One way we can turn all the other criteria up to eleven to test the idea is through casuistry. I propose that the hypothetical of MAD, if we fine tune it a little, makes a reasonable gedankenexperiment.
Suppose that two armies are based on entirely different planets, planet Hatfield and planet McCoy. Planet Hatfield has only an army on it: all of the noncombatant civilians in the universe are on planet McCoy, so there are literally no innocents to protect from the Hatfields except the McCoys.
The Hatfields launch a planet-busting attack on the McCoys which cannot be stopped. (It doesn't matter why: presume for the sake of argument that it is an unjust attack).
The only thing the McCoys are capable of doing is to launch weapons to kill some or all of the Hatfields without saving themselves. In other words, there is no serious prospect of success in the McCoys defending themselves through the use of arms. Presume certainty about the scenario, etc: that is, all of the other criteria for a just war are met.
Is it morally licit for the McCoys to launch an attack on the Hatfields?
As frustrating[*] as the answer may be, I think it is that no, it isn't morally licit: each of the criteria in the just war doctrine must be independently satisfied, even when all the other criteria are turned up to eleven.
[*] I think part of the reason we find it frustrating - and I do mean "we" - is that we often find ourselves reluctant to leave ultimate justice to God.
19 comments:
Would this be transformed into the kind of situation we were talking about in the other thread (where it isn't up to the McCoys whether there's a war but only whether they lie down and die or resist) if instead of sending planet busters the Hatfields were coming on space ships to invade and could be fought in ordinary combat when they landed?
I suppose what this raises is the question of what constitutes success.
I presume from your example that planet McCoy could succeed in massively harming planet Hatfield, and so could succeed in wreaking vengeance.
What planet McCoy could not succeed at is defending themselves against attack, i.e., to retain some measure of life and independence for themselves.
Am I reading you rightly?
You understand me perfectly, Robert. And that illustrates why, when engaging in remote material cooperation with evil, we have to have some actual power to actually bring about the good effects we appeal to in order to justify our act. Otherwise our act is not justified by proportionate reason.
I completely agree, but have 2 questions about how me must define "success."
Scenario 1: Planet McCoy cannot repel the invasion, but by a counterattack it can give a significant portion of its civilian population an opportunity to flee as refugees. I would expect that this is a legitimate aim and if there is a reasonable chance of succeeding, it meets the just war aims.
Scenario 2: Planet McCoy is in an alliance with 3 other planets who all Planet Hatfield is reasonably expected to invade next. By resisiting and launching a counteroffensive, McCoy cannot possibly repel the invasion to itself, but can inflict meaningful damage to Hatfield's military capability that make it more likely that its alliance will ultimately prevail. I think this is a harder case, bu presuming everything stated is true and believed in good faith, I think it meets the just war test (all other factors being met as Zippy has provided).
mg: Agree on both counts.
(And they illustrate why I constructed the scenario precisely the way I did).
In case you missed it at the time: http://www.slate.com/id/2173108/pagenum/all/
If the Hatfields chose an extremely slow planet-busting attack, so slow that the McCoys could conceivably achieve the means to have a reasonable prospect for success, then shouldn't the McCoys get to work?
It seems to me, just based upon the moral obligations McCoy parents have with regard to their McCoy children, they would be obligated to try, even should Hatfield command declare everything they do illegal and immoral.
Sure -- tautologically, if we introduce a non-negligible prospect of success, there is some prospect of success. It isn't my aim here to build a hermeneutic for determining what is and is not a serious prospect of success in every kind of case. This is a limit case, where the McCoys' power to successfully defend themselves is literally negligible.
As frustrating[*] as the answer may be, I think it is that no, it isn't morally licit:
I fully agree.
Also, it might be useful to point out that turning up the heat to total annihilation regardless of what you try in response kind of obviates the usual sorts of "success" that might be the norm for typical warfare where a decision to respond with force has some possible benefit.
According to the standard Church teaching, "success" is typically understood to mean something like "bring about a more just peace". This is one of the reasons why there are some standard international laws of war: failing to observe these makes it much more difficult to arrive at a more just peace after everyone is done fighting.
If the state is contemplating a so-called "optional" war, where they might be termed the "aggressor" (although I think this term is likely far too simplistic for some scenarios) one would think the "more just" compares to the sort of imperfect peace that you have now, before the war is started.
If the war that you have to decide upon is a defensive war (Finland 1941), how would you define "more just peace" for a defensive war? The peace that you had before being attacked was OK with you, the aggressor is the one who claims that it is unjust. Obviously, success has to be stated differently. More just than being unjustly under attack by their army? That's kind of obvious, but immediate absolute surrender will get you that, and it almost always will, so it doesn't look like a very useful question for deciding whether to fight that defensive war.
One way to ask it would be to define the success as "a more just peace than you could achieve if you don't fight" (i.e. if you surrender). You might think that the answer is almost always yes, but it isn't true. You would have to take into account, for example, reprisal damages for making the aggressor even madder than they already are, in addition to the damages you suffer in the war effort itself (bombing your own rail lines that are behind enemy lines because they are using them, for example). I don't see offhand why we should not also include the theoretical possibility that you will achieve a more just peace by making the effort to fight, and even if you end up "losing," the final surrender would be on better terms because of your spirited resistance and causing them more damage than they thought they would have to suffer. So losing the defensive war could still result in a more just situation than if you don't fight the defensive war.
Or, (because of said damages mentioned) you might decide that your situation is better with outright surrender without fighting than it is likely to be if you try fighting. This is not an option in Zippy's Hatfield / McCoy example, but there neither is fighting going to get you a more just peace.
In any event, it would appear at least possible to define "success" otherwise than victory over the enemy. It can be more a limited goal - a less oppressive defeat (as in "The Mouse That Roared").
I think this is a harder case, bu presuming everything stated is true and believed in good faith, I think it meets the just war test (all other factors being met as Zippy has provided).
mg, I agree. It is also the case that success in scenario 2 is defined in terms of the greater common good that involves the whole alliance, not just Planet McCoy. It is, I think, always acceptable to increase the scope of the common good that is to benefit.
First: What is the status of the Just War Doctrine in the teachings of the Catholic Church?
Apostolic Sacred Tradition? Dogma? Doctrine? Discipline? I mean, they call it the Just War "Doctrine" but I have learned not to trust popular labels for things.
Lest anyone misinterpret the motivation behind this question, let me stipulate: I would not, in any way, wish the threshold for Just War to be reduced. I'm asking because I wouldn't want, in conversations elsewhere, to exaggerate the status of Just War teaching beyond its actual level of authority.
Second: How does the conclusion of your hypothetical scenario bear upon the ability of the McCoys to deter the attack by the Hatfields prior to it happening by playing up the plausibility of a Mutual Assured Destruction counterattack?
I mean, if the McCoys are all unfallen humans and the Hatfields have perfect intel on the way the McCoys think, then of course it makes sense that the Hatfields will know that no counterattack will be forthcoming.
But if the Hatfields don't have perfect intel, or if the McCoys are fallen human beings who might plausibly not live up to their highest ideals, then a MAD response becomes plausible.
Is it not therefore morally permissible for the McCoys to...
(a.) have arsenals in place which are dual-purpose (i.e. designed to be used for morally licit non-MAD purposes) but which could be used for a devastating counterattack against the Hatfields; and,
(b.) make it clear that, while they are morally opposed to blasting the Hatfields in response to their own imminent destruction, they can make no guarantee that folk holding such lofty principles will maintain political ascendancy in the last few minutes before the Hatfields' attack wipes out the McCoys?
Third: If inculcating the above uncertainty in the Hatfields' minds is quite likely to drastically decrease the odds of the Hatfields actually launching a planet-busting attack, is it not morally obligatory that the McCoys do exactly that? To leave the Hatfields wondering whether the cost of their attack might be unexpectedly high?
--
Since there are no innocent civilians on the Hatfield planet, I'm not sure the MAD acronym is fully legitimate, since usually that acronym applied to situations where the destruction would involve civilian centers and the deliberate killing of innocents.
I'm gathering from all of this that it isn't considered legitimate by Catholic teaching to regard the killing of Hatfields as a just execution for their evil program of annihilation against the McCoys?
Pity, that.
RC:
What is the status of the Just War Doctrine in the teachings of the Catholic Church?
It has the authority of the Catechism, and more. The Pope formally ordered the publication of the Catechism with the words "I declare it to be a sure norm for teaching the faith and thus a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion."
I don't have a heavily nuanced view of weapon stockpiling, but I do agree that stockpiling weapons which have moral uses is not itself immoral.
Lydia:
Any authority for punishment including execution is linked to the common good, and if by carrying it out we destroy the last bit of existing humanity it seems implausible that we can refer our authority to do it to the common good. I expect what that tells us, among other things, is that we've pressed the utility of the hypothetical beyond its limits.
Zippy, I'm not sure it really makes a difference to _me_, but I don't think you said originally that the Hatfields and the McCoys are the only existing humans in the universe in the scenario.
"It has the authority of the Catechism, and more."
My understanding is that a catechism is, almost by definition, not a source document for doctrine but a compendium of existing doctrine. As a teaching tool a catechism may be flawed, incomplete, or otherwise defective.
(Interestingly, section 2309 which covers Just War criteria appears not to have a footnote.)
The many changes and amendments to the Second Edition, some of which had moderately serious doctrinal implications, indicate that the CCC is very much a work in progress.
http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/updates.htm
I don't mean to say that the CCC isn't generally reliable or should not be trusted, but it does not seem to be something intended to *settle* previously unsettled questions all by itself.
In my view, RC's question about the doctrinal status of Just War theory in the Catholic Church is not answered by the CCC. Section 2309 needs a footnote and a source.
I'm not all that interested in having this particular discussion degenerate into a debate over ecclesiology and the authority of various documents, especially when the hermeneutic starts to look like "if the entry in the Catechism isn't footnoted, it can safely be discounted". I say that while fully realizing that such disputation is a favorite passtime of Catholics, sometimes even myself.
If at some point I decide to publish a gloss on the history of the just war doctrine I'll do so explicitly. In the meantime, the discussion isn't about what warrant there might be to dissent from the just war doctrine expressed in the Catechism as a doctrine; it is about what it means to assent to it.
I don't think you said originally that the Hatfields and the McCoys are the only existing humans in the universe in the scenario.
Well I said that all innocent civilians were on planet McCoy. I suppose that leaves open the possibility that there are warring armies elsewhere. My purpose in placing all innocent civilians on planet McCoy was to head off justifications (justifications with which I agree) based on the notion that wiping out the Hatfields would eliminate their capacity to wage war on other innocents elsewhere.
But as you say, I'm not sure it makes a difference, though perhaps for different reasons on my part. Since all authority to wage war rests in the protection of the common good, and scenarios like this strain the very idea of the common good to unreal limits, it becomes difficult to say what warrants arise from it.
" ... especially when the hermeneutic starts to look like 'if the entry in the Catechism isn't footnoted, it can safely be discounted'."
All I'm saying is that if the just war entry in the catechism isn't footnoted, and if the topic doesn't seem to be addressed at a high level by the magisterium elsewhere, then RC's question still hasn't been answered.
"In the meantime, the discussion isn't about what warrant there might be to dissent from the just war doctrine expressed in the Catechism as a doctrine; it is about what it means to assent to it."
Fair enough, Zippy. Happy Easter to you and yours.
A blessed Easter to you and your family too Jeff.
The moral principles underpinning Just War doctrine have been with us a long time, and are no more negotiable than any other moral teaching. However, whether a particular principle is being violated under certain circumstances can obviously be a subject of debate.
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