Essay on Ethics of War Text

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Human beings have been fighting each other since prehistoric times, and people have been discussing the rights and wrongs of it for almost as long. The ethics of war starts by assuming that war is a bad thing, and should be avoided if possible, but it recognises that there can be situations when war may be the lesser evil of several bad choices. War is a bad thing because it involves deliberately killing or injuring people, and this is a fundamental wrong an abuse of the victims’ human rights. W.bbc.co.uk the rationale of ethics in war is to help in making a decision on what is right or wrong, both for individual soldier and the countries involved. The hague and geneva conventions , the creating and enforcing of rules of engagement for soldiers, and in the punishment of soldiers and others who commit war crimes. What was meant to be the first century not scarred by war, quickly turned into a bloodbath in the wake of terrorist attacks in the united states and in europe.

In response to these attacks on civilian populations the united states engaged in two pre emptive wars on those who harboured terrorists. These wars have now been ongoing for seven years and recently the number of american and other coalition soldiers fallen on the battlefield has risen to over 40, and the number of iraqi civilian casualties has risen to 1,421,933. Recent issues that surround and greatly manipulate the world we live in makes us ask the question. How can these deaths and wars be necessary? the answer to this question is that, even though war is an indisputable evil, there are worse things on this planet than death, and in times of great adversity man has the moral responsibility to use force in the hope of greater good for humanity.

W.bbc.co.uk it is the dreadful acceptance of war, within certain moral and ethical limitations, can be just, has been required, and will continue to be so as long as humans are able to create a greater evil. When speaking of just war, there must be certain restrictions and laws that must be met to make it just. First of all, just because a war is just, it should never be considered a good act. That is to say, war must be jus ad bellum, just in cause, and jus in bello, just in how it is carried out. W.bbc.co.uk it is likely that a war that was just in cause was not conducted in a just manner and therefore it became unjust.

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Both sides thought they were just in going to war, iran for defending itself and iraq feared that iran’s new revolutionary leadership would threaten iraq’s delicate sunni shia balance and would exploit iraq’s geostrategic vulnerabilities iraq’s minimal access to the persian gulf, for example. W.bbc.co.uk a war is just if it is against something more horrific than war itself. If we look at the past, there have been multiple attempts at genocides from armenia in 1915 to 1923, to the holocaust in the 1930’s and 1940’s. Human beings have been fighting each other since prehistoric times, and people have been discussing the rights and wrongs of it for almost as long. War is a bad thing because it involves deliberately killing or injuring people, and this is a fundamental wrong an abuse of the victims' human rights. The purpose of war ethics is to help decide what is right or wrong, both for individuals and countries, and to contribute to debates on public policy, and ultimately to government and individual action. The hague and geneva conventions , the drafting and implementation of rules of engagement for soldiers, and in the punishment of soldiers and others for war crimes.

Now to some minds this phrase the ethics of war will likely cause raised eyebrows. The ethics of war? what can ethics possibly have to do with war? isn’t war evil? well, of course it is. The existence and prevalence of war in history is, in fact, ample testimony to the depravity and wickedness of man. The conduct of war involves the intentional killing of human beings and the destruction of property. I do not think that any rational person can ever say without qualification that war is good.

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And as christians it is our earnest hope that someday god, in his mercy and grace, will beat every sword into plowshares and eliminate war from the face of the earth. For americans, who have lived in relative peace and safety for many years, war has become an unpleasant reality recently. We have experienced the horror of september 11, 2001, and we face the threat of more such terrorist attacks everyday. In the wake of this injustice, our nation has begun a war on terrorism that has eventuated in the ongoing military actions in both afghanistan and iraq. Though most americans and most christians support the general war on terror, questions have been raised about our decision to invade iraq, and public support for the continuing involvement of american forces there is steadily eroding.

So, we may ask the question: should we continue to fight the war in iraq? and many of us are still asking the question of whether or not we should have gone to war there in the first place. Yet, there are even deeper questions that remain: isn’t war evil? can there be such a thing as the ethics of war? throughout history, christians have often asked these kinds of questions. We know that jesus told us to love our enemies and to do good to those who mistreat us. He said, turn the other cheek? how can christians or anyone for that matter condone or participate in war for any reason? this is the main question that we will address today.

Though we may all admit that war is a terrible thing and hope that wars will cease from the face of the earth, may there nevertheless be an ethical justification for war? what, specifically, should be the christian position on war in general and on the current war in particular? in this lecture, i will defend the view that war is sometimes justifiable, and that when war is justifiable, christians may ethically participate in that war. Two christian perspectives on war traditionally, christians have defended two competing perspectives on the question of war. First of all, though it has been the minority view in church history, many christians advocate pacifism. For example, such christian groups as the amish and the mennonites have historically been pacifists. There are several varieties of pacifism, but for our purposes here we will distinguish two forms of pacifism. This is the view that it is wrong for anyone, whether christian or not, to participate in war.

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Second, there is christian pacifism, which allows that non christians may sometimes morally participate in war, but it is wrong for christians to participate in war. Nevertheless, it is sometimes just and right for a person, even a christian, to participate in war. On this view, in other words, it is possible to have a just war, a war that is morally justified. first published fri feb 4, 20 substantive revision thu jul 28, 2005 war should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political communities. Thus, fisticuffs between individual persons do not count as a war, nor does a gang fight, nor does a feud on the order of the hatfields versus the mccoys. War is a phenomenon which occurs only between political communities, defined as those entities which either are states or intend to become states in order to allow for civil war.

Classical war is international war, a war between different states, like the two world wars. But just as frequent is war within a state between rival groups or communities, like the american civil war. Certain political pressure groups, like terrorist organizations, might also be considered ldquo political communities, rdquo in that they are associations of people with a political purpose and, indeed, many of them aspire to statehood or to influence the development of statehood in certain lands. What's statehood? most people follow max weber's distinction between nation and state. A nation is a group which thinks of itself as ldquo a people, rdquo usually because they share many things in common, such as ethnicity, language, culture, historical experience, a set of ideals and values, habitat, cuisine, fashion and so on. The state, by contrast, refers much more narrowly to the machinery of government which organizes life in a given territory.

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