War and Individual Rights: The Foundations of Just War Theory
Kai Draper
Abstract
This book begins with the assumption that individual rights exist and stand as moral obstacles to the pursuit of national, no less than personal, interests. That assumption might seem to demand a pacifist rejection of all war, for any sustained war effort requires military operations that predictably kill many noncombatants as “collateral damage,” and presumably at least most noncombatants have a right not to be killed. Yet the book ends with the conclusion that sometimes recourse to war is justified. The book’s argument relies on the insights of John Locke to develop and defend a framework of ... More
This book begins with the assumption that individual rights exist and stand as moral obstacles to the pursuit of national, no less than personal, interests. That assumption might seem to demand a pacifist rejection of all war, for any sustained war effort requires military operations that predictably kill many noncombatants as “collateral damage,” and presumably at least most noncombatants have a right not to be killed. Yet the book ends with the conclusion that sometimes recourse to war is justified. The book’s argument relies on the insights of John Locke to develop and defend a framework of rights to serve as the foundation for a new just war theory. Notably missing from that framework is any doctrine of double effect. Most just war theorists rely on that doctrine to provide a potential justification for injuring and killing innocent bystanders in war, but it is argued that various prominent formulations of the doctrine are either untenable or irrelevant to the ethics of war. The doctrine of doing and allowing is also rejected in favor of a set of doctrines about rights. Ultimately the book offers a single principle for assessing whether recourse to war would be justified. It also explores in some detail the issue of how to distinguish discriminate from indiscriminate violence in war, arguing that although some noncombatants are liable to attack, various attempts to extend liability to all or most citizens of a nation engaged in unjust war are unsuccessful.
Keywords:
individual rights,
noncombatant,
collateral damage,
John Locke,
just war theory,
double effect,
doing and allowing
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2015 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199388899 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2015 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199388899.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Kai Draper, author
Professor and Chair, Department of Philosophy, University of Delaware
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