The African American Challenge to Just War Theory

A Christian Approach

R. Cumming

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781137350329
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christianity

In this innovative treatment of the ethics of war, Ryan P. Cumming brings classical sources of just war theory into conversation with African American voices. The result is a new direction in just war thought that challenges dominant interpretations of just war theory by looking to the perspectives of those on the underside of history and politics.

CHAPTER 1

THE STATE OF JUST WAR THEORY TODAY

Despite the importance of just war theory for Christian reflection on war, it has had at best a discontiguous life in Christian history. Rather than enjoying sustained attention and import, the just war tradition has been characterized by peaks of interest and valleys of neglect. Briefly, we can trace the major peaks across the fourth century with Augustine, the thirteenth century with Aquinas, and the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with the work of Hugo Grotius, and the Spanish theologians of the University of Salamanca, Francisco de Vitoria, and Francisco Suarez. From this last period until about the mid-twentieth century, just war theory largely remained dormant, with little significant development and minimal engagement.¹ That said, the last five decades have witnessed a surge in just-war research. The Cold War, the Vietnam War, and the two Gulf wars (1991 and 2003) have all contributed to renewed interest in just war theory. This is not to say that the theory enjoys any more consensus now than it engendered in the past. If anything, interest in nonviolence and pacifism, which increased as much as (if not more than) interest in just war theory, has reinvigorated debates about interpretation and application of the jus ad bellum (war decision-making) and jus in bello (war-fighting) criteria that characterize modern just war theory. One of the central debates among theorists concerns the presumption that underlies the whole theory. Does just war theory, like pacifism, begin with a presumption against violence? Or, does it begin with a presumption against injustice, that is, with a view of war as a morally good means for securing justice in political relationships? Is war the “lesser of two evils”?² Or, is war part of the “bene esse” of government?³

Solving the debate exceeds the purposes of this chapter. However, summarizing some of the authors engaged in the debate offers several benefits. First, it will allow us to determine the place of this book within broader just-war conversations. Second, some of the shortcomings and limitations of some modern theories of just war can be usefully highlighted. Finally, analyzing the debate not only helps name the problems addressed herein, but also adequately grounds the rationale for the work of subsequent chapters. It is necessary to note that the authors examined below are not exhaustive of the debate; however, they have been chosen because they explicitly mention their choice of presumption and together are representative of major ideas on both sides of the debate.

PRESUMPTION AGAINST WAR

Ralph Potter and James Childress

Two of the earliest and most prominent Protestant voices to interpret just war theory with a presumption against war are Ralph Potter and James F. Childress. Potter and Childress are compatible in their views on war, to some extent. It may be easy to consider their similarities, including their arguments for a presumption against war, products of their times, since both emerged from graduate studies in the turmoil of the Vietnam War, with Potter completing his dissertation in 1965 and Childress graduating a few years later in 1968. This would be too simplistic, however, for their work on politics and the ethics of war reflects other concerns drawn from their historical situation. Both authors were affected as much by the civil disobedience and revolutionary movements of the 1950s and 1960s as they were by the violence of Vietnam.

For Potter, this concern translated into a non-utopian vision of world government that would limit the necessity of violent revolutions.⁴ Childress’ interest in civil disobedience, such as the kind erupting in American streets throughout the 1960s, led him not to an uncritical acceptance of nonviolent protest per se but rather to a sharply critical evaluation of when and how such disobedience might be justified. Despite his limited appreciation of the state as such, Childress argued that civil disobedience can only be justified when a society’s injustice is clearly and overwhelmingly intolerable, to the point that other obligations to one’s fellow citizens (who may be harmed by disobedience) may be justifiably overridden.⁵ These contextual concerns, with Christian participation in and justification of violent rebellion (for Potter) and civil disobedience (for Childress) deeply impacted each author’s attempt to reshape just war theory in such a way as to make it meaningful for their historical situations. Despite fundamental methodological differences given their particular concerns, both Potter and Childress reached similar conclusions about just war theory—it must begin with a presumption against war.

Both authors agree that “every version of [the moral logic of war, or just war theory] begins with a presumption against the use of force.”⁶ For Potter, this presumption is rooted in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, inasmuch as both exemplify a commitment to nonviolence. Christians, then, have a special obligation to critique and challenge attempts to justify the use of force. Childress, on the other hand, roots his presumption against violence in a universal “prima facie duty of non-maleficence,” that is, the human obligation to avoid harming and killing other human beings.⁷ Because of this moral duty, Childress begins his discussion of war by claiming that “nonviolence has moral priority over violence.”⁸ Moreover, he argues just war theorists and pacifists are similar to each other in that they share this basic starting point. While the two groups differ in that just war theorists believe violence may be justified in certain cases, Childress is quick to point out that this consensual starting point can only be ignored “at great peril to all of us.”⁹

This congruence with pacifism notwithstanding, neither Potter nor Childress is ready to deny any and all attempts at justifying war. Rather than concern themselves with pacifist arguments against war in all cases, both focus their efforts on ensuring that attempts to justify war vis-à-vis just war theory meet the exceedingly high standard of “rigorous justification” embodied in the overarching theory behind the just war criteria.¹⁰ For his part, Potter maintains three causes may justify use of violent force: protection of innocent people, restoration of rights, and reestablishment of “an order necessary for decent human existence,” or what has been referred to since Augustine as the tranquilitas ordinis (though we must note here that Potter has in mind here a “justifiable revolution,” rather than violence to restore a status quo, as Augustine and others understand the tranquilitas ordinis).¹¹ In a more philosophical fashion, Childress draws on the work of W. D. Ross to claim that acts must be judged in their totality. Prima facie obligations (such as non-maleficence) differ from actual obligations because the “ethically relevant characteristics” of an act may require that one prima facie obligation, such as the duty to protect innocent people from attack, may override other prima facie obligations, such as non-maleficence. As he puts it, a prima facie obligation “is intrinsically binding, but it does not necessarily determine one’s actual obligation.”¹² Thus, for Childress, war may become one’s actual obligation, provided the justification for violence is sufficient to override the prima facie obligation of non-maleficence. Distilling one’s actual duty from sets of competing prima facie duties forms the basis for ad bellum criteria.

This is not to say that the moment one of Potter’s causes obtains or one of Childress’ obligations is overridden, anything goes. Pursuits of a just cause and fulfillment of an actual obligation are still governed by the in bello criteria. Indeed, the in bello requirements of discrimination and proportionality arise from the same presumption against violence that informs the need to justify using violence in the first place. Both Potter and Childress are helpful in demonstrating the logical coherence of just war theory, in which the decision to go to war (ad bellum) and the conduct within war (in bello) are rooted in the same presumption against violence. Each author, however, understands this link in a slightly different way.

For Childress, prima facie obligations do not cease to function in toto the moment they are overridden. Relying on the work of A. C. Ewing, Childress claims that overridden obligations leave “moral traces,” meaning that they “should in many cases [still] modify in some respect the way in which the act is performed and in almost all [cases] it should affect some subsequent action.”¹³ Thus, overriding the duty of non-maleficence does not make total war justifiable; discrimination and proportionality function to limit war given the “moral traces” of the obligation. In bello criteria thus logically flow from the same presumption and obligation that gave rise to ad bellum criteria. Moreover, Childress sees such “moral traces” in the regret and remorse, which authors such as Augustine and Reinhold Niebuhr believed should accompany even justified war.

Potter, on the other hand, sees the in bello criteria as flowing from the faultiness of war as an “instrument of enforcement.”¹⁴ The harm war imposes on innocents and its tendency to escape the limits of the justice it serves give rise to its limitation by discrimination and proportionality, respectively. Whereas Childress’ understanding of the link between in bello and ad bellum is deontological, here with Potter, the logic is seemingly consequential. Despite this difference, both agree that the in bello criteria arise from the same presumption against violence that necessitates the rigorous and stringent criteria of ad bellum.

J. Bryan Hehir

Catholic theologian J. Bryan Hehir agrees that just war theory and pacifism share a presumption against war, which at times may be overridden.¹⁵ Much of his work in just war theory is an attempt to demonstrate, on the basis of this shared presumption, that both just war theory and pacifism are morally acceptable positions within Catholicism, an argument that is challenged strongly by other Catholic theologians. Hehir tackles this disagreement head-on, noting in several places that twentieth-century Catholic Social Thought has moved from Pope Pius XII’s initial rejection of pacifism, through Pope John XXIII and Pope Paul VI’s critique of war, and to condemnation of war by the Vatican in the 1980s.¹⁶ This shift, which Hehir acknowledges as consistent with the developing nature of Catholic teaching, has allowed for the acceptance of pacifism by many Catholics even as it maintains the Church’s openness to just war theory.

Despite the fact that both positions are “Catholic,” Hehir is also quick to highlight the differences between the two and identifies himself in his writing as a just war theorist, not a pacifist. According to Hehir, while pacifism has a single rule—violence is never to be used— just war theory contains a “multiplicity of rules,” which provide for a “rule-governed use of force.”¹⁷ As a just war theorist, Hehir sees his task to be interpreting and clarifying these rules in concrete political situations rather than “proving” war to be inherently immoral, as the pacifist might attempt.¹⁸ To that end, Hehir has been especially vocal in his interpretation of “right authority” as requiring an international body to declare war. Consistent with much twentieth-century Catholic thought, he has defended the United Nations’ authority in this light, though he is cautious of the UN’s efficacy in practice.¹⁹

The US Catholic Bishops and The Challenge of Peace

One of the reasons Hehir has drawn much criticism is his work on the 1983 United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (hereafter USCCB; named the National Conference of Catholic Bishops at the time) letter The Challenge of Peace: God’s Promise and Our Response, perhaps the most controversial Catholic statement on war and peace in the last century. As the Cold War entered its fifth decade, and as America entered the Ronald Reagan era of the 1980s, the Bishops were drawn into two related conversations about war. On the one hand, nuclear arsenals in both the United States and the Soviet Union continued to grow, with no foreseeable end to the arms race or the threat of nuclear war. On the other hand, following the election of Reagan, the Bishops found themselves enmeshed in the debate between social spending and military spending by the federal government. Like many others, the Bishops increasingly came to see the nuclear arms race as a threat in itself apart from any risk of actual warfare. Both concerns were addressed in their pastoral letter and formed the context in which their claims about war developed.

Following Hehir, the USCCB claimed that “just-war teaching and nonviolence [are] distinct but interdependent methods of evaluating warfare … [T]hey share a common presumption against the use of force as a means of settling disputes.”²⁰ In a manner similar to Childress, and as influenced by civil disobedience movements as he was, the Bishops established the priority of nonviolence in the Catholic tradition by claiming that “Catholic teaching begins in every case with a presumption against war and for peaceful settlement of disputes.”²¹ This presumption, “which is binding on all,”²² may be overridden in certain cases, but further requires that Catholics “seek to restrict and reduce [war’s] horrors.”²³ The purpose of ad bellum criteria, then, is to “prevent war”; when this cannot be done, the in bello criteria work to limit the suffering produced by even justified violence.

This is not to say that the Bishops believed the mere absence of war to be a morally worthy peace (contrary to charges to the contrary). Actual peace, they claimed, is founded on justice.²⁴ Thus, they, like the authors above, agreed that war may be morally necessary in certain cases, especially in self-defense and in defense of innocent neighbors. War, for the Bishops, may be waged “to protect innocent life, to preserve conditions necessary for decent human existence, and to secure basic human rights.”²⁵

As to the ad bellum criteria of legitimate authority, the Bishops followed much Catholic thought from Pope Pius XII to Pope John Paul II in arguing for the UN’s role as a (if not the) proper war-making authority. Unlike Hehir (but similar to Pope John XXIII’s Pacem in Terris and the Second Vatican Council’s Gaudium et Spes) the Bishops are decidedly confident in the UN, referring to it as “the last hope for peace.”²⁶ This hope and confidence in the international authority of the UN is prominent in many theorists who share the presumption against war.

Though the Bishops declare their teaching to be consistent with the tradition of Catholic Social Thought, they, like Hehir, concede that the tradition itself has developed in response to changes in the political environment. The Bishops ground their “fresh reappraisal of war” in the changing nature of weapons technology. Quoting Pope John Paul II, they argue that “[t]oday the scale and the horror of modern warfare—whether nuclear or not—makes it totally unacceptable as a means of settling differences between nations.”²⁷ The Bishops thus ground much of their work on the inherent destructiveness of modern weaponry.

In an interesting turn, they reverse the logic of Potter and Childress by, at points, positioning the ad bellum restrictions on war...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. The State of Just War Theory Today
• 2. Who Makes Decisions? Right Authority in Historical
• 3. African American Thought on Authority and War
• 4. Who Pays the Cost? Military Budgets and Proportionality ad bellum
• 5. What Is the Goal? Rethinking Just Cause
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index