JAMES TURNER JOHNSON’S JUST WAR IDEA:COMMANDING THE HEADWATERS OF TRADITION
CIAN O’DRISCOLL
Abstract: James Turner Johnson is the foremost scholar of the just wartradition working today. His treatment of the historical development of thejust war tradition has been hugely important, influencing a generation oftheorists. Despite this, Johnson’s work has not generated much in the wayof critical commentary or analysis. This paper aims to rectify this oversight.Engaging in a close and critical reading of Johnson’s work, it claims thathis historical reconstruction of the just war tradition is bounded by two keythematic lines – the imperative of vindicative justice and the ideal of Christianlove – and occasionally betrays an excessive deference to the authority of pastpractice. By way of conclusion, this paper sums up the promise and limits ofJohnson’s approach, and reflects upon its contribution to contemporary just warscholarship.
Keywords: James Turner Johnson, just war tradition, National Conference ofCatholic Bishops, peace
The just war tradition constitutes the predominant medium of inquiry throughwhich we encounter, interpret, and debate the moral questions that the use offorce in international society provokes. How this tradition is conceptualisedand delimited is obviously of paramount importance: it sets the terms in whichthe rights and wrongs of war and statecraft are debated. Over the past thirtyyears or more, no scholar has contributed more to our understanding of theseissues than James Turner Johnson. Blending rigour, sharp analysis and incisiveargumentation, Johnson’s work has both defined the field and set the standard forcontemporary just war theorists. Monographs such as Ideology, Reason and theLimitation of War (1975), Just War Tradition and the Restraint of War (1981),Can Modern War be Just? (1984), The Quest for Peace (1987), and Morality
and Contemporary Warfare (1999) have contributed richly to the revitalisationof the just war tradition that has been taking place since Paul Ramsey, Johnson’smentor at Princeton, put it back on the map in the 1960s and 1970s. In crudeterms, Johnson’s influence is evident from a quick glance at any citation index;there is rarely any work published on just war today that does not doff its cap inhis direction.
Despite this stellar record of achievement, Johnson’s work has failed to sparkmuch critical interest from international theorists. While the writings of MichaelWalzer and Jean Bethke Elshtain have been assiduously picked over by scholarsworking in this field, Johnson’s work has suffered from a certain degree ofneglect.1 Although it is often cited both extensively and reverentially, it has notreceived the sustained analysis it deserves. Rather, it has been the subject of anuncritical embrace that risks fixing Johnson’s historical account of the traditionin the disciplinary imagination, fossilising our understanding of just war andstalling the tradition’s further development. This paper aims to provoke renewedengagement with Johnson’s work in the hope that this might prompt a freshreconsideration of the parameters and potentialities of the just war tradition.
The structure of this paper is straightforward. Section One kicks offproceedings with a close reading of Johnson’s historical account of the justwar tradition. It puts forward the claim that two thematic lines – the imperativeof vindicative justice and the ideal of Christian love – are central to Johnson’sreconstruction of the just war idea. Section Two builds on this discussion byfocusing on Johnson’s much publicised debate with the United States NationalConference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) regarding the parameters of thetradition.2 This debate, which was prompted by the publication of the NCCB’s1983 pastoral letter The Challenge of Peace, turns on three issues: first, thequestion of whether a ‘presumption against war’ or a ‘presumption againstinjustice’ informs just war thinking; second, the proper purpose and structureof just war analysis; and third, the relation between peace, justice, and orderwithin the tradition. The discussion of these issues leads us into Section Three,which offers a critical appraisal of Johnson’s contribution to just war scholarship,paying special attention to the manner by which he reconstructs the just wartradition qua tradition. Finally, by way of conclusion, this paper will weighup Johnson’s contribution to the just war tradition with a view to establishingwhether the potential of his approach has been realised in practice.
1. Johnson’s Just War Idea
Johnson’s treatment of the just war tradition is distinguished by his determinationto stay true to its historical character. He presents the tradition as an historicalbody of thought produced by the thinkers who have engaged it in a continuingdialogue, and out of which something he terms ‘the just war idea’ has emerged
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and crystallised over time (2006a). This notion of the just war idea is the key,for Johnson, to our understanding of the tradition. It marks the culmination ofthe tradition’s evolution over time, a distillation of its historical development todate. Consequently, Johnson’s treatment of the tradition has taken the form of anextended reconstruction of the historical development of this just war idea as wereceive it today (1999: 41–51; 2006b: 119–20).
This is not, however, as straight-forward as it might first appear. As JohnGunnell has pointed out, traditions such as the just war are not brute datumthat imply their own assembly instructions. Rather, they resemble ‘retrospectiveanalytical constructions’ whose coherence and purpose is supplied, at leastpartially, through the process of reconstruction (1978: 132).3 The purpose ofthis section, then, is to examine Johnson’s reconstruction of the just war with aview to questioning the particular coherence and purpose that he ascribes to it.It claims that the coherence and purpose revealed in Johnson’s reconstructionof the just war is achieved through his emphasis of two key thematic lines, theimperative of vindicative justice and the ideal of Christian love. As Johnsonputs it in one of his earliest statements on the subject, the story of the justwar tradition reflects the thematic pull of two competing, but not antithetical,controlling concepts, ‘vindication and mercy’ (1975: 31).4 (Mercy, as Johnsoninvokes it in this instance, is an expression of caritas, otherwise known as charityand closely related to the ideal of Christian love.) This emphasis on vindicativejustice and Christian love stands in contrast to other contemporary articulationsof the just war which revolve around conceptions of human rights or utility(see Walzer 1992; Luban 2004). We will work through these issues in the orderthat Johnson, following the jus ad bellum articulated by Aquinas, presents them.First port of call is proper authority.
Proper Authority
Johnson’s treatment of the historical development of proper authority suggeststhat the imperative of vindicative justice resonates through the entire history ofthe just war tradition from early Christendom to the present day. This is aninteresting stance, as the concept of vindicative justice receives little attentionin contemporary just war scholarship. First articulated by Thomas de Vio, betterknown as Cajetan, in a 1524 gloss on Aquinas’s jus ad bellum, vindicative justicedenotes a punitive conception of justice that aims at the restoration of order bysetting wrongs right (Cajetan 2006: 245–50). When war is understood in thislight, it assumes the form of a penal proceeding, where the just belligerent acts asboth prosecutor and judge in the service of order. Following Cajetan, the notionof vindicative justice assumed pride of place in the neo-scholastic writings ofFrancisco de Vitoria and Francisco Suarez, among others. However, with theexception of Alfred Vanderpol’s early twentieth century work, La DoctrineScolastique du Droit de Guerre (1919), which treats medieval just war thought
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entirely in terms of vindicative justice, and latterly Oliver O’Donovan’s accountof the just war as a praxis of judgment (2003), the idea is only scantly referencedin the contemporary literature, having largely fallen out of popular usage.
How, then, does Johnson employ this notion of vindicative justice in hisaccount of proper authority? Harking back to the medieval articulations ofthe jus ad bellum, he equates vindicative justice with the responsibility ofgovernments to exercise authority in the service of justice and order. Rooted inPauline theology, this view of vindicative justice gestures towards a conceptionof sovereign authority that empowers the prince to use the sword to restore a justand peaceful political order in those cases where it has been disturbed by themalefactions of others. This perspective constitutes the prince as the depositoryof public authority so that he may act as the minister of God on earth to executehis vengeance against the evildoer (Johnson 1981: 4).5 Consequently, the rightto war must be understood, as Johnson notes, in terms of the ‘responsibilitiesof sovereign rule to set right the wrongs imposed by others – especially thosewrongs imposed by the wrongful use of armed force’ (1999: 49).
According to Johnson, a sustained focus on vindicative justice, thusunderstood, provides one of the basic elements informing the historical evolutionof the just war tradition. He substantiates this claim through a narrative historyof the just war tradition that pays pronounced attention to questions of properauthority as they developed in relation to the conception of the prince as theminister of God. Though acknowledging the formative influence of Augustineand Gratian, as well as Roman thought, this survey begins in earnest withAquinas, whose ‘benchmark’ treatment of proper authority would prove to behighly influential upon the later development of the just war tradition (1996:29). As Johnson notes, later theorists, such as Vitoria and Suarez, ‘looked nofurther than Thomas for the authoritative statement of justified resort to armedforce’ (Johnson 1999: 44).
The centrality of Aquinas to this story should not be surprising, for hispithy and incisive account of the justice of war bridged both philosophical andcanonical thought as well as the early and late medieval periods of the just wartradition. At the heart of Aquinas’s account of the just war is the conviction thatonly the prince, as the governing public authority, may declare war on behalf ofhis polity. In his own words:
Since the care of the commonwealth is entrusted to princes, it pertains to them toprotect the commonwealth of the city or kingdom or province subject to them. Andjust as it is lawful for them to use the material sword in defence of the commonwealthagainst those who trouble it from within, when they punish evildoers . . . so too itpertains to them to use the sword of war to protect the commonwealth against enemiesfrom without. (2002a: 240)
Put differently, only the prince may commit a polity to war on account of the factthat it is he who is responsible for the security and well-being of the kingdom.
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Unpacking this further, we might observe that the sovereign is constitutedas the repository of three primary duties: to maintain order within a givencommunity by defending against internal wrongdoing and external attack; torestore justice by punishing those responsible for wrongdoing; and to reclaimany persons or property wrongly seized by avaricious neighbours. Summing thisroster up in characteristically terse form, Aquinas merely notes that the sovereignis charged with the task of ‘securing the peace by coercing the wicked andhelping the good’ (2002a: 241).6 It is in this light, then, that we should read hisdeclaration that it pertains to the prince to wield the sword of war in order thatwe may have true peace: ‘Those who wage war justly aim at peace, and so theyare not opposed to peace, except to the evil peace’ (2002a: 241). The just war,on this view, is a war fought on princely authority with the object of vindicatingproper relations between communities where they have been disrupted by someinstance of wrongdoing. It is an act of judgment undertaken by the prince onbehalf of his polity (Aquinas 2002b: 7–8).
Johnson wholeheartedly endorses this view, claiming that it captures theessence of the just war idea. After all, he writes, ‘what Christian just-war doctrineis about, as classically defined, is the use of the authority and force of the rightlyordered political community (and its sovereign authority as minister of God)to prevent, punish, and rectify injustice’ (1996: 30). Yet, not satisfied merelyto endorse this position, Johnson also asserts its prominence with respect tothe development of later just war thought. With this in mind, he traces the roleplayed by notions of vindicative justice in the just war tradition through to theearly modern period and the rise of the modern state system (1975: 26–80).Cajetan, Bellarmine, Vitoria, and Suarez all figure heavily in Johnson’s extendedtreatment of this subject.
Yet we must avoid the temptation to overstate the role played by the imperativeof vindicative justice in Johnson’s reconstruction of the just war tradition.Although it does enjoy a certain pride of place in his work, he cautions that thereare other elements at play in the historical development of the just war. It is inthis spirit that he dismisses Vanderpol’s exaggerated emphasis on vindicativejustice, warning that this approach is ‘misleading’ as well as ‘one-sided andunsatisfactory’ (1981: 10). While an exclusive focus on vindicative justicesucceeds in highlighting the punitive element that connects jus ad bellum thoughtfrom the early medieval period to the modern era, Johnson claims that it neglectsthat aspect of the just war idea that appeals to what we might (somewhatloosely) term Christian love (1975: 30). Johnson, however, is sensitive to therole played by this thematic line in his own efforts to provide a historicalreconstruction of the just war tradition. This is most apparent with respect tohis treatment of Aquinas’s second condition for the justification of war: justcause.
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Just Cause
The idea of fault or wrongdoing which crops up in relation to vindicative justicealso comes to the fore in relation to just cause. For Aquinas, just cause requiresthat those upon whom war is waged ‘must deserve to have war waged againstthem because of some wrongdoing’ (2002a: 241).7 Where just cause is thusconstrued, the purpose of the just war is to right wrongs. War, on this view,serves a ‘re-ordering function’; that is, it is presented as a means by which torectify the disorder introduced into the international system by the wrongdoer’sactions (Finnis 1998: 213). This begs the question why states should assume theburden of undertaking such re-ordering?
Johnson’s historical writings suggest that the just war tradition resolves thisquestion by reference to the ideal of Christian love. It provides the key tounderstanding how force may be employed in pursuit of justice, while alsofurnishing the guide-rails for how that force ought to be used: the soldier isrequired to do only what love requires and permitted to do only what lovedeclares to be right. But what is meant by Christian love? Christian love refersto the virtue that arises from the perfect love of God, and supposes a harmoniousordering of man’s regard for self, others, and the Divine. It demands that peopledisplay a ‘dutiful concern’ for others to the extent that one should love one’sneighbour as oneself (Augustine 1998: 942). Backed by the faith that servingothers will produce a well-ordered concord guaranteed by God’s grace, it entailsa pronounced willingness to place the welfare of others ahead of oneself and toadopt a self-offering disposition. This radical ethic of other-regard is embodiedin the image of Jesus suffering on the cross, sacrificing himself in order toredeem humanity.
As with the imperative of vindicative justice, Johnson introduces the ideal ofChristian love as a thematic line that runs throughout the historical developmentof the just war. Although often referred to by other names – such as charity,mercy, magnanimity, or even humanity – it has figured prominently as ‘anelement of just war tradition from its very earliest expressions to its most recent’(Johnson 1981: 8).8 It is, however, in relation to Augustine, Bishop of Hippo,that Johnson introduces the ideal of Christian love most fully. Johnson writes:
Augustine, writing around 400 A.D., recast Roman and Hebraic ideas on warinto a Christian mold while erecting a systematic moral justification for Christianparticipation in violence. Augustine was not the first Christian thinker to turn hisattention to the problem of Christians and violence. . . . But he treated the problemmore systematically than anyone before him, placing it in the context of a theologicalworldview that stressed the work of charity in transforming history; thus he shaped justwar doctrine in a definitive and lasting way for those after him. (1981: xxiv)
Essentially, Augustine’s reconciliation of war with an eschatologicalunderstanding of Christian love provides the cornerstone for the subsequent
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development of the just war tradition. As Johnson remarks, it signals ‘thebeginning of the just war doctrine in Christian teaching, as well as a majorcontribution to the development of consensual Western thought on the restraintof war’ (1984: 1).
In a nutshell, Augustine’s contribution was to invoke Christian love inresponse to the objections of earlier Christian Fathers that war is contrary tothe teachings of Jesus. Citing the Sermon on the Mount, these early pacifistsdeclared war inconsistent with the New Testament’s injunction to refrain fromviolence and turn the other cheek. Against this, Augustine asserted that Christianlove, as witnessed by Christ’s death on the cross, will occasionally demand of usthat we go to war to correct another’s sins and return them to righteousness. Insuch instances war is motivated and indeed justified by a self-giving regard forothers and a desire to halt their wayward descent into sinfulness. Thus conceived,war becomes an act of Christian love.
The notion that war may serve as an act of love presupposes that it isconducted in the right spirit. This entails that there must be no trace of‘animosity’ or ‘cruelty’ in the decision to fight, only concern for the plight ofone’s fellow human being in light of his or her errant ways (Augustine 2006: 73).Augustine illustrates the logic behind this position by reference to the practiceof fatherly discipline. A father, he argues, does no wrong by punishing his son,as he is driven by care for the child’s welfare rather than any will to hurt him:‘When the father strikes [his son], he does so out of love. The boy does not wantto be beaten; but his father takes no account of his wishes; his concern is for hisbenefit’ (2001b: 126). What guides the father’s actions is a desire to direct his sontowards proper conduct and a determination to discipline him so that he mightfare better in this world. He only resorts to the rod in order that his son is notspoiled. According to Augustine, this is the paradigmatic example of Christianlove applied in the fallen world. It is harsh but benevolent. It is Augustine’scontention that the same spirit of ‘benevolent severity’ that marks fatherlydiscipline ought also to guide princes in their war-making (Russell 1975: 17).
On the surface at least, the irony of this position is striking: the brutalityof war is held up as an instantiation of Christian love, as modelled on bothparental discipline and Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. The key to understandingthis apparently perverse logic is the emphasis on interiority. It is one’s inwarddisposition rather than one’s outward deeds that determines the rightfulness ofone’s conduct. This position is most clearly expressed in a famous letter writtenby Augustine to Marcellinus (2001c: 38). Drawing a firm distinction betweenone’s physical actions and the inward intentions that animate such actions,this letter submits that Jesus’ instructions to turn the other cheek are morerelevant to the training of the heart than to our external physical activity. Thisallows Augustine (and those who follow him) to claim that the New Testamentinjunction to refrain from violence applies only to one’s innermost intentions,not one’s outward deeds. Provided that one fights in the right spirit, animated
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by love for one’s enemies, there is nothing problematic about war. Understoodin this light, war is a practice of ‘care, not cruelty’, and is justified accordingly(Augustine 2001a: 15).
To whom is this care owed? Pauline universalist sentiment contributes here toensure that love is extended to all people, believers and non-believers included.We are meant to love and care for all men, writes Augustine, and not just ourneighbours: ‘There is accordingly no one in the whole human family to whomkindly affection is not due by reason of the bond of a common humanity’(cited in Deane 1963: 79).9 This commitment to universalism is nicely capturedby the parable of the Good Samaritan, a favourite of Augustine’s mentor,Ambrose of Milan, and also of Johnson’s. As interpreted by Johnson, this parabledemonstrates that Christian love entails a universal obligation to leap to thedefence of any innocent person that finds him or herself in jeopardy, regardlessof whether or not we share ties to them (1984: 3; 1996: 28; 1999: 75). Other-regard obliges us to come to the rescue of the needy and the vulnerable whereverit is possible, generating ‘a moral duty for those who possess power to protectthose who are relatively impotent when they are being threatened by others morepowerful than they’ (Johnson 1984: 22).
The duty to protect the innocent that Johnson extracts from the parable ofthe Good Samaritan was further developed in sixteenth century imperial Spainby Vitoria (1991a: 288; 1991c: 225) and Suarez (1944: 826). Johnson, however,passes quickly over these entries, in favour of devoting further attention to thework of the twentieth century Protestant theologian, Paul Ramsey (Johnson1981: 6–7; 1999: 76–81; 2005: 23–6; 2006a: 172–5; 2006b: 117). Ramseyextended the ideal of Christian love to make the case that force may be employedin the political realm in order to promote the ideal of an ordered justice. From thisbasis he derived the principle that all state leaders have an obligation to use forceto prevent injustice and restore justice where they can. ‘No authority on Earth’,he writes, ‘can withdraw from “social charity” and “social justice” their intrinsicand justifiable tendencies to rescue from dereliction and oppression all whomit is possible to rescue’ (1986: 36). Where circumstances allow, state leadersare obliged to work towards achieving the charitable extension of an orderedjustice even where this demands the use of force. Put simply, state leadersmust commit both national treasure and arms to the promotion of a just worldwhere it is practicable, and they must display particular regard for correcting andoverturning injustice in the international sphere.
In Johnson’s hands, then, Christian love weaves together the writings ofRamsey, Suarez, Vitoria, and Augustine, and serves as a key thematic lineanimating the historical development of the just war tradition. It contributes toproducing an activist and self-offering just war idea that eschews the traditionaldistinction between neighbour and stranger and allows for a permissive right towar. In essence, it furnishes a justification for waging war whenever doing sois compatible with the duty to halt injustice and reinstitute international order.
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Additionally, in placing great emphasis on interiority, the ideal of Christian loveleads us to the third condition Aquinas identifies as necessary for recourse towar: that ‘those who wage war should have a righteous intent’ (2002a: 241).
Right Intention: The Aim of Peace
Johnson argues in his most recent writings that the condition of right intentiontends to be overlooked in contemporary just war thinking. He considers thisa major problem as this requirement is focal to the very idea of the just waras he perceives it (2005: 140; 2006a: 192). How then should we understandright intention? Two divergent understandings of right intention are discernablein the literature. The first relates to the subjective motives for acting. Focusingon interiority, it equates right intention with the absence of base motives – ‘thedesire to do harm, the cruelty of vengeance, an unpeaceable and implacablespirit, the fever of rebellion, the lust to dominate, and similar things’ – declaringthat any war would be rendered unlawful by such corruption (Augustine 2006:73). The second possible meaning is more interesting. Rather than addressingthe subjective motivation behind the recourse to war, it addresses the objectivesor aims that the resort to force is intended to achieve in any given case. On thisview, the condition of right intention stipulates that the resort to war must reflecta programme to effect righteous change. It is in this spirit that Aquinas writesthat those waging war ‘should intend either to promote a good or avert an evil’(2002a: 241).
The possibility of wars waged to promote a good contains within it an openingto what Jonathan Barnes calls the doctrine of ‘ameliorative warfare’ (1982: 782).The crux of this doctrine is the view that the justice of a given war is determinednot by the antecedent misdeeds of one’s enemy but by the anticipated benefitsthat going to war might bring about in any instance. This approach is mostoften associated with Alexander of Hales who writes that the justice of war inany instance lies in ‘the support of the good, the coercion of the bad, peacefor all’ (2006: 157–8). Thus, the objective or end of any particular war mayextend beyond the mere correction of disorder to the attainment of some greatergood. As Frederick Russell comments, the locus of the just war is thereby shiftedfrom the interdiction and rectification of wrongdoing to ‘the pursuit of a suprememoral ideal’ (Russell 1975: 220).
Johnson’s own reading of the just war tradition follows this opening toameliorative war, to some degree. This is particularly apparent with respect tohis discussion of what he terms the ‘end’ or ‘aim of peace’ (1999: 49–51; 2005:140–3; 2006a: 192–4). According to Johnson, the just war, properly understood,must be directed towards the achievement of a durable and just peace. It mustaim, in other words, at the creation of a more just and peaceful world. As he putsit, ‘the aim of a just war is not simply to end the fighting, for peace without justice
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is no peace at all. Rather just war tradition requires a peace with justice, a peacein which the rule of law is established or restored’ (2006a: 194). Indeed, Johnsonsuggests, it was along such lines that a valid justification for interventions inBosnia, Kosovo, and Iraq could be constructed (2005: 141–2). The case of Iraqis perhaps the most interesting here, for it is the most vexed. Johnson, althoughcritical of the carelessness with which the invasion was conducted, approved ofthe broader effort ‘to create a new order in Iraq – a society no longer ruled bythe forces of tyranny and re-established on the basis of democracy, freedom,and all the other aspects of genuine justice’ (2005: 142). Driven by such loftyaspirations, he observes, this ‘was a war that expressed the intention of creatingpeace’ (2005: 142). In this regard at least, it is deserving of a certain degree ofrespect (even if the United States’ commitment to peace in Iraq has since beencalled into question on account of its failure to undertake adequate planning forpost-war reconstruction).
Yet the ‘aim of peace’ is hardly a straightforward notion. It raises difficultquestions pertaining to what constitutes peace in the first place. Johnsoncontends that the tradition rejects that negative conception of peace by whichpeace is defined in terms of order, understood in the minimal sense as the absenceof armed conflict. There is little normative about this conception of peace; rather,it is a descriptive term for a stable status quo. In contrast to this position, the justwar tradition conveys a thick conception of peace that incorporates justice aswell as order. It supposes that peace, order, and justice are symbiotic concepts,such that one cannot exist without the other. As Johnson puts it, ‘to have apeaceful society implies that there will still, as needed, be some use of forceagainst the enemies of that peace, the justice that feeds peace, and the order thatembodies peace’ (2005: 140). The benefits of this position are clear. A thickunderstanding of peace such as this offers a critical standard against which tojudge the prevailing order. It allows us to call attention to those instances wherethe prevailing order is itself a source of injustice. Perhaps more crucial still, itpermits that it is sometimes proper and right to employ force against the statusquo so that a more just peace may be achieved. Peace, thus understood, is adynamic concept that introduces a progressive element into just war thinking.
Summing up Johnson’s reconstruction of the historical development of the justwar tradition, we might note that it gives rise to a broad-based just war idea thattreats war as an instrument of peace and justice. Combined with the emphasishe attaches to vindicative justice and Christian love, the key thematic lines hesingles out as animating the tradition’s evolution, Johnson’s gentle nod towardsameliorative war identifies a jus ad bellum consistent with an interventionist andpermissive right to war. This particular aspect of Johnson’s reading of the justwar came to the fore in the context of a very public debate prompted by thepublication of The Challenge of Peace, the NCCB’s 1983 pastoral letter on warand peace (1992). The pastoral letter articulates a conception of just war that is atodds with the just war idea revealed by the historical development of the just war
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tradition, as Johnson has reconstructed it. It is to this letter that we turn now. Thereaction it solicited from Johnson is illuminating with respect to the deep-lyingaspects of his treatment of the just war tradition, and the promise and limitationsit supposes.
2. The Challenge of Peace
The pastoral letter marked an attempt on the part of the NCCB to adapt justwar thinking to the cold war context. Alarmed by the volatile character of thebalance of terror, the NCCB aimed to recalibrate the categories of just warthought to lend added weight to the check they place on the resort to war.Given the likelihood that conflict in the cold war security environment wouldalmost certainly precipitate superpower involvement and possibly even nuclearexchange, the pastoral letter declared that war must henceforth be restricted asan instrument of policy, and reserved solely for cases of national self-defence.Although these proposals appear modest enough on first glance, they broughtthree tensions latent within the just war tradition to the surface. These tensionspertain, first, to whether a presumption against war or a presumption againstinjustice lies at the heart of the tradition; second, to questions regarding thestructure and function of just war analysis; and, third, to the balance betweenconsiderations of order, justice, and peace within the tradition.
Turning to the first of these issues, the NCCB adopted a clear position onthe issue of whether a presumption against war lies at the heart of the justwar tradition. The pastoral letter stated that the unprecedented gravity of thenuclear threat must lead us to assume that a ‘presumption against war’ stands atthe ‘beginning of just war thinking’ today (NCCB 1992: 99). Specifically, thepastoral letter urged the reduction of the jus ad bellum to permit war only forthe purpose of national self-defence. In all other cases, war must be disallowedas an instrument of policy. Moving on to the second issue, the incorporationof a presumption against war has serious implications for the structure andpurpose of just war analysis. It establishes a prima facie assumption that waris an illegitimate practice that requires special justification, which can only everbe forthcoming in the most exceptional of circumstances. As the letter states:
Only if war cannot be rationally avoided does the teaching then seek to restrict andreduce its horrors. It does this by establishing a set of rigorous conditions which mustbe met if the decision to go to war is to be morally permissible. Such a decision,especially today, requires extraordinarily strong reasons for overriding the presumptionin favour of peace and against war. (1992: 97)
Thus framed, the function of just war analysis comprises the assessment ofwhether such exceptional circumstances exist and whether they are sufficientto override the standing presumption against war. Third and finally, the pastoral
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letter conveys a minimalist conception of peace that privileges considerationsof order at the expense of justice. This is evident in the position the letterarticulates with respect to the first or non-defensive use of force. By prohibitingthe resort to war for any purpose other than national self-defence, the pastoralletter disallows the use of force to challenge the prevailing order, even where thisorder masks injustice. In so doing, it sanctifies the current status quo as a ‘peace’worth preserving, excluding the possibility of wars fought in the name of justchange.
Johnson has been critical of the position staked out by the NCCB with respectto all three of these issues, arguing that it reflects a perversion of the just waridea.10 To think of the just war tradition as beginning with a presumption againstthe use of force is, he claims, to make it over ‘into something very different fromwhat it is’ (2005: 35). It places undue emphasis upon the prudential categories ofthe jus ad bellum – proportionality and hope of success – such that they smotherthe deontological concerns of proper authority, just cause, right intention, andaim of peace before they can be properly considered. According to Johnson,this runs contrary to the true character of the just war. ‘It is a serious distortionof the meaning of just war tradition’, he writes, ‘to magnify the importance ofthe prudential concerns included in the jus ad bellum so that they diminish theimportance of the fundamental requirements of just cause, proper authority, andright intention’ (1999: 36; 1996: 34).
This distortion, he claims, is derived from the NCCB’s discomfort withmodern war, rather than from the just war tradition properly understood. Afaithful reading of the tradition reveals a very different attitude towards war.Although wary of hubris and militaristic zeal, the tradition does not exhibit anegative attitude towards the use of force. War is not depicted as an intrinsicallyimmoral exercise that requires special justification that can only be forthcomingin the most exceptional of circumstances. Rather, the tradition conveys aninstrumentalist view of war. It posits that war can be good or bad dependingon the ends it serves. As Johnson explains:
[War] takes its moral character from who uses it, from the reasons used to justify it,and from the intention with which it is used. . . . To be sure, force is evil when it isemployed to attack the justice and peace of a political order oriented toward thesegoods, but it is precisely to defend against such evil that the use of force may be good.Just war tradition has to do with defining the possible good use of force, not findingexceptional cases when it is possible to use something inherently evil (force) for thepurpose of good. (1999: 36)
This instrumental attitude to the use of force produces a more relaxed readingof right to war. Rather than starting with the presumption that the use of forceis itself morally problematic, it privileges what Johnson terms a ‘presumptionagainst injustice’. It associates just war with the responsible use of force
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directed against wrongdoing and injustice. There is, he writes, simply put, ‘nopresumption against war in it at all’ (1996: 30).
Following from this, and turning to the second issue identified above, Johnsonis adamant that the pastoral letter misconstrues the structure and purpose ofjust war analysis. Just war analysis is not properly directed towards identifyingthose exceptional cases in which it is necessary to override a putative standinginjunction on the use of force. This particular understanding of the structure andpurpose of just war analysis reflects both a misbegotten presumption against warand an undue emphasis on the consequentialist categories of the jus ad bellumat the expense of its core deontological commitments. It posits the conditionsof proportionality and reasonable chance of success as the locus of the jus adbellum, and de-emphasizes the categories of proper authority, just cause, andright intention. Drawing on a close reading of Aquinas’s articulation of the jus adbellum, Johnson claims that this is back-to-front, that it reverses the proper orderof inquiry. He argues that Aquinas’s articulation of the jus ad bellum reflects alogical order (though Aquinas never specified this) such that the condition ofproper authority must be met first, followed by just cause, with right intentionand aim of peace providing the third link in this chain. Prudential checks shouldonly be factored in at the end of this process (2006a: 177; 2006b: 119–20). Inline with this interpretation, Johnson argues that just war thinking is properlydirected not at identifying those exceptional cases where the presumption againstwar where may be overridden, but at identifying those positive cases where forcecan serve justice. Properly understood, it starts from the assumption that therightly ordered political community may consider the use of force as a viable andlegitimate means for preventing, punishing, and rectifying acts of internationalwrongdoing (Johnson 1996: 30).
The third tension revealed in relation to the pastoral letter turns on therelationship between order and justice within just war thinking. The pastoralletter prioritises order at the expense of justice. This is apparent in its restrictionof just cause to cases of national self-defence and its blanket ban on wars ofjust change. Underpinning this move are the two related assumptions. First,the prevailing order reflects a positive state of affairs, a good to be preserved;and second, any effort to challenge the prevailing order, even if undertaken inthe name of justice, should be resisted. These twin assumptions overlook thepossibility that the prevailing order may itself be a source of injustice (Johnson2005: 141). Therefore, although the pastoral letter succeeds in restricting theright to war, this achievement comes at the cost of privileging the preservationof order over the quest for a more just peace. According to Johnson, this isa negative development that is not in keeping with the spirit of the just wartradition. He claims that the historical development of the tradition reveals a verydifferent approach to the relation between order and justice, treating them not asantithetical categories but, along with peace, as connected, mutually constitutiveends. A faithful reading of the just war, he contends, should not pit the claims
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of justice against those of order, but should recognise their interlocking nature.This is the fundamental lesson that the historical development of the just warfrom Augustine’s treatment of tranquilitas ordinis to the present day should havetaught us (Johnson 2005: 141).
3. Commanding the Headwaters of Tradition
Johnson’s engagement with the NCCB’s pastoral letter illuminates theparticularities of his conception of the just war tradition qua tradition. As wehave already seen, Johnson dismisses the pastoral letter’s central tenet, thepresumption against war, as a twentieth century conceit, borne of the experienceof total war and the nuclear balance of terror. According to Johnson, thehistorical development of the just war tradition reveals that the presumptionagainst war plays no proper part in the just war idea. While conceding the pointthat the presumption against war may well be a recent development, we maywish, like J. Bryan Hehir, to argue that it is a positive innovation – one that shouldbe lauded rather than condemned.11 While conceding Johnson’s point that thepresumption against war is nowhere to be found in the historical tradition, Hehirproposes that it would constitute a necessary and beneficial addition. He writes:
Johnson has often stated his view that the presumption against war is detrimental tothe intention of just war tradition and cannot be found its classical authors. I thinkall would concede the last point and contest the first. . . . [The] substantive reason forplacing a presumptive restraint on war as an instrument of politics is, in my view,entirely necessary. Both the instruments of modern war and the devastation of civiliansociety which has accompanied most contemporary conflicts provide good reasons topause (analytically) before legitimating force as an instrument of justice. (2000: 32–3)
The question, then, as Hehir frames it, is whether we ought to recognise apresumption against war as a welcome and useful addition to the just wartradition?
Johnson’s response to this question is telling. He emphatically rejects thebeneficence of the presumption against war in recent just war discourse. Heargues that the emergence of a presumption against war in the just war tradition isa negative development that threatens to make the tradition ‘over into somethingvery different from what it properly is’ (2005: 35). By confusing the properorder between the jus ad bellum and the jus in bello, as well as between thedeontological and consequentialist poles of the jus ad bellum, it shifts the justwar position dangerously close to pacifism (2005: 28). In fine, the acceptanceof a presumption against war into the just war tradition threatens to give thegame away by treating the justification of war as an exercise in overridinga prima facie case against the use of force rather than as part and parcel ofthe charge of responsible government and just statecraft. Moreover, by doing
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so, it threatens to divorce contemporary just war reasoning from its historicalroots, thereby displaying a lack of fidelity to the idea of the just war (2005:27–8; 2006a: 177–9). In doing so, it runs the risk of squandering the wisdom ofthe ages.
The mode of argumentation revealed by Johnson’s rejection of the claims fora presumption against war is illuminating with respect to the limits he ascribesto the just war tradition. He appeals to a deeper understanding of the justwar tradition in order to correct an instance where he perceives contemporaryjust war discourse to be diverging from the classical idea of the just war.In undertaking such a manoeuvre, Johnson effectively locates himself at theheadwaters of the tradition, in position to observe any instances when the justwar idea is in danger of being diverted from its proper historical course.12
Viewing the emergence of a presumption against war as one such instance, hereacts by depicting it as a departure or degeneration from its own beginnings.Additionally, he reasserts the historically revealed just war idea by presenting itas the purest expression of the tradition’s historical development. In Johnson’sown words:
Contrary to Hehir’s argument and the idea of the “presumption against war,” for justwar tradition as a whole the mere existence of military power does not itself stand asan evil, for it remains within the compass of moral decision whether and how to usethe power available. That is where the focus of just war thinking traditionally has been,and in my view it is where it should properly remain. (2006a: 182–3)
Taking all of this into consideration, it is possible to perceive a stronglyconservative bent to Johnson’s scholarship.
It should be clarified, however, that Johnson’s scholarship is not conservativein the sense that it reflects a resistance to liberal projects. Indeed, Johnson’sviews are very liberal on many issues, not least his support for humanitarianintervention and cosmopolitan accounts of justice. Rather, it is the manner bywhich he invokes historical practice as a corrective to contemporary intellectualfashions that lends his thought a conservative drift. This is most apparent inhis use of the historically produced just war idea as a standard against whichto judge contemporary just war discourse. Contemporary just war discourse, hewrites, ‘needs to be tested and disciplined by reference to the historical just wartradition, especially by reference to the normative content and purposes of thattradition in its classic form’ (2006a: 197, 167). Where contemporary discoursediverges from the historical purpose of the tradition, as manifested in the justwar idea, it should be disregarded as a wrong turn (2006a: 194). In other words,it should be dismissed as a betrayal of the classical inheritance that the traditionbequeaths us.
In sum, what Johnson proposes is the deployment of a ‘deeper’ historicalunderstanding of just war as a ‘critical tool’ to keep contemporary just war
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discourse true to its proper historically constituted course (2006a: 167). Thisreflects a twofold assumption to the effect that, first, we should strive to preservethe historical integrity of the just war tradition, and, second, the best way toachieve this is to look to the just war idea as it has been produced over time as ameasure against which to discipline and train contemporary just war thought.Underpinning this position is a firm conviction that, instead of continuallyattempting to ‘invent the idea of just war anew, treating its categories as shellswithout content to be filled with contemporary meanings’, we must strive tomaintain a strong link between contemporary just war discourse and the deepertradition (2006a: 194). For Johnson, then, the appeal to the just war idea, andthe wisdom of the ages that it embodies, serves an essential task by keeping thetradition true to itself and safeguarding against the ‘hubris of the present’.13
All of this indicates a Burkean element present in Johnson’s thought. EdmundBurke is often associated with the view that the wisdom of the ages, usuallyembodied in traditions, provides the best tutor for political practice. Thus herefers to the British constitution, which comprises nothing more than a recordof past practices and decisions, as the best guide British leaders could wishfor when confronting the challenges that they will surely face in the future.According to Burke, it promises wisdom above reflection, the learning of theages. Such learning is the key to stability and indeed future progress; without itwe could not possibly hope to surpass or even equal the achievements of the past.People, he writes, ‘will not look forward to posterity, who never look backwardto their ancestors’ (1993: 33). Conversely, any reflection which eschews thewisdom of the ages embodied in tradition is to be treated with suspicion.Indeed, Burke is wary of any line of thought that would disown the traditionalpast, separating us from its inheritance. Such a move is likely to undercut thefoundations of society, cutting communities adrift from their own history andleaving them to flounder unaided in a present marked by turmoil and instability.For Burke, then, it is important that people remain true to the inheritance wereceive in the form of tradition from past generations.
[One] of the first and most leading principles on which the commonwealth and thelaws are consecrated, is lest the temporary and life-renters in it, unmindful of whatthey have received from their ancestors, or of what is due to their posterity, should actas if they were the entire masters; that they should not think it among their rights to cutoff the entail, or commit waste on the inheritance, by destroying at their pleasure thewhole original fabric of their society; hazarding to leave those who come after thema ruin instead of an habitation – and teaching these successors as little to respect theircontrivances, as they had themselves respected the institutions of their forefathers. Bythis unprincipled facility of changing the state as often, and as much, and in as manyways as there are floating fancies or fashions, the whole chain and continuity of thecommonwealth would be broken. No one generation could link with the other. Menwould become little better than the flies of the summer. (1993: 95)
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Burke’s concern is that it is a great loss, and indeed a moment of great hubris,when traditions are ‘squandered or wantonly destroyed’ by lack of attention orcare (Hampsher-Monk 1987: 36). These are, as have seen, precisely the concernsthat motivated Johnson’s intervention in the debates pertaining to the NCCB’spastoral letter, and his reconstruction of the just war tradition and concomitantjust war idea more generally.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the work of James Turner Johnson is a reference point for allcontemporary scholars of the just war tradition. Rich in both breadth and insight,it sets out a promising intellectual and research agenda for scholars of the justwar tradition to pursue. It is both surprising and disappointing, then, that so littlecritical analysis has been directed towards Johnson’s work. While his work iscited reverentially, particularly with respect to the readings he offers of medievaland early modern just war thought, very few scholars have devoted substantialtime or thought to the theoretical issues it raises. For instance, does just waranalysis necessarily revolve around certain core commitments, or is it an entirelymalleable construct, open to continual re-interpretation in the face of changingpolitical and military circumstances and technologies? How are we to conceiveof its limits and parameters? And can it really be boiled down to axiomatic‘ideas’ or even articles of faith? On a slightly different tack, to what extent dorecent restatements of the just war idea enrich the historical canon, or mark aseries of wrong turns that damage the intellectual quality of just war as ethicaltheory? More generally, are the traditional limits and parameters of the just waridea in need of revision, given the revolution in military affairs (RMA) and thechanging character of war more generally?14 This paper is intended as a tentativestep towards the rectification of this oversight. It is offered as a balanced analysis,treating both the promise and the limits of Johnson’s reconstruction of the justwar tradition.
Both the promise and limits of Johnson’s approach can be accounted for inrelation to the political philosophy of Edmund Burke, a figure we encounteredearlier in this paper. On the credit side of the ledger, Johnson’s work fulfils theimportant role of connecting contemporary just war thought to its own history.Standing against the ahistorical character of much modern just war thought,Johnson’s work acts as a reminder that we cannot properly address the relationbetween war and justice without appreciating how these issues have assumedtheir present form. As such, it constitutes an antidote to the presentism of somuch of today’s just war discourse. Moreover, although looking to the historicaldevelopment of the tradition in order to discern the parameters of the just waridea today may betoken an element of conservativism, it also provides a rich andcoherent framework for reflecting upon the fundamentals of just war thought.
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It offers a sound means of preserving the integrity of the tradition against thosewho would plunder it in the service of short-term goals, while allowing for ahealthy degree of pluralism. As such, it captures the best aspects of Burkeanconservatism.
The Burkean influence is also prevalent with respect to the less positiveaspects of Johnson’s treatment of the just war tradition. In particular, thetraditionalism of Burke’s philosophy is evident in the rigidity of Johnson’sreconstruction of the just war idea. Traditionalism denotes an excessivedeference to the authority of historical practice. Marking a profound trust in‘received practice or belief’, traditionalism is defined both by a commitment tohistorical arrangements and a concomitant opposition to change and innovation(Coleman 1968: 252).15 As Jaroslav Pelikan puts it, if tradition marks the livingfaith of the dead, ‘traditionalism is the dead faith of the living’ (1984: 65).Such traits are evident in Johnson’s insistence that the historical categories ofjus ad bellum follow a fixed and ordered form of enquiry that is derived froman authoritative source, namely, the medieval scholastic thought of ThomasAquinas. Leaving aside the fact that the order Johnson ascribes to the jus adbellum is derived from inference, rather than anything more solid, his insistencethat contemporary just war thought must stay true to this particular procedureof enquiry appears unduly restrictive. It goes against the contemporary tendencyto treat traditions as open-ended, protean entities whose elements can be re-arranged in new and innovative ways to produce fresh thinking. As AdamRoberts writes, traditions should not be understood as fixed-order categories, butas shifting and continuous bodies of thought that can be ‘intermixed in endlessdifferent ways by different practitioners and writers’ (1991: xxv).16
In many ways, then, Johnson’s reconstruction of the just war tradition alertsus to the very real difficulties that attend any discussion of the just war quatradition. How are we to conceive of intellectual traditions such as the just war?Can we find a way to speak about their parameters and conserve their integritywithout falling prey to the perils of traditionalism? If we leave them too open-ended we run the risk that they may be appropriated by those who would subvertthem to serve their own interests. This is the worry that Johnson expresses inrelation to the NCCB’s re-articulation of the just war idea, but it also informsthe more general critique scholars such as Ken Booth (2001) and David Welsh(1995) have offered of the just war tradition. On the other hand, if we definetraditions too restrictively, we are likely to freeze their further development,contributing to their fossilisation. Though his efforts to steer a course betweenthese two extremes is not without its problems, Johnson should be commendedfor the intellectual courage and honesty with which he has approached thistask. Refusing to shy away from the challenge or to comprise, Johnson hasbeen consistent in his argument that history will prove to be our best guide inthis endeavour. In setting out and developing this position, Johnson’s work hasopened up a series of challenging and far-reaching issues and questions that the
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next generation of just war scholars must grapple with. This is to be applauded.It is perhaps wise, then, to leave the final words to Johnson himself:
We would do well not to repudiate this tradition of moral reflection from the past;to do so merely isolates us from the wisdom of others surely no less morally orintellectually acute than we – others who in their own historical contexts have facedproblems analogous to our own about whether and how to employ force in the defenceof values. It is thus better to use this tradition consciously – trying to learn from it andwith it, even in the nuclear age – than to forget it and subsequently have to reinvent it.(1990: 57)
Acknowledgements
This article draws together and develops a series of arguments that I firstfloated in The Renegotiation of the Just War Tradition and the Right to Warin the Twenty-First Century (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008). I wouldlike to thank Jim Johnson for both his generosity and patience with me asI prepared both this book and article. Always willing to engage with criticalarguments, Jim is a model scholar whose example and encouragement I greatlyappreciate. I must also acknowledge my gratitude to a number of scholars whohave greatly influenced my understanding of the just war: special thanks to IanClark, Toni Erskine, Tony Lang, and Serena Sharma. My thanks also to themembers of Oxford University’s Changing Character of War programme whooffered valuable feedback on an earlier draft of this paper at their lunchtimeseminar series. Finally, this article benefited greatly from the helpful commentsoffered by this journal’s anonymous reviewers.
Notes1 In 2007 alone, Walzer and Elshtain have both been the subjects of symposia published
respectively in the Journal of Military Ethics (6:2) and International Relations (21:4).2 In 2001 the NCCB merged with the United States Catholic Conference to form the United
States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).3 Of course, Gunnell is not alone in arguing this. Also see Hobsbawm (1983); Walker (1993);
Jeffery (2005).4 The term ‘controlling concept’ is one that Johnson uses in correspondence with the author
(June 2008). This correspondence is worth quoting at length: ‘When I began my own morehistorically focused effort to understand the just war idea, I quickly saw that outside thisparticular theological context in which love was so central, no one was using the languageof love. Further, the conception of just war one found back in the historical sources wasrather different from the one Ramsey derived from his theological reflections on Christianlove for neighbor (which itself was only one form of the understanding of what Christianlove means). That said, it is certainly clear that Augustine’s own theology is driven by hisconception of caritas and how the gradual overcoming of cupiditas by caritas is the story bothof individual salvation and of historical development toward the City of God. One doesn’tfind any particular reference to love in the canonists, but Aquinas developed his conception
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of just war in a part of the ST [Summa Theologiae] that was on the virtue of caritas. So loveis there as a controlling theological concept, but it’s the theologians who make use of it, moreimplicitly in the case of Augustine and Aquinas, more explicitly in the case of Ramsey. I don’treally think of my own understanding of just war as particularly theological, but if I did, I’dhave to acknowledge the role of a conception of love as the basis for the ethics’.
5 The notion of the prince acting as the minister of God is of course drawn from Romans (13:4),a biblical passage that was frequently referenced in medieval just war thought.
6 This is a quote from Augustine (1998: 933–7). It is also cited by Vitoria (1991a: 283).7 This emphasis on the close connection between the just war and the correction of injustice is
also evident in the accounts of just cause offered by Vitoria and Suarez. ‘The sole and onlyjust cause for waging war’, Vitoria claims, ‘is when harm has been inflicted’ (1991b: 303–4).Likewise, Suarez demands that it is ‘necessary that [the enemy] shall have committed somewrong on account of which they render themselves subjects’ before the prince acquires aright to wage war against them (1944: 816). This conception of just cause approximates to thenotion of ‘cause of action’ that is to be found in the Anglo-American legal tradition. It denotesa wrong that generates grounds for complaint and just claims for redress (Finnis 1998: 285).
8 Though it should be pointed out that Johnson draws attention to the multiple ways offormulating the ideal of Christian love in order to dissuade the reader from viewing the justwar tradition as the straightforward product of unitary first principles. As ever, the story ismore complex than this; the historical development of the just war tradition is a story ofdifferentiations and vicissitudes as well as commonality and continuity.
9 In a similar tone, Suarez contends that ‘no matter how many diverse peoples and kingdoms’humanity may be divided into, it always possesses a ‘political and moral unity, which isindicated by the natural precept of mutual love and mercy which extends to everyone, even toforeigners of any nation’ (cited in Hamilton 1963: 109).
10 I have benefited from a number of conversations with Serena Sharma on this issue.11 Hehir is closely associated with the NCCB, and was involved in drafting the 1983 pastoral
letter.12 On the idea of occupying the headwaters of a tradition, see J. G. A. Pocock’s analysis of Mo
Tzu’s radical/reactionary ‘return to roots’ strategy (1972: 46–8).13 On the hubris of the present, see Clark (1996: 7).14 These issues will be discussed with Professor Johnson at an upcoming workshop scheduled to
take place in New York in February 2009.15 For a discussion of Burke’s philosophy in relation to traditionalism see Coleman (1968: 253);
also Burke (1993: 87).16 For more on this idea, see Macintyre (1967: 3; 1981: 36–7; 1990: 66).
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