The Just War Theory

1 Pages 314 Words

A just war can only be waged as a last resort. All non-violent options must be exhausted before the use of force can be justified. A just war can only be fought to rectify a wrong suffered. A war can only be just if it is fought with a reasonable chance of success and morally right intentions. Deaths and injury incurred in a hopeless cause are not morally justifiable. The ulimate goal of a just war is to re-establish peace. More specifically, the peace established after the war must be preferable to the peace that would have prevailed if the war had not been fought. The violence used in the war must be proportional to the injury suffered. The weapons used in war must differentiate between combatants and non-combatants. Civilians are never permissable targets of war, and every effort must be taken to avoid killing civilians. The deaths of civilians are justified only if they are unavoidable victims of a deliberate attack on a military target.
If soldiers use discrimination, proportionality, and correct methods they will have kept their fighting as conservative as possible. Soldiers should only target those who are engaged in harm. Thus, when they take aim, soldiers must discriminate between the civilian population, which is morally immune from direct and intentional attack, and those legitimate military, political and industrial targets involved in rights-violating harm. While some civilian casualties are excusable, it is wrong to take deliberate aim at civilian targets. An example would be saturation bombing of residential areas. Soldiers may only use force proportional to the end they seek. Weapons of mass destruction, for example, are usually seen as being out of proportion to legitimate military ends. Soldiers may not use weapons or methods such as: mass rape campaigns; genocide or ethnic cleansing; torturing captured enemy soldiers; and using weapons whose effects cannot be controlled, like chemical or biological agents....