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Paleoconservatism and the war in Iraq, Part I

The editors of a recent anthology of essays critical of the war in Iraq piously lament the extent to which "the affixing of labels has come to replace the serious exchange of ideas," a "clear sign," they sternly warn us, "of the corruption of American politics." Then, in the very next paragraph and without irony, they curtly dismiss Michael Novak, a well-known defender of the war, as a "neocon" and a "hack." Such cluelessness and hypocrisy pervade the volume, beginning with its sophomoric title "Neo-CONNED!" (Apparently, the editors themselves were concerned that the expression "neo-conned" might fail adequately to convey the "seriousness" they yearn to restore to political discourse, and thought some extra capital letters and an exclamation point would help.)

The book's contributors are, for the most part, contemporary paleoconservatives of various stripes, though there are some essays by writers who might not welcome this label, and some older theological pieces on just war theory by authors who died long before the start of the war in Iraq. (A companion volume, Neo-CONNED! Again, also contains essays by several left-of-center writers.) In fairness, it must be said that these authors cannot be blamed for the low-rent style exemplified in the book's editorial material. Indeed, some of them rise above it in their own contributions, and make points that are worthy of serious consideration even if one ultimately judges them to be mistaken. Still, even the better pieces are marred by a lack of nuance and charity toward the other side. Like many left-wing critics of the war, paleoconservatives seem to have become so embittered over independent political and philosophical disagreements with President Bush and the mainstream conservative movement that they are incapable of evaluating the war itself in an objective and dispassionate way. And as with the left-wing critics, this often leads them into serious inconsistencies.

It is noteworthy that the book presents itself as representing the traditional Catholic understanding of just war theory. By “traditional” here, I don’t just mean “conservative.” “Traditionalism,” as it is used in many Roman Catholic circles, connotes an outlook that tends to regard with skepticism many of the changes in Catholic life and thought that have occurred since the Second Vatican Council. For instance, Catholic traditionalists (unlike some other conservative Catholics) prefer the old Tridentine Mass to the current Novus Ordo (popularly referred to as the “Latin Mass” and the “vernacular Mass” respectively, though the difference in language is not the only difference between them). They also tend to think (again, unlike some other conservative Catholics) that, whatever its good intentions, Vatican II was naïve in its optimism about the modern world, and too willing to attribute to it the best of motives at the precisely the time (the 1960s) when it was making a decisive and unprecedented break with the intellectual and moral heritage of Western civilization. And they tend to think that contemporary Catholic thinking about moral questions has, even among many conservatives, veered too far from the time-tested rigor of traditional natural law reasoning and put too much stock in what traditionalists regard as novel and imprecise ideas (e.g. personalism) that owe less to Catholic tradition than to modern secular philosophical trends.

Many of the contributors to Neo-CONNED! are Catholic traditionalists in this sense, as are some other paleoconservative critics of the war. They claim, as the book’s editors put it, that “the principles of the Catholic just-war tradition… convict the war in Iraq of manifest injustice” (emphasis mine). Like so many left-wing critics of the war, these people are not content to say that the war was unwise, ill-advised, or poorly thought-out; they insist on branding it as evil through-and-through, and its architects as moral monsters. I find this attitude completely indefensible, indeed preposterous. I do not deny that reasonable people can disagree about whether the war was a good idea, or even, on balance, the morally best course of action. But I think there are no grounds whatsoever for claiming that it was “manifestly unjust,” at least not in traditional natural law theory. In my view, the natural law tradition – especially as understood by the pre-Vatican II thinkers the paleoconservative critics would claim to follow – quite clearly shows the war in Iraq to have been, at the very least, a morally defensible (even if not the only morally defensible) course of action. And paleoconservatives who claim otherwise are, I would argue, often motivated less by traditional Catholic or natural law thinking itself than by certain other ideological commitments – commitments that are not only distinct from the Catholic and natural law traditions but sometimes even incompatible with them.

What I want to do in this three-part series, then, is to show that the war in Iraq is, to repeat, at the very least defensible from the point of view of traditional just war theory, and thus on the basis of premises that paleoconservatives themselves must regard as reasonable. My aim is not conclusively to settle the question of whether it was in fact the best course of action, all things considered – that would take far more than even three long blog posts to establish – but only to show that paleoconservatives (and certainly those paleoconservatives sympathetic to a traditional Catholic understanding of natural law and just war theory) have no rational basis for treating the war as if it were a “manifest injustice” or otherwise flatly incompatible with conservative principles. The vitriol with which they typically engage their opponents on this issue is therefore itself unjust, as well as counterproductive. Indeed, it is in many cases reflective of a radically unconservative and untraditional cast of mind.

I will begin by examining, in this post and the next, the justification of the war in Iraq from the point of view of traditional just war theory. Then, having shown that there is nothing in that tradition that can justify the intemperate claims made about the war by paleoconservatives, I will (in the final post) provide an explanation of why so many of them have made such claims anyway – an explanation that suggests that it is they, rather than their opponents, who have departed from tradition and from genuine conservatism.


The just war tradition and the war in Iraq

In an article on National Review Online last year, philosopher David Oderberg noted that despite the tendency of contemporary churchmen to speak as if war is never justifiable except in self-defense, Catholic manuals of ethics and moral theology prior to Vatican II commonly taught that a response to immediate attack was only one of several possible legitimate justifications for going to war. For this brazen statement of easily verifiable objective fact he was derisively labeled a “neocon” by The American Conservative magazine. Apparently, for The American Conservative – and, one gathers, for the contributors to Neo-CONNED! – to adhere (or even call attention) to the just war tradition as it was understood prior to the 1960s is “neoconservative,” while to reject or ignore this tradition in favor of post-1960s novelties is “paleoconservative.” One wonders if these folks have a clear understanding of what “neo” and “paleo” mean. (Full disclosure: I have written a couple of book reviews for TAC, and they have been unfailingly kind to me. I’d love to review Neo-CONNED! for them too. Please let me know if you’re interested, fellas.)

Whatever the reasons for this bizarre response to Oderberg, he was surely right to suggest, as he did in his piece, that the pre-Vatican II manuals are a good source of information about traditional thinking concerning the ethics of war. They summarize and build on the just war tradition represented by Augustine, Aquinas, Bellarmine, Suarez, and others, and are untainted by ideas traditionalists and paleoconservatives would in other contexts denounce as modernist or liberal. And since the Catholic just war tradition is the source of Western just war thinking in general, the teaching of the manuals is as relevant and useful to non-Catholics as to Catholics, at least where one’s interest is in getting a sense of what an undeniably conservative and traditional view of war might look like. Obviously there are Catholics and others who might argue that the views expressed in these sources are less morally advanced than contemporary attitudes, and ought to be abandoned. But it is hard to see how traditionalists and paleoconservatives themselves could defend such an attitude. Indeed, in other areas, traditionalists and paleoconservatives have been extremely critical even of otherwise conservative churchmen who have in various ways departed from pre-1960s tradition. They have, for example, often criticized the late Pope John Paul II for his statements on capital punishment, his emphasis on ecumenism and dialogue with non-Christian religions, his positive statements about feminism, his frequent mea culpas for the sins of Christians against non-Christians, and so on. So they cannot plausibly claim that their opposition to the war stems from a desire to keep up with current trends in Catholicism or loyally to follow the Pope – who was, of course, opposed to the war in Iraq – wherever he leads.

In any event, I will take the manuals in question as my sources for traditional just war theory. The general outlines of the theory are fairly well known, and have been cited many times by both defenders of the war and its critics. What the manuals provide is a sense of how, traditionally, these general principles were worked out in greater detail. The first condition of a just war, according to the theory is:

1. Lawful authority:

Here the emphasis of the tradition and the manuals is that a just war can only ever be fought by a state, and, except in the case of immediate self-defense, not on the authority of any private individual or organization. (Rebellion against an unjust government is a different matter, which the manuals treat as distinct from war per se.)

Obviously the war in Iraq satisfies this condition, at least insofar as it has been fought under the authority of the United States government. Of course, some might quibble that the war was not officially “declared” by Congress, but it is hard to see how this could be a serious ground for objecting to the war from the point of view of just war theory. For just war theory per se is not concerned with the specific mechanisms by means of which a nation or government might decide upon policy. It is meant to apply equally to republics and monarchies, parliamentary democracies and autocracies, efficient bureaucracies and clunky ones, and to a country whose de facto system of government has (as probably most governments tend to do) settled into a form that has departed significantly from the letter of its constitutional framework as much as to a country (if there is one) whose government is run strictly “by the book.” And while the war in Iraq was not officially “declared” by Congress, Congress did pass a resolution authorizing it. If the point of requiring a formal declaration is to ensure that Congress, as representative of the will of the people, has ultimate say over whether a war is fought, then the facts that Congress authorized the war and that a large majority of the population supported it at the beginning would seem to entail that the requirement in question was met in spirit if not in the letter.

Moreover, almost no one, left or right, paleoconservative or otherwise, has denied that the war in Afghanistan was just, even though it too has been fought without a formal Congressional declaration. Obviously, then, few would regard the question of a formal Congressional declaration as by itself casting any serious doubt on the justice of a war.

Someone might nevertheless suggest that the first condition for a just war was violated insofar as the United States failed to get U.N. approval for the invasion. But for several reasons, this suggestion is unconvincing. First, the U.N. and other international bodies are not governments, but voluntary treaty organizations. No nation has a moral obligation to join such an organization in the first place, and so its directives are more like the policies of a private firm whose services one might choose to retain, rather than like those of a government one is bound to obey and which derives its authority from the natural law itself.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that a country can flout such an organization’s directives willy-nilly, given that it has agreed to join it, any more than one could in normal circumstances justifiably defy the policies of a firm with whom he has signed a contract. But suppose the firm in question is a security firm, who required as part of its contract that you let their guards handle anyone they catch on your premises, and not intervene yourself. If the firm does its job as it is supposed to, you would have to abide by this policy. But what if the firm is unreliable in its service, or starts to hire guards who are cowardly or incompetent or who have criminal records, so that on one occasion you find the guard refusing to stop a burglar who has broken into your business, or even helping the burglar to break in and escape? Surely in this case you would be justified in stepping in and stopping the burglar yourself. The point for which you signed on with the firm in the first place – protecting your business from burglars – trumps the obligation to abide by the terms of the contract. Indeed, since the firm itself has failed to fulfill its contractual obligations to you, it can have no reasonable complaint if you decide to take matters into your own hands.

Similarly, the point of the U.N. is supposed to be to provide collective security, and this necessarily involves enforcing sanctions against unjust regimes whose record shows they pose a potential threat to other members. It is surely plausible, then, that those other members have a right to complain, and even to take matters into their own hands, when the organization fails to live up to its obligations. This is particularly evident when, like the security firm which hires unreliable or corrupt guards, the U.N. gives special weight to the views of countries who have vested economic interests in upholding the offending unjust regime (as e.g. France did in Saddam’s Iraq) or perversely gives other unjust regimes authority over sensitive matters of justice (e.g. allowing Libya to head the U.N.’s human rights commission).

To appeal to the U.N.’s alleged authority would be an odd line of argument for a paleoconservative to make in any case, given that paleoconservatives are typically extremely hostile to the U.N. and everything it stands for. This is especially true of traditionalist Catholics, who have been critical of the favorable attitude toward the U.N. exhibited by recent popes, supportive as that body has been toward abortion, contraception, and other practices at odds with Catholic teaching. And even if one might try to make a case for the general idea of an international community of nations on traditionalist or paleoconservative principles, as several of the contributors to Neo-CONNED! do, this seems irrelevant to the question at hand, since the U.N. as it exists is not in fact based on such principles. So what grounds could these people possibly have, given their own basic philosophical commitments, for assuming that the U.N. can be trusted to make decisions concerning war and peace?

In any event, the condition that most critics of the war have emphasized is the second one, so let us now move on to it:

2. Just cause:

Here the emphasis of the tradition and the manuals is that a war can only justifiably be fought in defense of a violated right, and not to gain glory, capture territory rightly belonging to another nation, etc. But “defense” in this context does not necessarily mean merely the repelling of an unprovoked invasion. Indeed, it could include actions that might otherwise appear offensive, as many of the manuals explicitly affirm. For example, Fagothey’s Right and Reason (2nd ed.) tells us that “offensive war is just when fought to vindicate seriously violated rights” (p. 577). Jone’s Moral Theology says that “both offensive and defensive war are lawful for a just cause” (p. 142) and McHugh and Callan’s Moral Theology (Rev. ed.) agrees: “Just war is either offensive or defensive” (vol. I, p. 557). Even those manuals that describe a just war as inherently defensive tend to qualify this by holding that “defense” can include retaliation for the violation of some right, so that, as Davis’s Moral and Pastoral Theology (8th ed.) says, “punitive expeditions, though apparently purely offensive, are not so in reality. If they are just, they are defensive” (vol. II, p. 148).

As this last example indicates, immediate self-defense is by no means the only way in which a war might legitimately be said to involve the defense of a violated right. Fagothey, like Davis, defends “punitive war, a war undertaken to punish a guilty nation” as in principle just, and cites Augustine, Aquinas, Vitoria, Bellarmine, and Suarez as authorities for this view (p. 566). In other words, the mere fact that a nation has done evil can in principle justify making war against it, even if it is not currently a threat, as a way of meting out retributive justice. And while some of the manuals hold that such strictly punitive actions cannot be carried out by one state against another – since punishment, they argue, can only be inflicted by a superior on an inferior, and every state is at an equal level of authority – other manuals disagree. Hence Fagothey argues that “this view is too legalistic, as if there could be no law but positive law [i.e. explicit legislation]. Where there is a superior with jurisdiction, he and not the interested party is the one to pass sentence and administer punishment, but the mere fact that there happens to be no superior distinct from the parties concerned should not make the attainment of justice impossible. Where there is no positive law, we fall back on the natural law” (p. 567). Moreover, “right order and the future peace of the world demand that gangster nations be not permitted to do mass-murder with impunity and that they be taught a lesson here and now” (ibid.).

Fagothey also cites as just causes for war “the carrying off of part of [a nation’s] population, the seizing of its territory or resources or property, or such a serious blow to the nation’s honor as to weaken its authority and jeopardize its control” (p. 563). Also, “a nation has the right to come to the help of another fighting a just war, and, if it has pledged itself by treaty to do so, must fulfill its contract” (p. 576). Similarly, the 1912 Catholic Encyclopedia cites as legitimate causes for war “the request of another state in peril” and “the oppression of the innocent” when “the intervening state may justly assume the communication of the right of the innocent to exercise extreme coercion in their behalf” (article on “War”).

McHugh and Callan provide an especially thorough list of possible justifications for war, which is worth quoting at length (omitting various scriptural references):

“Sufficient causes for making war are: (a) grave injury to the honor of a nation, such as insult to its ruler or ambassadors… (b) injury to the natural right of the nation to existence, self-preservation, property, free action within its own sphere; thus a people may make war to defend their independence … to recover territory taken from them unjustly, to resist a violation of neutrality… to protect their own citizens and commerce; (c) injury to the rights of the nation under positive law. Thus, a nation may make war to uphold important international agreements, to enforce the observance of treaties, and the like. Injury done to a third nation or to the subjects of a third nation may also be a sufficient reason for war. (a) Thus, out of justice, a nation is obliged to help its allies in a just war; for to help those with whose interests one’s own interests are involved is only self-defense. (b) Out of charity, a nation that has the right of intervention may lawfully go to war to protect a weaker nation against a stronger and bullying nation, to assist a government unjustly attacked by its subjects, or to help innocent subjects who are tyrannized over by their government.” (vol. I, p. 562).

While no war fought for the purpose of forcibly converting others to a particular religion or moral code can be justified, McHugh and Callan hold that the prevention of “interference… with the religious rights of others or sinful practices that are injurious to others are a sufficient reason for war… The cause of humanity justifies a war to put an end to such evils as cannibalism or human sacrifice” (pp. 562-3). They also ask: “Is it lawful to make war on another nation in order to bring to it the benefits of modern civilization?” and answer that while mere colonial expansion is not a sufficient justification for war, and while war would not be justified against an uncivilized nation merely because it had a primitive (though orderly) government, “if the uncivilized nation lacks a government and suffers from disorder, it is an act of charity for a civilized nation to set up a government there which will act for the benefit of the people of the country. It is also lawful to make war on those who resist the government thus established” (p. 563).

Now, I think it is obvious that whether or not the war in Iraq was a wise idea all things considered, there can be no reasonable doubt that it does at least meet the criteria for a just cause as spelled out in the manuals. As I put it in a Tech Central Station article from two years ago:

“[T]he case for the war in Iraq … was, and remains, extremely straightforward and reasonable: 1. Saddam Hussein was required, as part of the treaty which ended the first Gulf War, to disarm himself of certain weapons, especially WMD, to remain so disarmed, and to agree to regular inspections intended to verify his compliance; 2. He repeatedly violated the terms of this treaty; so 3. The recommencement of hostilities was prima facie justified. (The question of the legitimacy of 'pre-emptive' war is thus utterly irrelevant; the action against Iraq was no more 'pre-emptive' than is the arrest of a convicted felon for violating the terms of his parole.)

Furthermore, whereas there may sometimes be good reasons for refraining from war even when it is justified, 4. The risk of Iraqi WMD someday being slipped to terrorists for use against the United States was, post-9/11, plausibly seen as significant enough that continued Iraqi non-compliance could no longer be tolerated. (The question of whether the threat was 'imminent' is thus also irrelevant; and the threat was, of course, never claimed by the President to be imminent in the first place.) Also counterbalancing any possible reasons for refraining from war were: 5. The fact that modern methods of war make possible to an unprecedented degree the avoidance of civilian deaths (though of course these can never be avoided entirely); 6. The liberation of the Iraqi people from a brutal dictatorship would, in the short and long runs, save more lives than would be lost in a military campaign and produce other obvious benefits for the Iraqi people as well; 7. The elimination of the Baathist regime would put the fear of God into the hearts of other dictatorships who might think to produce or use WMD (as it in fact has in the case of Libya – though this has not stopped some anti-war types from denying the obvious); 8. It would eliminate an important source of funding and/or training for Palestinian and other terrorist groups; and 9. It would allow the United States finally to pull its forces out of Saudi Arabia, their presence being, however justifiable, a source of resentment within the Arab world and a rationalization for terrorism on the part of the likes of Osama bin Laden.

In short, there was by virtue of Hussein's non-compliance alone a defensible justification for war; and the other considerations served to override any reservations one could raise about whether the price for going to war, even if justified, might be too high.”

Here we see, in some cases implicitly and in others explicitly, not just one, but several causes for war that the tradition and the manuals explicitly recognize as in principle just: the enforcement of important agreements and treaties (treaties whose violation was plausibly seen as a potential risk to the security of the United States and its allies both inside and outside the Middle East); punishment for serious wrongdoing; the liberation of a people from tyranny. We might also add, as some did at the time the war was being debated: that Saddam’s failed plot to kill the first President Bush was itself an act of war – and certainly a grave insult to a nation’s honor or rulers, recognized by some writers in the tradition as in principle a casus belli; that his other bellicose actions over the decade following the first Iraq war (such as firing upon allied aircraft) were also provocative of war and indicative that he might be reckless with respect to any WMD he might have had or might try to acquire; and that the possibility that Saddam might through nuclear blackmail gain a de facto monopoly over the gulf region’s oil reserves was a threat to America’s (and the world’s) commerce. Of course, some of these considerations would not by themselves constitute a sufficient cause for war, but they did provide good reasons for thinking that a failure to pursue the main, and clearly just casus belli – enforcing compliance with the terms of the 1991 cease-fire – could have serious consequences.

Obviously, some of the reasons adduced seem to presuppose the justice of the first Iraq war. But that war was if anything even more obviously justifiable from the point of view of traditional just war theory, seeing as it involved the defense of a weaker nation against an unjust invasion, was approved by the U.N. (so that that particular quibble over the “lawful authority” condition cannot be raised against it), and that Iraq’s designs on Kuwait’s (and Saudi Arabia’s) oil fields even more obviously threatened world commerce – and thus the economic well-being of millions of people – in a serious way. Nor are the restrictions the United States and U.N. put on Iraq as part of the cease-fire unjust from the point of view of the tradition and the manuals. As McHugh and Callan write, “one may insist on such guarantees as will insure against a probable renewal of the offense committed by the conquered nation. Hence, one may require that it destroy or deliver over fortifications and munition plants, sink warships, reduce its military force, punish certain individuals, or depose certain rulers… Subjugation or temporary occupation are lawful… if there is no other way of obtaining redress or securities” (vol. I, p. 575).

Now I trust that every one of the reasons for going to war mentioned in the TCS piece will be familiar to the reader, for each of them has been repeatedly emphasized by the war’s defenders, within the Bush administration and without, and usually in some combination. Yet the war’s critics seem never to confront the case for the war as I’ve just presented it, i.e. as a cumulative one. Often they speak, absurdly, as if there could only ever be a single real reason for going to war – WMD, say – or claim that the war’s defenders have, as the war has dragged on, leapt from one reason to another in a desperate attempt to find new justifications as the old ones lost their force in the light of events. But this is dishonest, for all of these reasons were discussed and debated prior to the war’s commencement. Paul Wolfowitz’s famous statement to the effect that special emphasis was put on WMD because it was the consideration that everyone in the administration regarded as grave, though it is for some reason often taken as a damning admission, is in fact proof that the administration had several reasons for thinking Saddam needed to be removed. That not every individual in the administration agreed that every one of these reasons was equally compelling simply does not entail that everyone (or even anyone) in the administration thought the WMD consideration was the only one that had any weight at all.

Another tactic of critics of the war is to concoct an absurd caricature of the idea of “preventive war” and then present this caricature as if it were the justification for the war in Iraq. The “Bush doctrine” of prevention or pre-emption, they say, amounts to something like: We have the right to attack a country which has done nothing wrong just in case it might choose to do something wrong in the future. But no one in the administration has ever suggested such a ridiculous policy. “Prevention” or “pre-emption” has always quite clearly meant instead something like: We can no longer allow tyrannical regimes to get away with violating their agreements, for though such violation, despite its being a prima facie justification for military action, might for several reasons have been allowed to slide in the past, it is in the post-9/11 world too potentially dangerous to permit. Whatever one might think of this proposal, it is hardly unreasonable or incompatible with traditional just war theory. (Neo-CONNED! predictably includes a version of the caricature described above, put forward in an article by Fr. Juan Iscara, who acknowledges in a footnote that Michael Novak has emphasized that it was Saddam’s violation of the terms of the 1991 cease-fire that was the primary casus belli. But he then criticizes Novak for also speaking of the second Iraq war as “preventive” – as if Novak himself had the caricature in mind, and as if an interest in prevention in the more reasonable sense were somehow inconsistent with a concern over Saddam’s violation of his agreements.)

Finally, critics of the war have, of course, declared that the failure to find any WMD has proven them right. But this too is dishonest, since almost no one prior to the war denied that Saddam had WMD. (The chant of the critics before the war was, after all, not “There are no WMD,” but rather “Give the inspections more time,” which shows that they too then thought that WMD might well be found.) You can only go on the evidence you have, and the evidence available prior to the war – not just to the U.S., but also to those countries that opposed the war – strongly indicated that Saddam had WMD. As far as the moral justification for the war is concerned, that is all that matters. Moreover, there is no reasonable doubt that Saddam violated the inspections regime, which not only was a plausible indication that he had something to hide, but itself constitutes a reasonable ground for war, since there is no point in making agreements, especially with ruthless despots, unless you are prepared to enforce them.

So much, then, for the first two conditions. No doubt what has been said so far already raises many questions, but I will hopefully be able to address some of them in the second and third posts.

Posted by Edward Feser on March 13, 2006 2:32 AM

Comments

The list of justifications for war that you lay out seem to me so broad, and sufficiently ambiguous so as to be usable, by any skillful rhetoritician, to justify any war.

Could not a german, in the thirties, make a coherent argument that the provisions of the Versailles treaty dishonered the nation, and subjected it to an extreme punitive regime that caused grave injury to its interests? Could not the Arab neighbors of Israel correctly argue that, by appropriating land by force, and settling civilians on occupied land in direct contravention of international law, that war would be justified against Israel - just as war against Iraq is justified by its breach of international committments? Could not Pakistan argue that a war against India is justified by India's longstanding refusal to implement UN resolutions on the right of the Kashmiris to decide their national fate through referenda?

We even see a justification for colonialism - as a "gift" to the poor little primitives in lands that just happen to contain valuable resources. The only limitation is that one is careful not to claim that it is the resources themselves that one is after.

And this points to the underlying problem I see in all this. The concern for moral justification for war seems inevitably to devolve into an exercise in rationalization. What is, in fact, the true motivation for any war? Can we trust that those who support a war will honestly reveal their true motivations? Raising moral concerns, and challanging war-supporters to justify their actions in light of moral theory seems to accomplish nothing more than to present them with a problem in spinning. And not a very difficult problem at that, given the room available in the ambiguities.

One possible piece of evidence of sincerity would be a principled opposition to a war - ones own war, not ones enemies war - thus revealing a willingness to use principle to guide action, rather than to rationalize it. But this is quite uncommon.

Could one make the case that the body of moral philosophy that has survived to this day has been selected by those who have been victorious in war - and that it represents a history of rationalizations for those wars? It certainly seems so to me.

If one would wish to make the case for the power and sincerity of christian moral theory regarding war (or that of any other religion), it would seem to me to be a better strategy to lay out a list of all the wars that christians have opposed, even though support of them may have been in their financial or political interest. And to extract from such a history a list of threshold principles that will be applied to any new war about which one must make a moral decision. As opposed to compiling a list of instances in which christians have found ways to justify involvement in wars, and to extract from that a list of arguments why the new war can also be permissible.

Posted by: Observer | March 13, 2006 1:02 PM

Hello Observer,

The claim of the people I was quoting is not that seriously dishonoring a nation's leaders per se is a cause for war; it is that doing so _unjustly_ might be a cause for war. Obviously, to publish evidence of the crimes of a Hitler or Stalin, for example, is not to "dishonor" them, but merely to state objective facts. (I want to emphasize, by the way, that this particular casus belli is not one that the manuals think is a sufficient cause for war under most modern circumstances, at least not by itself; the point of mentioning it was just to indicate how far the manuals are from the idea that war can only ever be justified to repel an imminent invasion.)

Similarly, no one claims that a broken treaty or confiscated land by themselves are causes for war; rather, it is when these things are done in an _unjust_ manner that they might constitute grounds for war. If e.g. the land confiscated was land that the country doing the confiscating had a right to (say, because the country it is taking the land from had stolen it previously) then there is no injustice. Also, the passages I cited explicitly deny that it can be legitimate to go to war _simply_ to provide good government to a country if it already has a non-tyrannical, working but inefficient government, or that a claim to be providing good government can ever be an insincere pretext for colonial ambitions. So, it seems to me you're not correctly characterizing the criteria I cited.

Now of course, even when correctly characterized, the criteria might be abused. But that's true of _any_ criteria one might suggest for a just war (or any criteria anyone might give for _anything_, for that matter). The fact that someone might try to abuse or dishonestly apply a set of criteria simply doesn't by itself show that there is anything wrong with the criteria themselves. Similarly, the fact that people might disagree about land rights, war guilt, and the like simply does not entail that there is no objective fact of the matter about who has a right to what land or who was guilty in a certain war. Yes, there are hard cases, but that's beside the point. As long as there could in principle be a way of determining who has a right to what in some particular circumstances, then the relevant just war criteria can be applied to those circumstances.

And if you're going to suggest that all attempts to give just war criteria are mere rationalizations of some vested interest, then, again, you could (if you really want to pursue such a line of thought) say the same thing about any attempt to develop a theory of anything (whether in ethics, science, politics, or whatever). Moreover, you're committing yourself to a line of thought that is self-defeating, since it implies that there is no distincion between reasoning and rationalizing, in which case your own arguments for this view are mere rationalizations for some vested interest and have no objective validity.

Posted by: Edward Feser | March 13, 2006 3:52 PM

Good day to you Dr. Feser,
Even if we accept all these initial justifications, why should we tolerate a poorly executed occupation that has produced chaos, corruption, and misery for a large portion of the Iraqi populace? Nobody thought the destruction of the Iraqi army would take more than a few weeks. The problem was always the aftermath, which by all accounts the administration had not even an inkling of the Pandora's box they had opened up. It is one thing to go into a war with a just cause (although I dispute aspects of that as well), it is quite another to be blind to the problems that would make nation building nearly impossible.

Since Augustine writes, "We go to war that we may have peace," does that not entail an actual end to occupation and exit strategy? Until recently, the war defenders have been fairly liberal about labeling critics as loser-defeatists, but they never have a solid answer for why Iraq has become such a deathtrap. It is a confusion wrapped in an enmity inside a sectarian conflict.

Posted by: Step2 | March 13, 2006 5:12 PM

Observer: a sufficiently skilled rhetorician can use pretty much anything to justify pretty much anything. For example, he can use the text of the U. S. Constitution to justify Roe v. Wade. If we reject any "list of justifications" that can be twisted by a clever talker to defend the indefensible, then we might as well just give up the idea of "justification" entirely.

The Germans, in the thirties, could indeed - *did* indeed - make a "coherent" argument along the lines you suggest. All they had to do was ignore great steaming piles of historical context. Same goes for the "Arab neighbors of Israel." But the devil is in the details. Was the Treaty of Versailles *unjustly* punitive? Was the Israeli appropriation of Arab land *unprovoked*? Did Saddam Hussein have a *legitimate* claim to rule Kuwait?

(Suggested answers: no, no, & no.)

You write:

"We even see a justification for colonialism - as a 'gift' to the poor little primitives in lands that just happen to contain valuable resources. The only limitation is that one is careful not to claim that it is the resources themselves that one is after."

Well, uh, no. the limitation is not that one doesn't *claim* it. The limitation is that it isn't *true*.

Do you really believe that we invaded Iraq because we were "after the resources" in any straightforward sense?

And do you really believe that opposition to war is generally more sincere and/or principled than support for same? And that such opposition is "quite uncommon?"

Ever heard of George Galloway? Does the name Jacques Chirac ring a bell? How about Kofi Annan? Vladimir Putin? Need I go on?

Posted by: Steve Burton | March 13, 2006 5:32 PM

"Now I trust that every one of the reasons for going to war mentioned in the TCS piece will be familiar to the reader, for each of them has been repeatedly emphasized by the war’s defenders, within the Bush administration and without, and usually in some combination. Yet the war’s critics seem never to confront the case for the war as I’ve just presented it, i.e. as a cumulative one."

What would constitute confronting this laundry list, Ed? I ask because I would like to blog about your post and encourage a reasonable response, (or maybe try to work on one myself). If someone were to respond point by point to each of the 9 numbered justifications you propose would that be sufficient? Or would the "cumulative" case need to be confronted? If so, how would one go about doing that?

Posted by: Stephen W. Carson | March 13, 2006 6:11 PM

The true reasons behind the war become fairly obvious if instead of asking "why did we go to war?" you ask "why are we building permanent military bases in Iraq?"
(Here are a couple of links: not conservative! http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=59774
and eg
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/03/AR2006020302994_pf.html )
If you also look at the well-documented views of the "Project for a new American Century" (PNAC) the rationale behind the war is fairly obvious. (Especially reading views written/spoken candidly before 9/11 and the avalanche of spin and lies.)
I'm sure President Bush is moved and elevated when he's reading Michael Gerson's noble speeches- even a staunch left-winger can be moved by Gerson's eloquence and idealism. And I'm not implying that a "just war" defence couldn't have been made for invading Iraq.
But it certainly wasn't made leading up to the war, when we were bombarded with lies and deceptions.
And any such theory will have to bend over and do backflips to justify the permanent occupation the Bush administration have engineered.

Posted by: rob stowell | March 13, 2006 7:03 PM

Observer and Step2:

Nothing that you say denies what I understand to be the central thesis of Edward Feser's article, namely that the war in Iraq is contrary to the just war theory as expounded in traditional Catholicism. A defense of that particular theory would not seem to be part of the article's scope, and is certainly not the central thesis of the article.

Posted by: Branston | March 13, 2006 8:35 PM

Whoops: that should read "the war in Iraq is NOT contrary to the just war theory"

Posted by: Branston | March 13, 2006 8:37 PM

Branston,

My general point was that many of the arguements for justification of particular wars strike me as rationalizations. A decision is made to support a war, then a way is found through the moral landscape by which to justify it. Pending a thorough reading of all that Edward has to say on the Iraq war, I will not accuse him of that. But his argument does at least seem to take that form.

Here is a suggestion for Edward, if he were ever to get the crazy idea in his mind to try to write something that someone like me might find compelling. The catholic moral view on war is most authoritativly expressed by the pope. The pope opposed the Iraq war. Which means, at the very least, that a coherent opposition to the Iraq war can be derived from catholic moral doctrine. And yet Edward disagrees - the pope apparently was mistaken. Why? Spare us the posturing and name-calling about war critics who are "absurd" and "dishonest", and deal with a (presumably) honest, thoughtful critic who is deeply imbedded in the very theory under discussion. Walk us through the pope's argument and where he is mistaken.

Posted by: Observer | March 13, 2006 9:32 PM

Steve,

I agree. The devil is in the details. But also in the interpretation. Is there some objectivly true interpretation of the Versailles treaty with regard to its fairness? You ask whether Israeli appropriation of land was "provoked". Is there some objective standard by which one can judge whether X amount of provocation justifies going beyond pacifying the land to actual permanent seziure of the land for ones own use?

Is there some objective standard by which we can judge whether colonialists were truly greedy, as opposed to motivated by a desire to bring the blessings of civilization to those without, or some combination of the two?

No there isn't. Humans persue their own interests. Moral codes, if they are to have any effect whatsoever, must prohibit certain actions - they must direct action against interest. Thus, when one opposes a war that is in one's interest, it can be seen as a moral act. Supporting a war that is in one's interest is, at best, not immoral - if it can be shown that no moral principle has been violated.

In order to make such a showing - to truly justify support for a war, one should go through the list of moral proscriptions and rigorously whether or not they apply - ever willing to conclude that perhaps they do. Instead we get arguments that seek to find reasons by which to excuse our behavior - complete with mocking derision of those who raise concerns. These types of arguments just reek of rationalization, not sober moral reasoning.

As to Iraq - I do not believe that we went into Iraq to "steal their oil". But it seems beyond question that we were there to politically stabilize a region which is the source of a lot of our oil. And it is certainly reasonable to suspect that we would not be there if there were no resource-interest percieved to be in danger.

Posted by: Observer | March 13, 2006 10:02 PM

Hello Step 2: I'll be addressing that in part II, so hopefully what I say there will answer your question.

And hello Stephen (Carson): I'm not sure what your difficulty is, but let me take a stab at an answer. Very often we decide on a course of action for several reasons which are individually insufficient for action but jointly sufficient. So, for example, someone might have several reasons for going to a certain college -- he likes its philosophy department, likes the location, has a friend who is going there, it has a good football team he'd like to play on, etc. None of these reasons would by itself convince him to go there, but together they make it overall the best course of action.

Now a decision to go to war can be similar. There might be several reasons which would not suffice individually, but collectively they do suffice. In my view, in the case of Iraq, at least two of the reasons -- punishing Saddam for non-compliance and liberating Iraq from his control -- arguably would in fact suffice individually. But even if this were not so, together, and especially when combined with the other considerations I gave, I think they comprise a very solid case.

Now, whether you agree with that or not, I maintain (a) it is hardly a "manifestly unjust" cause for war, and (b) evaluating the justice of the cause would have to consider the weight of the entire case, not just one part of it. Too many people -- dishonestly, I think -- focus on just a single reason, try to debunk it, ignore the other reasons or assert that they were never "real" reasons at all, and then conclude that the war had no sound justification. But that's like saying "Your desire to go to that college simply because your friend is there is frivolous," while ignoring the fact that this is just one of several reasons for his going there.

Two further points. I know that you approach this subject from an anarcho-capitalist point of view, so obviously you're not going to share all of my premises. You should consider, though, that (a) unless anarcho-capitalism is somehow _manifestly_ true -- something I assume you would not say (since few if any extremely controversial views are _manifestly_ true) -- then no case against the war based upon it can show that the war is _manifestly_ unjust, as so many of its critics claim it is; and (b) my aim in these posts is to address the specific claim that the war is unjust _from the point of view of traditional just war theory_, and anarcho-capitalism is no part of that theory. So, to go in that direction is to go somewhat off topic.

Only somewhat, though, because by part III I will indeed have something to say about anarcho-capitalism. In any case, maybe you'll want to read the whole thing before commenting...

Posted by: Edward Feser | March 13, 2006 10:46 PM

Hello again Observer:

I did not deny that a coherent case against the war can be made from a Catholic point of view. I only claimed that a coherent case _for_ it could _also_ be made from that point of view. There is nothing unusual in this. There are lots of cases in ethics and moral theology where people can agree on principles but disagree on appication when the concrete circumstances are, as in this case, extremely complicated.

And while the pope is indeed authoritative according to Catholic theology, this does not mean what you seem to think it does. The pope has the authority to determine what the official teaching of the Church is in matters of faith and morals, where in the latter case this involves determining what the moral principles are that are binding on all Catholics. But this does not mean that he does in fact have a well worked out view on every question that could be raised in moral theology, and it doesn't mean that his prudential judgments about how to apply principles in concrete cases are authoritative, especially where, again, the concrete circumstances that crucially determine what decision we should make are outside his competence.

So, for example, the pope can teach that every Catholic must believe that usury is wrong, but whether a certain kind of interest counts as usury can, notoriously, be a very complicated and tricky question, involving matters of economic theory that are beyond the competence of the pope qua pope. Hence the Church has been somewhat vague on this question and allowed a significant degree of theological disagreement.

It is also important to note that John Paul II did not present any detailed case from just war theory against the war in Iraq, but spoke in fairly general terms. He never seriously addressed the question of why the traditional criteria I mentioned would not suffice to justify the war, as they certainly seem to. This is one reason -- by no means the only one (I'll be saying more about this in the next post) -- why there is no reason to think that the pope was even attempting to make a statement about just war theory or the war in Iraq in particular that was meant to be binding on all Catholics. When popes do make such binding statements, they do so much more formally -- in an encyclical letter, say -- and try to address questions about how the statement fits in with previous Catholic teaching in cases where the statement might seem to depart from it (as it would seem to in this case). Anyway, again, I'll be saying more about this.

Posted by: Edward Feser | March 13, 2006 11:03 PM

Hello Edward,

I agree with you when you say "The fact that someone might try to abuse or dishonestly apply a set of criteria simply doesn't by itself show that there is anything wrong with the criteria themselves." My issue is with how the criterea are applied, and it goes much deeper than superficial dishonesty. I am concerned with the structure of the argument. One can structure the argument in the form of a rationalization, and not realize that one is dulling the force of the moral standards - one can sincerely believe that one is proceeding properly.

From my perspective the argument should be structured like this: A core christian value is love, including (especially) towards ones enemies. Turn the other cheek, and all that. My mental picture of Jesus, my spiritual guide, does not tend to include an automatic weapon in his hand. Thus there is quite a burden to be placed on any argument made to me, that I should support the use of violence against my fellow man. I will need to be convinced that I have burrowed beneath all of the possible self-interested factors that may lead me toward support, and found some core principles that are in play lending such weight toward support of the war that they overcome the more general principles of peace and love that are at the heart of Jesus's teachings.

Instead, these argument usually take this form: I think, for all manner of political, legal, and/or economic reasons that we should go to war. Now let me find some way that this war can be seen to be something other than a blatant violation of christian principles. If I can find an analogous situation in which christians have gone to war and found it justifiable, then I can use that as a precedent.

In short, the effort seems not to be directed toward a difficult and painful conclusion that violence must be used, but rather toward a conclusion that we need not be troubled by pursuing a course that we want to pursue for other reasons. Justifications of this latter type are extremely cheap to come by, and the moral dimension is reduced to nothing more than a speed bump on the way to the battlefield. Which is why I am interested to learn of any instances in which one who makes these arguments has actually come upon a moral objection to a war that he would have otherwise supported. Have your moral calculations ever led you to oppose a war fought by your country?

Posted by: Observer | March 13, 2006 11:14 PM

Observer: if we have to resolve general questions about the objectivity of truth before deciding whether the Germans had, on the whole, a reasonable objection to the treaty of Versailles, then we might as well just give it up and go to bed.

How much provocation justifies how much "seizure," on the other hand, is quite an interesting question, and very germane to the legitimacy of "the Modern State of Israel." Yes? No?

You write: "Is there some objective standard by which we can judge whether colonialists were truly greedy, as opposed to motivated by a desire to bring the blessings of civilization to those without, or some combination of the two?...No there isn't. Humans pursue their own interests."

I reply: Really? If there's no objective standard for judging between A and B, we can conclude B?

You continue: "...when one opposes a war that is in one's interest, it can be seen as a moral act."

I reply: Yes, it *can* be. This is a weak claim.

You continue: "...Supporting a war that is in one's interest is, at best, not immoral..."

I reply: No. Consider the French resistance. Besides, you forget the other two possible cases here: disinterested support for a war and interested opposition to it.

Sorry, but these generalities are getting you nowhere.

"...we were there to politically stabilize a region which is the source of a lot of our oil."

Uh...if true, would that strike you as a shocking indictment?

Posted by: Steve Burton | March 14, 2006 12:03 AM

Hello Observer,

As you might guess, I would deny that "turn the other cheek" is to be interpreted the way you seem to think, for at least two reasons: (a) Christ often spoke in exaggerated terms to make a point ("If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out," "Those who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake" etc.), and (b) this passage has traditionally been understood to apply primarily to the private realm and to the realm of one's attitudes rather than actions. It does not mean that we cannot punish evildoers, etc., but that we should seek as far as possible also to convince them to give up their evil ways rather than hating them and simply writing them off, etc. In any case, the natural law and just war traditions have never interpreted them as implying that war is immoral, and since the point of my post is to examine the war in Iraq from the point of view of those traditions specifically, to get into the question of how to interpret those words of Jesus would be to go off on a tangent.

And I disagree that decisions to go to war are typically self-interested and rationalizing in the way you think. To think "Omigosh, this guy might slip somebody some WMD" or "If we let him get away with this, other thugs might be encouraged" is not to appeal to amoral and self-interested considerations; indeed, it is the moral duty of a statesman, given his obligation to protect the country, to worry about such things. Indeed, even to worry whether some dictator's actions might threaten the economic order is by no means an amoral and selfish consideration given that the well-being of millions of people might depend on this.

Posted by: Edward Feser | March 14, 2006 12:27 AM

Ed,

I do see what you mean about what a cumulative case might look like. But in that case, it really is hard to know how to go about answering the person who claims that the cumulative case makes a sufficiently strong reason for action. And this is an _important_ thing to be able to do when we're talking about a decision that affects so many people. In the case of the guy going to college, you can just agree to disagree if you think he's made a poor choice. But obviously this is a more serious issue. Suppose that someone opposed to the war does discuss each of the reasons and argues that they are each far from sufficient. And suppose the supporter then says, "Well, maybe so. But the cumulative case still looks strong to me." Is that just the end of it? No further rational way to proceed? That seems very unsatisfactory. Or is the burden on the critic then to show that each of the separate reasons is *so* far from being sufficient that it is implausible that there should be a case even cumulatively?

Another question: Do you consider that the arbitrariness criticism has any merit? That is, suppose that you are right and that this war is not manifestly unjust. Well, okay, there could be _tons_ of wars all over the world that we could go and start that would also not be manifestly unjust. So do we just throw them into a hat and pick out one per decade? I don't mean to sound frivolous, but what with war being such a big deal and all, with collateral damage, the spreading of our forces all over the globe, the taking on of responsibilities for countries far removed from ourselves and many in number, etc., etc., "not manifestly unjust" is pretty clearly not sufficient reason for going to war. It's just setting the bar too low. Now, you may agree with that, but in that case, would you also agree that one would have to be able to make a *much* stronger case actually to defend the war, for otherwise it will just be an arbitrarily chosen member of the many possible wars against tyrants, promise-breakers, etc., we could have engaged in?

Posted by: Lydia | March 14, 2006 1:02 PM

Hi Lydia,

Good questions. The college student example was only meant to illustrate what I had in mind by a cumulative case, but obviously the circumstances are trivial compared to war, so maybe I missed Stephen Carson's point. Maybe it wasn't the "cumulative" part that he was concerned about so much as the gravity of war relative to other decisions for which one could make a cumulative case. Here's a better example, then.

Suppose you're in the state of nature -- as states more or less are relative to each other -- and live in a valley somewhere populated by various families and small groups living on homesteads. There's a particular family tyrannized by a drunken father who regularly beats his wife and ten children, sometimes to a pulp. He and a couple of his his sons also occassionally engage in minor thefts of other people's livestock and grain, pick fights with people, etc. Because he and his sons are very tough characters, and well-armed, the other people in the valley pretty much leave them alone and wink at the occasional theft and black eye. It just isn't worth the trouble, especially since these people have family in the next valley over who might make reprisals if anyone does anything to interfere with them.

Now imagine these guys start experimenting with nitroglycerin out in their barn, or some homemade flamethrowers, or whatever. This goes on for a while and they don't attack anyone with these things, but occasionally they accidentally set fire to some brush in the area and sometimes threaten to use these weapons if anyone gives them trouble.

Now, if you have a family living in this valley, you might not think it worth the bother of doing anything about these people just because of the child abuse, or minor thefts, or occasional drunken flamethrower-and-nitro parties, considered individually. But at some point you might think "enough is enough," and decide that, since you feel sorry for the wife and children getting beaten up all the time, since you've got kids who might be strolling by and get beaten up themselves (or even burned to a crisp), or since you don't want these idiots accidentally setting the whole valley on fire, you're going to go out with your own sons, disarm these people once and for all and teach them a lesson they won't forget while you're at it. Their various individual offenses already show that they deserve such a lesson, and though you've reasonably winked at those offenses considered individually, you've now decided, also reasonaby, that they can no longer be tolerated. This entails some risks: maybe you'll lose the fight, maybe others nearby will get hurt, maybe the relatives in the other valley will come after you, etc. But surely you could have good reason for thinking the risk is worth it.

This, I suggest, is like many of the decisions to go to war that the U.S. has made in recent decades. Just as there is no sheriff or police force in the valley I described, there is no super-government that has jurisdiction over all nations. And while there might be justifiable grounds in the abstract for taking action against certain tyrannical governments, in most cases it just isn't worth the risks or costs. But occasionally such a government just commits too many offenses and a wise statesman might decide that the time has come to take action.

Also like the valley example, though, it can in some cases be hard to know with mathematical precision when the line has been crossed. But just as this does not make the action of the concerned parent in the valley example irresponsible or immoral, neither does it make the concerned statesman's actions irresponsible or immoral. As Aristotle teaches us, we cannot expect more precision in a body of theory -- such as just war theory -- than its subject matter allows for.

And no, I don't think the arbitrariness criticism has much merit. I think that Saddam's tyranny alone would have been a justifiable ground for war from a moral point of view -- at least given that we have a volunteer military force who are, for that reason, not being _forced_ to fight simply for other people's freedom -- though not from a prudential, all-things-considered point of view. When you add in the various national interest considerations, though, the case becomes much stronger.

This is not "arbitrary," because even when we can be justified in and capable of doing lots of good things, we may be unable to do all of them together and so have to choose. Moreover, others might be in a better position to do certain things, or have special responsiblities we don't have. So, for example, everyone has a general responsibiity to help the poor and otherwise less fortunate, but no one can help everyone. So we choose whom we will help, usually favoring our family and friends over strangers, our countrymen over distant foreigners, causes we know something about (soup kitchens, or whatever) over those we know little about (drug prevention programs, say). Is this "arbitrary"? Of course not: it is simply a matter of balancing our universal obligations with our areas of particular obligation and expertise, and applying the principle of subsidiarity, viz. that those closest to a problem ought to be the ones to deal with it, unless they are incapable of doing so, in which case larger and more encompassing agencies and institutions can step in.

Similarly, even if in the abstract a country might be justified in going to war to rescue a tyrannized people or otherwise deal with a dangerous thug, in most concrete circumstances some nations have a greater obligation to do this than others. To a large extent geographical, historical, and cultural circumstances determine how this works out. Hence European countries have greater obligations, interests, and expertise in dealing with the mess in the Balkans than South American countries do, etc. At the same time, greater wealth and power might also make a certain country better placed to deal with certain problems than poorer and weaker countries are, which is why the U.S. is involved with affairs all around the globe to a greater extent than other countries are.

So, there is no arbitrariness here, but only the principle of subsidiarity in action.

Posted by: Edward Feser | March 14, 2006 4:07 PM

Ed- Thanks for the great post and discussion. Your clarifying comments have helped me understand your cumulative case argument a lot. But I think one of the initial objections/ questions still stands- how would one go about arguing against a cumulative case argument? Since the argument is more than its parts, would showing each distinct part is weaker than was thought be enough? For example, what if gene pool from the rough family in your example is discovered to produce exceptionally clumsy women, a series of meteors have been hitting the family's barn and causing small fires, and the area is infested with klepto raccoons. Would this be enough to refute the cumulative case? Thanks again.

Posted by: bd | March 14, 2006 4:28 PM

Lydia,
While it seems from Edward Feser's later comments that he believes that the war in Iraq is defensible from a "prudential, all-things-considered view," the major thrust of the main article (and presumably the other two sections yet to come) is merely to argue that the war in Iraq is "not manifestly unjust" according to traditional just war theory of pre-Vatican II Catholicism. This in itself constitutes a significant claim, analagous to the similar debate between Edward Feser and Christopher Tollefsen on capital punishment within traditional Catholic teaching. Is there anybody on this blog (calling Christopher Tollefsen) that disputes Edward's claim or has he won the day on this important point and we are now discussing some other argument?

Posted by: Branston | March 15, 2006 11:49 AM

Branston, I'd be inclined to say the war isn't "manifestly unjust." I just think it's a really bad idea and part of a really misguided foreign policy. :-) So perhaps this means I'm pressing Ed to discuss something else. I hope that's not unfair.

Ed,

Thanks for your thoughtful response. There are so many things I'd like to say that I don't know how to stay brief. I think your example is a good illustration of the "cumulative case" idea, though I do think some of the things you mention would be sufficient in themselves (e.g. wilfully threatening to fire the whole valley and refusing to stop), so this makes it more difficult to see what a cumulative case would look like where it really was clear that no one reason was sufficient.

But it's far more interesting to me to analyze the whole analogy to a posse in a state of nature. I hope this isn't unfair to you, but I think it's an important analogy to reply to. I think myself that the sort of case you give is one where the state of nature is gradually giving way to ordered society, and that the vigilante posse that goes out to tame the bad 'uns is an embryonic sheriff body. This is _good_. We need police, and it's even legitimate to have police bodies that stop men from beating their own wives and kids to a pulp. So if somebody says to the people proposing to go teach these guys a lesson, "Well, you don't want to become the cops for the whole valley, do you?" they could well reply, "Somebody needs to do it. I hope we'll have something like a more formal police force here in a few years, and this is a start."

But this is _exactly_ what we conservatives, esp. paleos or traditional conservatives, _don't_ want in the globe as a whole. I find it interesting to see more conservative supporters of the war more or less saying, "Yes, we do want to be the world's policeman." (Fr. Neuhaus came near to saying something like that.) And I've actually seen un-ironic references to the Pax Americana. Now, I think this is fairly horrifying.

And this brings me to the arbitrariness issue. I totally agree with you that there is nothing arbitrary about helping one's family first, etc. A major part of my objection to the war in Iraq is what seems to me the _absence_ of reasons of strong national interest, national defense, and the like. There just isn't anything here like helping one's family, helping those close to one, protecting one's own country, etc. To the contrary, this seems far more a matter of looking about the globe, seeing what is amiss, and going out to remedy it, which is the very opposite of the conservative attachment to the local and aversion to centralized world government. (That fits with the approach I encounter in defenders of the war, who seem to treat it rather like a relatively low-cost act of vigilantism rather than recognizing the uniqueness of war per se. But more on that below.)

And insofar as there was or was perceived to be a threat to us--a country that hates us and is thought to have serious weaponry that could be used against us--there are other countries that would surely come in line before Iraq, as the situation in Iran now makes all too clear. Yet I suspect that President Bush, having conquered and taken responsibility for rebuilding an entire country because of the threat of WMD, will have the nerve to make disapproving noises at Israel if she makes pre-emptive, surgical, conventional strikes against facilities in Iran!

All this will probably make it clear that I think it a bad idea to put "greater wealth and power" in the list of reasons why it is not arbitrary for us to take on wars. It would not matter so much if we were talking about situations where there is a clear and urgent threat to us along with many other nations, and where we feel we should be leaders in the response. But not only is it questionable as to whether that is the case with Iraq, it is _obviously_ not the case in many of the other places on the globe where we have troops stationed, apparently indefinitely. (Anybody remember when Bush campaigned on a plan to bring the boys home from the Balkans?) Once you place a big emphasis on our greater wealth and power as justifying our involvement all over the map, interference in far too many places becomes fair game. Combine an argument from wealth and power with, for example, saying that it is a just cause of war to free a country from tyranny, and we really _are_ justified in policing the entire world.

This brings me (finally) to the issue of war specifically vs. violence in general. I'm no pacifist. If we're just talking about reasons for knocking the bad guys silly, I agree that it doesn't take much to justify this. It's not as though I'm saying it's icky to use force. That's why I'm entirely sympathetic to your case of the nasty family in the valley. If we were just talking about shooting Saddam or one of his minions in the head at the cost of one bullet in a dark alley, I'd probably be all in favor. But war is different. War is an act of a _country_, carried out with coercively collected dollars, making use of the standing army of a country whose main raison d'etre should be the defense of that country. Our troops shouldn't be spread out in nation-building projects all over the world. If nothing else, this puts our own country's actual defense at greater risk. (For example, here we are told that we "can't" police our southern border, which is repeatedly being invaded by some very nasty drug lords who build roads into Arizona, sometimes escorted by people dressed like Mexican soldiers!) And it forces the people of the United States to finance and to risk the lives of its young men--who volunteered for a period of time but are then supposed to go where they are sent--in, essentially, the governance of and peacekeeping in many countries far removed from our own in culture, in interests, and in space. Is this not uncomfortably like an empire? And should we be using our army to maintain an empire or anything even much like one?

This point is closely related to the matter of the all-volunteer force. I think you should hesitate long before you place much stress on that. It is not only that, as I've mentioned, the massive funding for the military is not voluntary, though that is no small matter. It is also that such emphasis on the AVF seems to imply that there is a different standard for war with an AVF vs. war with a draft. We should not want to go there. To do so begins drastically to lower the bar for causes of war by treating our soldiers as mercenaries who are fighting on an ad hoc basis. This is a misleading implication, for one thing, for we are indeed acting *as a country* in the invading of Iraq and in our other military endeavours, and soldiers are not really allowed to pick and choose what wars to fight in, once they have signed up. Stressing the AVF gives me the strong impression that you are not fully acknowledging that this is the act of a country, not of the soldiers acting as individuals. The soldiers are supposed to be motivated by patriotism and discipline, not just by voluntarism. They are supposed to perceive themselves as fighting *for their country.* Such an emphasis on the AVF--and the proliferation of military actions on that basis--also make it very hard _ever_ to justify the draft, for there is now no doubt that if a draft were finally perceived as necessary this would be in no small measure a result of our having spread our forces so thin over so many places and causes. I'm not a fan of the draft, but I gather many supporters of the Iraq war are. Rob Koons has expressly said in a post that we should institute the draft for the Iraq war. And if you would support the draft, even for some other action, you don't want now, rhetorically, to tie your defense of this and that military commitment (probably long-term, too) to the existence of an AVF.

Posted by: Lydia | March 15, 2006 12:29 PM

Hello bd: It depends. Suppose you had five reasons to go to war, A through E, with different weights, A and B being the weightiest reasons (e.g. liberating people from tyranny, deterring future serious injustice or attack by enforcing important treaties), D and E being the least weighty (e.g. the other country took some ineffective potshots at some of your military aircraft). Obviously, if all of A through E were somehow discounted (because, say, the tyrannical government reforms itself considerably, or in a panic complies with the treaty belatedly a la Libya, etc.) then the case for war is completely undermined. Also, if we assume that even one of the serious considerations by itself is insufficient -- for example, a war of liberation seems too costly and risky given your own national self-interests (as is the case with most possible wars of liberation) -- and that the other four justifications are shown to be faulty, then the case for war seems undermined. But if the strongest reasons are both sound, then even if one or two or all of the weaker reasons are undermined, the overall case may still be compelling.

But again, it depends on the particular circumstances. The same just war principles apply in every case, of course, but given the enormous complexity and variety of the concrete circumstances that might be involved, there's no way to give an algorithm that can quickly and crisply settle every question about every war.

Hi Lydia: I'll be dealing with some of these questions in the two remaining posts. Re: the others, first, my example didn't involve the thugs explicitly threatening to set fire to the whole valley, if by that you mean "making a threat" to do so -- that would itself be a cause to intervene. I had in mind rather the sort of idiocy and irresponsibility that might plausibly result in an unintentional valley-wide fire, and which even if by itself an insufficient cause for intervention, would together with the other considerations provide a just cause for intervening.

You're right that the events described in the valley example would no doubt lead to the institution of a police force, and that this would be a good thing. But there is at present nothing like that in the inter-state case, i.e. there is no world government. Moreover, there isn't going to be a world government any time soon, and -- I think you'd agree -- there _should not_ be a world government. But neither is isolationism a realistic possibility with a global economy, modern weaponry, etc. The only other possibility -- the middle way -- is, it seems, something like "empire," if you want to use that term. But don't freak out yet, because I'll say more about all this in my third post (after which you may freak out at will...!)

Re: the reasons for the war in Iraq, I think they were precisely reasons of national self-interest, even if "enlightened" self-interest, namely (a) "sending a message" to thugs that, post-9/11, we will no longer tolerate their breaking of agreements where this could threaten our security, and (b) freeing a peaople from tyranny in a way that might send another "message" by encouraging reform throughout the middle east and stablizing the region in the long run, which is also in our interests. This may or may not work, and it isn't isolationism, to be sure, but neither is it purely "altruistic" Wilsonianism.

Re: the volunteer military, my point there was just to forestall any possible objection to the effect that we are forcing some people to die for other people's freedom. I would certainly agree with you that it would be wrong to look at the military as a kind of mercenary force.

Posted by: Edward Feser | March 15, 2006 4:25 PM

I had planned to wait for the next installment, but I wanted to respond to Branston.

I am inclined to say that the war in Iraq is not entirely just, which is not the same as saying it is manifestly unjust. Even if the our reasons for invading were based on genuine concerns (keeping in mind there is some evidence that questions this view), the mishandling of the occupation undermines our claims to legitimacy. My father kept only one quotation on the door to his office, "Words are words, explanations are explanations, promises are promises, but only performance is reality." Besides having an empiricist sentiment, it requires actual behavior be the standard by which to judge commitment, competence, and courage. I consider all of these qualities as essential to any claim of justice in war. Although our individual troops have shown such qualities, their leaders have been sadly deficient.

Posted by: Step2 | March 15, 2006 6:25 PM

Step2:
You may well be right that the war is "not entirely just." I happened to be interested in the question of whether there was anything in a non-defensive war (or any other quality of the war in Iraq, but this is the one that immediately springs to mind) that made it "manifestly unjust" according to traditional Catholicism. This claim seems to be made by a lot of lay people and politicians in addition to those in the link Edward gave but nobody seems to be defending that claim here. I do realize that most people on this thread who are against the war in Iraq do not care about traditional Catholic teaching, but I am mildly surprised that Edward's main claim has gone unchallenged.

Posted by: Branston | March 15, 2006 10:46 PM

Mr. Feser -
It appears to me that you, sir, possess the ideological commitment you so boldly and uncharitably extend to these so-called paleos.
Aside from all your own sophmoric quips about the book's title etc, the crux of the issue is:
Is a war of aggression ever morally defensible and is it proper to view any war of aggression as "manifest injustice"?
Putting all your sophistry aside, the answer is: No, preemptive wars cannot be squared with traditional Catholic Just War theory!
Whether it is your rather pedestrian assault on this tradition, which is properly explicated by most of the contributors of the tome you take issue with, or the more pedantic articulation of Jean Beth Elshtain, the reality is somebody is contorting one's confessional to fit one's ideological assumptions -- and, as we say in Bklyn, it ain't those who view this war as unjust.
I appreciate your perspective for how it further clarifies the essential "splitmindedness" among many who are establishment conservatives and party hacks and those, who regardless of partisan affiliation have the moral strength to recognize that Mr. Bush et al., have placed this country in a very dire situation without moral foundation. The situation this country finds itself in today, particularly as relates to foreign policy, represents the logical outgrowth of a liberal (rousseauistic) weltanschaunng -- that's far cry from any resemblance to historic Catholicism...

Posted by: Michael J. Keegan | March 16, 2006 11:51 AM

Mr. Keegan,

I spend the equivalent of about nine single- spaced pages (and twelve more in part II) painstakingly showing how the war is perfectly defensible using traditional Catholic just war criteria, and you're response is basically to say "Nyah nyah, no it isn't," without addressing a single one of the many points I've made or the many authorities I've cited. This is the best you've got? Thanks for making my point.

Posted by: Edward Feser | March 16, 2006 12:36 PM

I think it's possible to take issue with both "lawful authority" and "just cause" in this case. You state that: "the facts that Congress authorized the war and that a large majority of the population supported it at the beginning would seem to entail that the requirement in question was met in spirit". Yet surely if such authorisation and support depended- as it seems clear to me it did- on disinformation and spin from the centre of the Bush administration and a variety of servile media outlets, with sceptics and opponents continually branded in pure McCarthyite style as "supporters of terror" and thus silenced, then no, this requirement was not met in spirit.
Likewise with "just cause". I think most people would agree that deposing Saddam was just- he was a hateful tyrant. What has never been entirely clear is to what extent his hateful tyranny was a specific "cause" of this specific war. I'm sure if we could bottle the motivations of the architects of the Iraq war, we'd have a slimy melange of hubris, impatience, vengeance, ignorance and, yes, hope and expectation of doing a good and just thing. Most human motivation is like this!
Again- this doesn't mean that the Iraq war couldn't have been a "just war." It does mean- and there's plenty of evidence- that its architects were (and remain) secretive, manipulative and untruthful. I think this is what "history" will make of it. The bulk of Americans were taken on a ride- yet they got willingly into the shysters' car.

Posted by: rob stowell | March 16, 2006 5:54 PM

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