Perplexty of What is Just in War After We Have Accepted What is Just About War.Reflections on JUS IN BELLO

摘要

The central thesis of this research paper is that war continues to be 'an uglybusiness' despite the profusion of laws and conventions designed to muzzle its devastation and limit the harm to non-combatants. No ethical theory of warfare can justify the horrific effects of war7 particularly as we view the lethality of modern weapons and the damage they can inflict upon their targets. Many Just War theorists have tried to argue that unintended collateral damage is not a crime against humanity if it is the result of military operations waged in a just cause. Thus, the justice of going to war (jus ad bellum) has carried more ethical weight than the resulting ways and means for waging war (jus in bello). While the Just War tradition has served us well in establishing the moral and ethical basis for waging war, it has been less persuasive and consistent with regards to the means. In the world of digitization and precision guided munitions, crimes against humanity have become a banal side effect. Perhaps the time has come to reassess what our Just War Tradition should be for the centuries ahead. Perhaps the time has come to ban war as an option for resolving conflict.