Comments on: “Asymmetric warfare” and ethics

By: Au Jus § Unqualified Offerings

Au Jus § Unqualified Offerings — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 02:28:00 +0000

[...] Chris Bertram and Jane Galt kick around not asymmetrical warfare but asymmetrical war law, starting from a Steven Poole article about how the laws of war are rigged to favor the strong. Who, of course, write and rewrite them at their convenience. Thus terror-bombing civilians becomes good and right and necessary as strong nations develop the technology to do so – the European powers, Japan and the US in the middle decades of the 20th Century – but very wrongbadfun once strong nations can afford more precise weapons. Taking a couple of soldiers prisoner is “terrorism” but bombing people and infrastructure only tangentially connected with the kidnapping is self-defense. Jane writes No doubt some of my readers are about to hop on my back for siding with the terrorists. But it is an interesting–and imperative–moral question: what to do if just aims can only be achieved by unjust means? Those of us who were willing to tolerate the deaths of innocent Iraqi civilians in order to liberate their countrymen should be wiling to stare that question hard in the face, not just rely on easy customary distinctions, levened by a healthy dose of self-justification, and hardened by long repetition into something like instinct. If Dresden and Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were not wrong because they hastened the end of the war, then why is Islamic terror different if it achieves aims that seem to the perpetrators to be at least equally just? If we cannot answer this in a convincing way–convincing to millions of muslims still enjoying the fruits of colonialism (as well as, like all humans, a full measure of self-inflicted wounds)–then I see little chance of our defeating terrorism in the near future. [...]

By: jet

jet — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 19:07:02 +0000

So it is simple. A weak party can’t use immoral warfare until they have attempted non-violent resistance. But non-violent resistance only works if the weak party is obviously in the right.

So it looks like the Palestinians have no right to their immoral warfare and probably won’t find non-violent resistance that useful.

By: Chris Bertram

Chris Bertram — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 16:44:35 +0000

I’m glad to hear those naturalistic projects have been so successful, zdenek. (Or maybe I’m less easily convinced that you are.)

By: zdenek

zdenek — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 16:17:21 +0000

before I forget Chris in his #130 is confusing two seperate questions :

1) what grounds normativity ?

is different from

2) what grounds specific moral judgements or specific moral theory ?

The first question is not the one we have been looking at and has nothing to do with reflective equilibrium. Offering an acount of normativity is a problem whether normativity can be naturalised ( at least in modern philosophy ). RE on the other hand comes in in narrow form when we try to justify specific moral judgements and in a broad form when we try to offer justification for a specific moral theory.

Now its possible to see that to say as Chris does that RE ” doesnt explain where the compellingness( of moral judgements comes from) is a red herring ( a muddle actually ) because this is an issue involving ( in modern philosophy anyway ) naturalizing of morality where what underwrites such a project is Darwinism ( Alan Gibbard’s project in his work is an example ).
PS this is a good undergraduate stuff so Chris supprises me.

By: zdenek

zdenek — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 14:56:55 +0000

Criticism Chris is making is slightely off the topic which is whether one needs Platonic type commitment to try to explain normativity and not that such non platonic ( constructivist approach both in Kant and Rawls ) approach is without problems ; of course there are problems with this approach but that is another matter.

By: Chris Bertram

Chris Bertram — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 14:35:10 +0000

It seems to me that there are no particular difficulties in devising a normative moral theory without any reference to metaphysics,

Not the issue ….

Of course we can make all kinds of normative claims without even thinking about the metaphysics, and we can get pretty systematic about it too. If that was all zdenek meant then I shouldn’t have mocked him. But I took him to be claiming that RE provides a general grounding for normativity as such. It doesn’t, since it (effectively if not officially) presupposes that we find some judgements compelling and doesn’t begin to explain wherein their compellingness lies.

By: Z

Thu, 13 Jul 2006 13:58:52 +0000

If you believe that then I have some funds…
I oddly find myself agreeing with Zdenek. It seems to me that there are no particular difficulties in devising a normative moral theory without any reference to metaphysics, and it doesn’t seem very hard to me to apply this theory to practical cases either. I assume that Chris’ answer was mocking this claim, but I find it very reasonnable.

By: zdenek

zdenek — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 13:06:14 +0000

Chris/Steven criticism of jwt/jib : because Chris is complaining about the weak being disadvantaged by jib and Steven is anxious about lack of justification for these rules their position reminds me of Hard & Negri view which says that these rules promote ideology of the ruling elite and not much more. So no wonder the jib rules are biased or without moral justification.
I think this is silly ( if this is indeed their view ) because jwt can be effectively used to criticise US war in Vietnam and in Iraq. Ie. it can be shown that US has not met the jwt requrements ( Walzer )and so it cannot be just a set of principles designed to rationalize the hegemon’s foreign policy.

By: Jake

Jake — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 16:33:32 +0000

If that GA resolution were passed today, it would have been done so explicitly in the context of the Israel/Palestine conflict, not in terms of colonialism or China/Tibet or any number of African conflicts. I don’t know enough history to know if that was the case in 1970.

And that is actually an amazingly good and not offensive at all analogy, abb1.

By: zdenek

zdenek — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 16:32:12 +0000

re 124—coherence for moral beliefs but corespondence for claims like ’ I have just deposited $10000 into an account A ’ .

By: abb1

abb1 — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 16:22:56 +0000

Xmath, OK, here’s my unnecessary offensive metaphor:

Suppose the NY Mob is extremely powerful compare to the NJ Mob: many more much better trained enforcers, overwhelmingly superior weapons, etc.

So, on the annual Mob-USA conference in Vegas, the NY Boss declares: we are taking over NJ territory. In the next few weeks we’re coming to NJ with our guns blazing and we’ll kill the NJ Boss and all his capos.

And the NJ Boss says: we’ll fight to the last man.

The Executive Committee deliberates and then the senior consiglieri announces: due to a significant asymmetry of the impending war and considering the just cause of the NJ organization, these will be the new rules of the conflict: NY organization can’t mow down or blow up more than 2 innocent bystanders for each enemy killed, while the NJ organization is allowed up to 8.

That’s the idea being discussed here.

By: Chris Bertram

Chris Bertram — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 16:22:35 +0000

this can provide the required justification without questionable metaphysics.

If you believe that then I have some funds in a Nigerian bank account that you can have a share of, just so long as you wire me $10000 in advance to cover my expenses.

By: zdenek

zdenek — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 16:11:26 +0000

sorry forgot to add that you can say lets see what principles would be chosen by suitably ignrant parties and then add the reflective equilibrium constraint and say that whatever would be chosen has to also jive with this additional constraint. In otherwords ala Rawls you combine the two approaches …

By: zdenek

zdenek — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 16:02:50 +0000

sorry I forgot to mention another non platonic option : reflective equilibrium which aims at coherence between moral and non moral beliefs and invoves revision and correction until an equilibrium is reached ; again this can provide the required justification without questionable metaphysics.

By: zdenek

zdenek — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 15:51:05 +0000

No Steven the required normativity can come from the sort of agreement people behind the ‘veil of ignorance’ would reach ; nothing Platonic about this or problematically elevated about this .