Is there really Just War?

I haven't written in this forum in a long time, but the discussion is often so erudite, and I wonder if anyone has any thoughts on this.

In general, around the libertarian/anarchist haunts I hear that war must be "just," like the War for American Independence or Southern Independence.  However, I have been thinking about where we are now, versus the English, and it seems pretty similar.  So they got to Fabian socialism a little faster.  Well, we had more wars and built our empire out.

As for the South, well, they lost the war and things were totally miserable for a long time, and there are lots of residual effects.

Certainly, there is the right to self-defense.  I am still in a place where I think you can ethically shoot if being shot at.  However, I am wondering if war, as such, is always a sham.

 

War is the health of the State.

War is an excuse for higher taxes.  War is an excuse for money supply inflation.  War is an excuse to funnel money into the pockets of politically-connected military contractors.

 

thompsonisland:

However, I am wondering if war, as such, is always a sham.

I wouldn't say always, but certainly most wars are. Or more precisely, it depends on how we define war and the participants. For example, all major participants in WWII had some moral responsibility for there being war in the first place. But then again, I find it very hard to fault Chechens for fighting against the Russians. But is their activity war or self-defense?

I have always believed that a "just war" was one fought in self-defense, or in the interest of self-determination.  That is what I am struggling with right now.  If you are Chechen, or Iraqi, or anyone whose country is occupied by an aggressor, I can certainly see the theoretical argument in favor of organized (or disorganized) armed response.  However, war is never clear-cut on the ground.  As soon as the "rebels" pick up a gun, are their actions ever entirely pure?  Are there no atrocities, no wrongs, committed by said rebels?  I have never heard it to be so.  Someone always ends up physically oppressed, and some power is always solidified, by parties initiating armed incursions.

 Every war is unjust, but some (few) are also just.  How so?  Every war is unjust for at least one party - the one whose borders it is not fought within, since they have the ability to end it but fail to do so.  Some are just defense for the country within whose borders the war is fought, but most (including the war for Southern Independence) also are used as excuses for that government to, as it were, declare war on their own citizens, making them unjust as well.

I don't know that there are any hard-and-fast rules, but sometimes, I could see war being justified. 

For an example - if my neighbors to the north lose their grip on sanity, and the French-speaking Quebeqois start ethnically cleansing their area of all English-speaking people, and said English-speaking Quebequois asked for my assistance in defending themselves, I'd be prone to pick up a firearm and help defend them - I'd consider such a cause just, even if I were not personally under attack.

Being the son of a man who fought in WWII against the German and Japanese agression, I've always been proud that my family has a tradition of opposing such things - nor do I believe that any non-violent means of opposition would have been effective.  I opposed our (USA) involvement in Vietnam, but additional education has led me to the opinion that we were, contractually, obligated to support the government of South Vietnam, and that our mistake there was in not really trying to win that war outright.

I supported the early War in Iraq - we'd promised our allies in the Gulf War of 1991 to depose Hussein, and we were overdue in living up to that promise.  I'd be considerably happier about our continued involvement if I thought we were being effective in our stated goal - but I don't have a lot of faith in the competence of our leadership there, either.

Danno, imagining he's just given cause for outrage in several anti-state anarchists.  Not my intention, we've got differing worldviews.

I was about to respond in a not-very-polite fashion but you probably know the arguments anyway, so bleh :P

 

I think this question should be predicated with the more fundamental questions, "Have there been, or could there be, examples of Just Individual Force? If so, why would we call them 'Just'?"

Many people would further split this question into considerations of initiation vs. retaliation. I do not. I deny that force may be morally legitimate in any circumstance. Some call this pacifism, but I dislike that term's emasculated position in our vernacular. I choose not to give it a name, and opt instead to let my actions--as distinguished from the flimsy paper mache of semantics--form the impressions on others.

But I digress.

I would recommend beginning with considerations of individual uses of force. That'll be fresh blood the Randians will smell from two forums away, so you're sure to have a long, fruitful (cough...) thread.

Good luck. :)

Dynamix:

I would recommend beginning with considerations of individual uses of force. That'll be fresh blood the Randians will smell from two forums away, so you're sure to have a long, fruitful (cough...) thread.

 

I don't follow.

 

Randroids are some of the most bloodthirsty adherents of the NAP out there.

-Jon

Dynamix:

 

Many people would further split this question into considerations of initiation vs. retaliation. I do not. I deny that force may be morally legitimate in any circumstance. Some call this pacifism, but I dislike that term's emasculated position in our vernacular. I choose not to give it a name, and opt instead to let my actions--as distinguished from the flimsy paper mache of semantics--form the impressions on others.

I'd be interested in a few links (or just arguments) as for why self-defense is immoral or unethical.

I do not believe self-defense to be immoral or unethical in principle, but when I start to extrapolate to the practical I come to so many conundrums that I get confused.  I do believe in ideology as being important, and arguments from principle effective, so when I find practical conundrums I am always suspicious that, unless the principle has actually become convoluted in practice, there may be a flaw in the argument.

If someone is shooting at you, I think you have a right to shoot back.  But what if he is are shooting at your neighbor?  What if he isn't shooting at you right now, or yet, but you anticipate that he will?  What if he is shooting at you because you are currently in posession of land that your father stole from his father, whom he shot?  Rothbard parses this question back to the original appropriator and any consensual acts that follow that appropriation.  Well, fine.  That's the same as saying that the death penalty is okay if we know for sure that the person being murdered by the state is guilty of the crime.  In practice, this falls apart all the time.  It is the ultimate justification for so much that the state does, insofar as people assume that the bureacratic apparatus somehow possesses perfect knowledge.

No one can ever cast the first stone.  I oppose all theft.  But I use public roads.  In practice, there may not be a good alternative, but that's not the point.  The point is that, in practice, I am regularly in violation of one of my principles. 

Nonviolence seems to be the only way to take away one's oppressor's power.  Otherwise, we are just stacking guns against each other, which would imply that whoever wins the shootout is in the right.

What if we take the American Revolution.  Just or not?  Why?  Have the past 225 years demonstrated that the experiment failed, less bloodily than the Communist experiment, but certaily not bloodlessly?  What might have happened if the Americans had remained under British rule, like the Canadians, is it likely that a velvet revolution might have taken place instead?  We hear that the Civil War was okay because the slaves were freed, whether or not this was the point.  So, we respond that slavery died less bloodily, and without the other negative outcomes of the US Civil War, in other places.  But, would the Civil War have been okay if Lincoln really HAD meant to free the slaves?

Dynamix:

I think this question should be predicated with the more fundamental questions, "Have there been, or could there be, examples of Just Individual Force? If so, why would we call them 'Just'?"

Some years back, when I was pretty involved in ballroom dance, I was walking through a park, on my way to a dance studio, carrying a small nylon bag that held my dance shoes.  The park was a known homosexual hangout, and a group of 5 college-age lads apparently thought that a guy carrying a small bag must be homosexual.  They took offense at this, and attacked me.

Three of them escaped unharmed.  One had multiple bones in his foot broken, and perhaps his nose.  The other had multiple contusions on his face and neck, and perhaps a cracked rib or two.  I thought at the time that if they were going to go gay-bashing, I was happy that they'd mistaken me for a gay - better a victim that can defend himself than another, and I was pleased to demonstrate to them the error of their ways.

Over 20 years later, I still consider my reaction justified.  I went beyond the bare minimum necessary to repel the attack, and gave some Skinner-type conditioning to people who considered unprovoked violence acceptable.  I'm older, not nearly in as good condition, and a tad calmer - but I'd be happy to offer the same education to such folks tomorrow, if I still could.

Just?  I certainly think so.  By my lights, whoever opens the door to aggression has no right to complain about how much aggression comes through the door, and people who open that door need a lesson in why they shouldn't.  If my reaction prevented those 5 from committing aggression on someone else, later - my purpose was served, and I'd call it a worthwhile task.

Many people would further split this question into considerations of initiation vs. retaliation. I do not. I deny that force may be morally legitimate in any circumstance. Some call this pacifism, but I dislike that term's emasculated position in our vernacular. I choose not to give it a name, and opt instead to let my actions--as distinguished from the flimsy paper mache of semantics--form the impressions on others.

It would probably be delightful to live in a world in which violence was a rare abberation,  or to be a part of a species that was non-violent.  Unfortunately, I know of no such world, and am not a member of such a species. 

And I, too, prefer to let my actions speak for me.

But I digress.

I would recommend beginning with considerations of individual uses of force. That'll be fresh blood the Randians will smell from two forums away, so you're sure to have a long, fruitful (cough...) thread.

Good luck. :)

Well, thanks - this may get to be fun, if not productive.  I can't claim to be a Randian myself, but I've read enough to know the territory, and agree with enough of it to make the disagreements interestin'.

I'll respect anyone's right to decide upon a policy of nonviolence, though I consider it unwise myself.  Those who beat their swords into plowshares generally end up plowing for the folks who kept their swords.

Danno, who should be outside tilling his garden, oddly enough.

If they attacked you, I think you were justified in fighting back.  You do say that you inflicted more damage than was necessary to extricate yourself from the situation, though, right?  Do you think that there is an inevitable sadism that springs from one's feeling that one is justified in using violence?

thompsonisland:

If they attacked you, I think you were justified in fighting back.  You do say that you inflicted more damage than was necessary to extricate yourself from the situation, though, right?  Do you think that there is an inevitable sadism that springs from one's feeling that one is justified in using violence?

An urge to punish (and thus, discourage) particular behaviors isn't necessarily sadism. 

I believe the urge to discourage particular behaviors in others is universal - the decision-making points regarding which behaviors one has a right to discourage in others, and the methods that would be appropriate or not, is where the differences lie.

How about yourself?  If someone walked up to you, struck you without provocation, and turned away - would you be justified in striking them back?  Would you be justified in allowing them to behave in this fashion by not punishing it?  (Personally, I see no practical or ethical difference between punishing them physically yourself and calling in agents, such as police, to do it for you.  Do you?)

I can't be the only one with an opinion here....

Danno, notably opinionated.

Fred Furash:

I'd be interested in a few links (or just arguments) as for why self-defense is immoral or unethical.

In response to this and a few other posts made I want to make it clear that the "flimsy paper mache of semantics" I spoke about was not a reference to any of the many arguments for just retaliation. I understand that many--virtually all!--people believe in at least some applications of just force, and I'm hardly so coarse as to denigrate their beliefs with that kind of language. (Though I would have when I was not much younger. Live and learn.)

I was instead referring to the label of "pacifism," and how most people, upon hearing the word, experience a semantic reaction wrought with cowardice and free-wheeling, naive hippyism. So I don't use that "flimsy" word when I want to share my beliefs.

Now that the air has been cleared and I'm not such an ass after all, I have to admit that I have no explanation to offer you--at least none to your satisfaction. I based my own ethical premises on the NAP last year, and eventually rejected that foundation for other arguments which I thought were more consistent with my basic worldview. Then, this past spring, I came across a book called Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics, which, by providing good (albeit shocking) reasons to deny the "law of identity," turned my entire outlook on philosophy upside-down. I haven't finished the book yet, so I won't speak at length on any of its arguments, but suffice it to say that I'm now trying to reintegrate so many of my puzzle pieces in light of its claims. It's this reason why I won't go far to justify my claims of "you should not retaliate" just yet, as any implied compatibility between my claim and the restrictions of non-aristotelianism would be suspect on account of my inexperience. I don't want to step over the line.

The only reason I replied to this thread is because I think--I think!--that my arguments for non-resistance are compatible with Korzybski's (the author's) non-aristotelianism, and one short step of certainty in that direction seems worth one short step of mentioning it.

Sorry I couldn't be of more help.