its jus ad bellum and jus in bello senses. What is this moral realism and how does it differ from just war theory as a formal apparatus? It is less formal, to start with — a much more open moral architecture, with fewer criteria, and so more accepting of judgments about the “world as it is.” Perhaps the best single line statement of it would be, slightly oddly, from Thomas Berger’s novel, Arthur Rex, in which the Lady of Lake tells Arthur the essence of his duty as a ruler: “Maintain power in as decent a way as would yet be effective.” It is, of course, harder than it looks.
Niebuhr should be seen in important ways as the heir of that tradition, rather than the formal machinery of just war ethics — not all genuinely “moral” approaches to war derive from just war ethics, after all. Walzer’s remarkable achievement was to place a modern, secular version of the theory at the center of US political thinking — consider that a book from the moderate left in America could eventually find its way to become a standard text in the US military academies. But it also needs to be understood that Walzer’s version of just war theory is not really the Christian just war tradition, either — not just because he makes it into a secular theory, but because he makes it a theory of modernity and its emphasis on freedom, rather than one of God’s love, including the love of those who fight against aggression against their own community or another’s. For Walzer, just war theory is a theory of individual rights as an expression of their liberty; and therefore the highest obligation of the just war is to resist unjust aggression. That is not the highest obligation of Christian just war ethics, which is a theory of justice but not always “rights.” (I discuss these differences over at my now-dormant personal blog.)
With respect to Europe, well, although the desire to be polite towards President Obama constrains comment, look back and review what European intellectuals and public lawyers said at the time, not just of Iraq, but Kosovo, Afghanistan, and even the first Gulf War. There was a considerable concern that the Americans placed just war theory over the positive law of the UN Charter that was supposed to have overtaken, so to speak, moral argument with a formal legal structure. This was now law, not ethics. European intellectual views have tended to look at just war ethics with a certain suspicion that it is an American moral discourse that allows the United States to reach conclusions, and public support for conclusions, that might be rooted in moral argument — but are not rooted in international law of the Charter. They are almost certainly right about that — skeptics like me see no convincing way to reconcile the Charter with how states behave, or with moral argument about the use of force, and so oddly share the views of the international lawyers on this matter.
And as for the Vatican — well, I am not a Catholic or Catholic theologian, but in following Vatican statements concerning the use of force, I have long been struck that the Vatican does not follow just war ethics as even the formal apparatus of analysis. Summarizing roughly, it seems to follow more closely the European line about the primacy of international law, or anyway a certain, thoroughly unrealistic, but literal, reading of the Charter. I have sometimes wondered if the Vatican’s refusal even to speak the formal language of just war ethics — the five or seven standard criteria — was not intended as a very long term message that, although Americans associate just war ethics with Catholicism, it is not the law of the Church, but only one tradition within it concerning the use of force. I believe Weigel would concur in the observation that the Vatican has abstained from signing onto just war ethics as the formal apparatus for analyzing resort to war.
(I’ll add that over at my now-mostly-dormant personal blog, I have a lot of posts on just war ethics, Walzer, and related topics. Look under the just war theory and Walzer tags.)
Daniel Charlies says:
I think perhaps you could have made the case that a just war might have been effective 8 years ago, after 9–11.
But now, with the fighters over the border in Pakistan, 8 years later? Odds are, you’re going to catch more collateral damage than you are bad guys.
Pres. Obama even laughed — that was his response, to laugh — when asked on 60 minutes how exactly we were going to turn over security and government operations to a central government, seeing that Afghanistan unlike Iraq, never really had one.
He laughed.
You’d make a much better argument for a just war, if you could define the strategy past “We’re going to hunt down the bad guys, and protect and not harm you innocents, and we’re not going to cut and run when we finally admit this job as we’ve defined it cannot be done.”
If I were a Afghani? I’d take care throwing in my lots with the Americans, because surely we’ll be out eventually and all our promises worthless as far as their protection.
Calling this a “just war” won’t blind many Catholics to the fact that it’s a verrrrry inefficient and to date, ineffectual one. And as that collateral damage continues to add up, the calculations to end results ratio surely changes? Daniel Charlies(Quote)
Shag from Brookline says:
I’m wondering what the late George Carlin might have said about “just war” like the take of the military-industrial complex that it is “just [or simply] war” as compared to Obama’s “just [or righteous] war.” Shag from Brookline(Quote)
pireader says:
Professor Anderson –
I wanted to comment on your reading of the European focus on international law (including the Vatican).
Many years ago,National Lampoon had a parody article on “the law of the jungle”, complete with citations. The law’s core principle was that an animal could do whatever it could get away with; the humor came in wrapping that principle in pages of gauzy, smiley euphemisms. And that pretty well captures the American view of international law.
In Europe, the view is different. Large nations with competing needs and wants lie next to one another; for centuries that proximity led to continuous bloodshed. Things are different now, and the Europeans see the difference as a broad acceptance of the rule of law.
In short, it’s a daily reality for them, not some moralistic theory. And it seems to work for them, so they want to see it strengthened rather than eroded. pireader(Quote)
Assistant Village Idiot says:
Thank you for the leads to followup on the history of Just War analysis and your theories as to why the Europeans and the Vatican do not seem to warm to it as we expect they might. You say much better than I what I offered on your December 11 post.
I would offer also the irritating statement that a presumption of pacifism was unusual in Christian thought until the first part of the 20th C — notably, when it looked like we might have to fight socialists of various types. Before that, there were traditions of individual abstaining from violence for higher calling (such as the monastic orders and peace churches), and a recurring theme that no governments were worthy of Christian allegiance (2nd-4th C’s, apocalyptic groups); but generalised pacifism was strongly influenced by intellectual currents in the larger society which affected church intellectuals as well. The transfer of allegiance from Just War thinking to UN thinking by the Catholic bishops conferences illustrate this. Assistant Village Idiot(Quote)
Assistant Village Idiot says:
pireader — that is the Western European impression, certainly. But it is arrived at only by ignoring a great deal of the data. They might ask the Eastern Europeans for some of that. Assistant Village Idiot(Quote)
Dilan Esper says:
weigel is a hack and a cafeteria catholic. the last two popes have emphatically rejected his hawkish construction of just war theory, and weigel isn’t shy about pushing papal obediance on issues where he agrees with the pope. Dilan Esper(Quote)
jcm says:
Saint Thomas on Just War
Brought by you by the same people that produced the Crusades
Wilson waged war , allegedly, to force germany into democracy. The wilsonian approach ( neocon before Strauss) was based on the just war theory.
And the Civil War was seen also as a just war by abolitionists.
And also the 1776–1783 against the british empire
The Pope John Paul II helped the USA in the Pershing and Cruise missiles deployment. He got the Vatican recognized as a State for his support beyond the Iron Wall jcm(Quote)
jcm says:
jcm(Quote)
jcm says:
I answer that, In order for a war to be just, three things are necessary. First, the authority of the sovereign by whose command the war is to be waged. For it is not the business of a private individual to declare war, because he can seek for redress of his rights from the tribunal of his superior. Moreover it is not the business of a private individual to summon together the people, which has to be done in wartime. And as the care of the common weal is committed to those who are in authority, it is their business to watch over the common weal of the city, kingdom or province subject to them. And just as it is lawful for them to have recourse to the sword in defending that common weal against internal disturbances, when they punish evil-doers, according to the words of the Apostle (Romans 13:4): “He beareth not the sword in vain: for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evil”; so too, it is their business to have recourse to the sword of war in defending the common weal against external enemies. Hence it is said to those who are in authority (Psalm 81:4): “Rescue the poor: and deliver the needy out of the hand of the sinner”; and for this reason Augustine says (Contra Faust. xxii, 75): “The natural order conducive to peace among mortals demands that the power to declare and counsel war should be in the hands of those who hold the supreme authority.”
Secondly, a just cause is required, namely that those who are attacked, should be attacked because they deserve it on account of some fault. Wherefore Augustine says (QQ. in Hept., qu. x, super Jos.): “A just war is wont to be described as one that avenges wrongs, when a nation or state has to be punished, for refusing to make amends for the wrongs inflicted by its subjects, or to restore what it has seized unjustly.”
Thirdly, it is necessary that the belligerents should have a rightful intention, so that they intend the advancement of good, or the avoidance of evil. Hence Augustine says (De Verb. Dom. [The words quoted are to be found not in St. Augustine’s works, but Can. Apud. Caus. xxiii, qu. 1): “True religion looks upon as peaceful those wars that are waged not for motives of aggrandizement, or cruelty, but with the object of securing peace, of punishing evil-doers, and of uplifting the good.” For it may happen that the war is declared by the legitimate authority, and for a just cause, and yet be rendered unlawful through a wicked intention. Hence Augustine says (Contra Faust. xxii, 74): “The passion for inflicting harm, the cruel thirst for vengeance, an unpacific and relentless spirit, the fever of revolt, the lust of power, and such like things, all these are rightly condemned in war.”
Saint thomas jcm(Quote)
ArthurKirkland says:
My recollection as well. Should he be denied communion for persistent warmongering? ArthurKirkland(Quote)
RPT says:
Would not any war waged or promoted on false pretenses be disqualified? RPT(Quote)
Bama 1L says:
“I have sometimes wondered if the Vatican’s refusal even to speak the formal language of just war ethics — the five or seven standard criteria — was not intended as a very long term message that, although Americans associate just war ethics with Catholicism, it is not the law of the Church, but only one tradition within it concerning the use of force. I believe Weigel would concur in the observation that the Vatican has abstained from signing onto just war ethics as the formal apparatus for analyzing resort to war.”
But what is the alternative? Pacifism.
I am Catholic and I agree that just war is not the Church’s only teaching on war. In fact there are two sets of moral traditions: just war and pacifism. Just war is the more permissive one; pacifism is the older and better attested one.
I think that Catholics have to choose between just war and pacifism. Probabiliorism lets you go with either one despite the weight of authority for the other one, but there isn’t some other option I can see. I would love to hear about it.
So I don’t think Weigel would agree with you. I take him to argue that just war is the only tradition, and that therefore some wars are just and you can’t be an intelligent Catholic and disagree. But if the pacifist tradition exists, then you can hold that no war is just. Bama 1L(Quote)
Bama 1L says:
It depends on the timescales involved. Where was the just war tradition in the first centuries of Christianity? It was waiting for the Christianization of the Empire to demand it and Augustine to articulate it, that’s where.
Where was it when Carolingian armies demanded absolution for participation in war, because of their fear that any participation in killing might be sinful?
I don’t think you see just war really get much traction until circa 1000 or later, with the Peace of God/Truce of God movements defining where violence should exist in Christian societies. Then you get Aquinas’s authoritative statements and the general legalization of morality. But this does not displace the pacifist tradition, which everyone will agree exists at minimum in certain religious orders. Bama 1L(Quote)
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Assistant Village Idiot says:
Bama 1L, Whoa, I say whoa, there. Pacifism was not the tradition of the Christian church(es) before 1000, or before the 4th C, or whatever date you pick. I agree that Just War theory was more inchoate prior to the Augustine-Aquinas chain, but that does not mean there was a default pacifism in Christian teaching.
To say that Catholics must choose between pacifism and just war, uncapitalized, seems a solid starting place.
Dilan Esper, it might fairly be said that the last two popes disagree with Weigel about Just War doctrine. To say that they have emphatically rejected his hawkish construction is just your spin, in an attempt to be dismissive. They said no such thing. When I encounter such arguments, I usually wonder why the disputant has to exaggerate his claim. Assistant Village Idiot(Quote)
wolfefan says:
I’m not sure the choice for a Christian is necessarily between just war and pacifism. I’ve always read the New Testament as teaching non-resistance by the Christian, as opposed to pacifism by the state. The Christian in general was to remaine as separate from the state as possible. The state was ordained to do certain things, among them maintain order and provide for the common defense, but I don’t see a Biblical rationale for the individual Christian participating actively in these state activities.
The earliest Christians seem to have interpreted things that way; one of the complaints against early Christians was that they refused to serve in the army. This would be an example of non-resistance on the part of the individual, not necessarily endorsing a pacifist position on the part of the state.
I come out of an Anabaptist/Pietist heritage, so my views of church and state will be different than those out of Catholic or Lutheran traditions. YMMV. wolfefan(Quote)
Dilan Esper says:
Dilan Esper, it might fairly be said that the last two popes disagree with Weigel about Just War doctrine. To say that they have emphatically rejected his hawkish construction is just your spin, in an attempt to be dismissive. They said no such thing. When I encounter such arguments, I usually wonder why the disputant has to exaggerate his claim.
This is not spin– we’ve had actual wars, and the last 2 popes have had the opportunity to speak about those wars. And they have spoken in a manner which has been, in several instances, quite emphatic in opposition to the wars. And these were wars that Weigel’s gloss on just war theory could have called justified (and which Weigel himself supported).
Now, if your definition of emphatic rejection is the Pope excommunicating Weigel or something, than no, the Pope hasn’t emphatically rejected it. (By that same standard, the Pope hasn’t emphatically rejected pro-choice politicians either.) But both the current Pope and the last one have taken strong stands against supposedly “just” wars, when they could have (for instance) acknowledged disagreement among Catholic scholars as to the proper application of just war theory. I’d say that’s pretty emphatic.
More generally, as an outsider, I would comment that I don’t think that some of the combatants in the ideological battles within the Catholic Church always appreciate that the Church leadership is very careful when taking stands to not go too far in doing so. This is why, for instance, the leadership is unambiguously pro-life and indicates that those who take actions to promote abortion are gravely wrong, but they do not specifically order excommunications or expressly endorse the practice of denying communion. Similarly, the Church takes pretty strong stands against capital punishment (at least in practice) and war, but it doesn’t punish or condemn elements within the Church who are more supportive of these things.
The Church hierarchy doesn’t want to create splinter groups or lose parishoners and priests to other denominations. So, on an issue such as war, you aren’t going to get a specific papal statement saying “George Weigel is wrong”. Weigel represents a significant constituency of Catholics. But what you will get is specific papal denunciations of warfare that are completely inconsistent with Weigel’s version of the just war doctrine. Dilan Esper(Quote)
PubliusFL says:
On the other hand, when talking about the “earliest Christians,” you can’t get much earlier than the centurions in Matthew 8 and Acts 10. They are spoken of approvingly, with no suggestion that they ought to look for a new line of work. PubliusFL(Quote)
Mark N. says:
I’m not an expert in this area, but what I’ve read does seem to suggest that at least a lot of scholars of the early church hold that view.
For example, Tim Dowley’s Introduction to the History of Christianity says (p. 52):
Certainly the apologists of the 1st-3rd c. who wrote on the subject were uniformly against Christians serving in the military, although they weren’t all motivated by purely pacifist grounds (some writers were particularly concerned about the danger of idolatry). Mark N.(Quote)
David Sucher says:
I don’t see any mention here of ‘likelihood of winning.’ It seems to me that if you embark on a just cause using violence but have no real hope of ‘winning’ — however you have already described it — then you cannot have a just war.
So there has to be some large mention of whether you can win in determining a just war.
Now I assume that violence in immediate self-defense are always more likely than not “just.” But once again — your method of self-defense — from, say, Al Quaeda by sending 200,000 troops to Afghanistan — has to meet the effectiveness test for your war to be ‘just.’
Of course no proponent will admit this particular Afghanistan war won’t work (or even likely not to work) so we are back at square one right now.
But the discussion of ‘just war’ must take into account whether you can win or if you will just make matters worse. David Sucher(Quote)
Bama 1L says:
I think we basically agree on the larger issues, but to my knowledge there is simply no pre-Constantine Christian document saying that a Christian may fight in a war. Now you might say that the real problem was that the emperors were pagan and that army service would require sacrifice to the imperial image. Fighting wars is okay if you don’t have to become an idolator to do it. But Christian writers–who were capable of making such distinctions–simply did not say this. It’s possible it simply did not occur to them that Christians could be running the show someday and deciding whether or not to fight wars, but I think it’s more likely they thought that if Christians were running the show there would actually be no wars.
So I really do think it starts with Augustine. Remember that another of Augustine’s great contributions was to explain why public force could be used against Christian heretics. Bama 1L(Quote)
corneille1640 says:
I, for one, don’t see the epithet “functional pacifism” to be necessarily pejorative, although that is probably how it is meant by Messrs. Anderson and Weigel. I kind of like the idea of putting very high bar on what counts as a “just war.”
I still have to think this over, though. corneille1640(Quote)
Instapundit » Blog Archive » PROFESSOR KENNETH ANDERSON ON Just War Theory and Obama’s Nobel Prize speech…. says:
Just War and the Presumption of Pacifism » First Thoughts | A First Things Blog says:
Assistant Village Idiot says:
Excellent responses, BTW. I confess I sometimes forget I am dealing with an intelligent group here, which avoids many of the common traps.
I. Dilan. point partially taken. I would not call that “emphatic,” but it aint nothin’. As Weigel notes, the popes lean more heavily toward the European model of “international agreement” (likely because they are Europeans). They have indeed moved away from Just War thinking, not only Weigel’s version. As such, I think it is they who have the contradiction to balance: they are not going to repudiate the concept, but they clearly don’t like it.
II. The line between military and police when discussing pacifism is quite blurry. Even in America, which makes the distinction more firmly than most cultures, there is the National Guard, for example. It is not a useless distinction, but neither is it clean, and I have little patience with pacifists who speak as if it is.
III. I was I-O myself during the Vietnam era (stupid hippie), and now have some idea of the pitfalls of that framing. In particular, pacifism is advocated as a strategy that works, a sentiment I do not find in the NT. I have enormous respect for those who choose that route with eyes open, believing that they are called to non-resistance whatever the consequences. We will likely die. But God calls us to this. More recently, however, the idea has crept in that Jesus advocated non-violence in a Gandhian way, as a victory strategy. This is quite evident in European thought, and in the formulations of recent popes. This I believe to be quite wrong, neither theologically nor practically wise. In the longest of long runs, perhaps a case could be made that it is the only strategy with any hope of success. I waive the point, and if that is what the Vatican is referring to I have no objection. But their phrasing does not seem firmly focused on that far distance; it seems focused on the medium term peace of the current generation. If we behave with gentleness and humility, we will conquer. History suggests not. Assistant Village Idiot(Quote)
Daniel Charlies says:
In this case, the pacifist is deciding who is to die. Not choosing is choosing
Or...
the “pacifist” non-involved party is leaving it to nature, fate, the natural evolution of consequence without interfering. Daniel Charlies(Quote)
anon says:
Bama1L wrote:
“I think that Catholics have to choose between just war and pacifism.”
Do you think the war that the Catholics waged against the Jews in the 1940’s
was a just war? Do you think that a pope who was a member of the HitlerJugend
is able to be an impartial moral judge of that issue? Do you think that
Jewish self-defense in Judea/Samaria/Gaza District/Green-line Israel is
Just? Do you think that ANY Jewish self-defense against Catholic/Muslim
murderers is just?
Just asking ... anon(Quote)
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