The Virtue of Justice and War

David Fisher

Received: 1 June 2012 /Accepted: 10 September 2012 /Published online: 26 March 2013# Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Abstract There has been a recent revival of interest in the medieval just war theory.But what is the virtue of justice needed to make war just? War is a complex andprotracted activity. It is argued that a variety of virtues of justice, as well as a varietyof virtues are required to guide the application of the use of force. Although it ismistaken to regard war as punishment, punitive justice—bringing to account thoseguilty of initiating an unjust war or of war crimes in its conduct— has an importantrole to play after conflict to restore the wrongs of war and help establish a just peace.Justice as fairness is needed to guide the distribution of resources and so reduce thegrounds for war. Protective justice—protecting a community or innocents fromharmful attack—helps define what constitutes a just cause for war and so constrainsthe occasions for war. The just principles set out the criteria to be met if war is to bemorally permissible. In practice, this challenging demand requires that politicalleaders and military at all levels learn and exercise the virtues, particularly thecardinal virtues of justice, courage, self-control and practical wisdom. If we are tomake war just and to make only just war, we need justice understood in its broadestsense. Such justice, as Aristotle noted, “is not a part but the whole of virtue.”

Keywords Justice .War . Virtue . Practical wisdom . Punishment . Aristotle

Introduction

What is the virtue of justice that is needed to make war just? Given the recent revivalof interest in the medieval just war theory, that might appear an easy question toanswer. But it is not. For in war, as in peace, justice is a difficult virtue to pin down.1

Philosophia (2013) 41:361–371DOI 10.1007/s11406-013-9437-2

1For a fuller account of the role of justice and all the other virtues in war, see Fisher 2011, especially chapter6, “Virtues.”

D. Fisher (*)Department of War Studies, King’s College London, Strand, London WC2R 2LS, UKe-mail: david.r.fisher@kcl.ac.uk

The Varieties of Justice

In Book 5 of the Nicomachaean Ethics, Aristotle distinguishes three different sensesin which we use the word ‘just’. First, there is “corrective” or “punitive” justice. Thisis the justice of the law courts; the justice which we expect a judge to exercise inapportioning punishment. There is also “distributive” justice, which is justice under-stood as fairness; the justice required when resources are shared out. There is, finally,a third much broader sense of just which is about showing respect or concern for thewelfare of others, and which at times comes close to being simply what is morallyright. According to Aristotle, “justice in this sense of the word is complete virtue.” Heillustrates this by quoting the proverb, “All virtue is summed up in dealing justly”(Aristotle 1953, p.141).2 “Thus righteousness or justice, so understood,” Aristotlecontinues, “is not a part but the whole of virtue” (Aristotle 1953, p.142). Threecenturies before Aristotle the prophet Micah had used justice in a similarly broadsense when he counseled that all that God required of his followers was “to do justly,and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God” (Micah 6:8, AuthorizedVersion).

So which, if any, of the three variants of justice identified by Aristotle is the justicerequired in war?

Justice in War

For the medieval just war theorist, the answer was obvious. It was corrective orpunitive justice. In his chapter “On War” in the Summa Theologiae, Aquinas, writingin the thirteenth century, quotes with approval St. Augustine: “We usually describe ajust war as one that avenges wrong, that is when a nation or state has to be punishedeither for refusing to make amends for outrages done by its subjects, or to restorewhat it has seized injuriously” (Aquinas 1972, 2a2ae, 40, 1; quoting St. Augustine,Questions on the Heptateuch, book VI, ch 10). The political authorities, Aquinasnotes, quoting St. Paul, are “God’s agents of punishment for retribution of theoffender” (Romans 13:4, New English Bible).

Vitoria, writing three centuries later in the sixteenth century, continued to expoundthe view of a just war as punitive. He explained his reasoning: “A political leadercannot have greater authority over foreigners than he has over his own subjects: buthe may not draw the sword against his own subjects unless they have done somewrong: therefore, he cannot do so against foreigners except in the same circum-stances” (Vitoria 1991, p.303; On the Law of War 1.3, Sect 13). For the early just warcommentators the defining concept of justice in war was thus punitive justice. A justwar is a war that punishes those who have done wrong. This is a clear and compellingconcept but it faces two serious objections.

The first objection is that it casts the punishing state in the role of judge, jury, andexecutioner even over issues where its own interests are involved. Such a combina-tion of powers is in non-war like contexts judged best avoided. Indeed, for JohnLocke, civil society is designed “to avoid and remedy those inconveniences of the

2 Aristotle distinguishes the three kinds of justice in Nicomachean Ethics, book five, chapters 1–5.

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state of nature that follow from every man being judge in his own case” (Locke 1980,section 90). If war were punishment, one and the same state, combining bothexecutive and judicial functions would determine, even in cases involving its owninterests, who in another state is to be punished, how they are to be punished, and becharged with then carrying out the punishment. Which state would be trusted by otherstates to fulfill such a grave, extraterritorial responsibility fairly, particularly wherethe belligerent state’s own interests were engaged? Such a conflation of executive andjudicial powers and their vesting in a single authority without appeal elsewhere isregarded in civilian jurisdiction as the very embodiment of an unjust system, muchfavored by tyrants. It was, for example, through such a conglomeration of powers thatthe Soviet secret police, the NKVD, became such effective agents of Stalin’s mur-derous purge of his fellow citizens in 1936–38. There are thus good reasons why in awell-founded democracy, such notions as no one acting as a judge in his own case,trial by jury, and the separation of the judicial, executive, and legislative functions ofthe state, are held to be fundamental principles.

Granting to the ruler of one state the power to judge, sentence, and punish thecitizens of another may not have appeared to be a fatal objection in medievalChristendom when the prince could seek sanction and authority for his actions furtherup the hierarchy from the Holy Roman Emperor or even the Pope. But it is a seriousobjection in our post-Westphalian world of horizontally organized sovereign stateswhere no such divinely inspired guidance or international higher authority is avail-able. There is, therefore, an understandable reluctance to cede to modern states theright to wage war to punish the citizens of other states. Perhaps one day the UnitedNations, operating in conjunction with the International Criminal Court and withresponsibilities duly split between different agencies, might be competent and trustedto undertake such a task. But it is far from capable of fulfilling this role at present,with sovereign states still exercising ultimate authority through the votes and vetoeswielded in the Security Council.

The second objection to a punitive view of war is that those punished in war maywell not be those who have done wrong. For those killed in modern wars are typicallyordinary service people, some perhaps reluctant conscripts, rather than the political ormilitary leaders who may have initiated the war. It is, indeed, appropriate to hold thepolitical and military leaders morally responsible for an unjust war. But what of theordinary service people? In response to this question, some philosophers haverecently sought to extend moral responsibility to include ordinary service people.Jeff McMahan, for example, has argued that most combatants fighting an unjust warcan be held morally “responsible for the wrongful war or for the wrongful acts ofwhich it is composed” (2009, p.204). He concedes that a few may have such strongexcuses (irresistible duress or justified ignorance) as to evade responsibility. But mostunjust combatants do not have such strong excuses.3 They may have been subjectedto some coercive pressures but not to unbearable duress, still less duress that isliterally irresistible. Nor can they be fully excused through ignorance since, even ifthey are ignorant, their ignorance may still be culpable and so “the excuse is ingeneral partial rather than full” (McMahan 2009, p.153). Soldiers typically do notgive enough thought to the wars in which they are engaged, but they should be

3 His detailed anatomy of soldiers’ excuses is in McMahan 2009, chapter 3, “Excuses.”

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encouraged to do so. So most combatants fighting an unjust war “are responsible toone degree or another for posing an objectively wrongful threat of harm” (McMahan2009, p.189). Moreover, if they are held responsible for the injustice of the wars inwhich they are engaged, they will be less likely to engage in unjust wars. That, inMcMahan’s view, would be a distinct moral gain.

It is important that we should encourage both politicians and service people at alllevels to think more carefully about the justice of the wars in which they engage.There is, moreover, a particular duty on those senior officers who advise politicalleaders to consider carefully the justice of what is being proposed. But it seemsneither fair nor appropriate to hold all or, even, most combatants morally responsiblefor the injustice of the war in which they are engaged. An attribution of moralresponsibility requires at the least that the agent should have some control over whatis happening and have consented to its occurrence. Both conditions are paradigmat-ically fulfilled by actions where the outcomes are intended. Since the generals whoadvise the political leaders and who craft their military strategy have such control andconsent to what is happening, they can be held to blame for an unjust war. But theordinary service person neither has such control nor such influence and so cannotlegitimately be held morally responsible for the war’s injustice.

If war is punishment it is, therefore, very likely to be unfair punishment. For theguilty tend to escape and the innocent to be killed. It is thus a mistake to regard war asitself constituting punishment and punitive justice as the core defining concept of ajust war. Punitive justice may, nonetheless, still have an important role to play in war.Let us consider what that role may be.

Would securing the punishment of an international criminal provide a just causefor war? It could certainly furnish just grounds for a police operation involvingmilitary forces and expertise to apprehend a war criminal. But it is questionablewhether it would justify a full-scale war. Just war thinking is restrictive about whatcan count as a just cause for war—for war inevitably causes substantial suffering. Thejust war tradition, accordingly, insists that there needs to be very compelling groundsto embark on so momentous a venture as war. Apprehension of an internationalcriminal would not be regarded as furnishing such compelling grounds, particularlywhen other options than war, including international police action, might be judgedavailable to achieve this end.

So, for example, when the United States intervened in Afghanistan in October2001 to counter the al-Qaeda terrorists being sheltered there by the Taliban regime,the US Government justified its action, not as punitive justice, but as operating inself-defense in accordance with the provisions of Article 51 of the UN Charter.Similarly, President Obama made clear that the mission of the US Navy Seal teamagainst Osama Bin Laden on 2 May 2011 was a “kill or capture operation,” not ajudicial execution. The use of force was not punitive but preventive. The operationwas characterized by the US Government as a military operation against an enemycombatant, designed to remove the threat that the combatant posed. It “was justifiedas an act of national self-defense” (Holder 2011). It was not an act of extra-territorialjustice, for which the US Government would have been widely criticized interna-tionally—not least because it would have been perceived as acting as judge, jury andexecutioner in its own case. In Libya, the brutal actions of President Gaddafi and hissecurity forces in attempting to crush the popular uprising in February 2011 were

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referred by the United Nations Security Council to the International Criminal Court(ICC) by its resolution –UNSCR 1970—passed on 26 February. Gaddafi was widelyregarded as an international criminal. But bringing him to justice was not the groundsfor the NATO military operations in Libya. These were justified, under the subse-quent resolution passed on 17 March—UNSCR 1973—as being measures necessary“to protect civilians” from being slaughtered by Gaddafi's forces. Bringing Gaddafi toface justice before the International Criminal Court was an avowed aim of theinternational community and would have been a fitting end to the military operation.But it was not the grounds for the NATO operation, nor would there have beeninternational support for an operation undertaken on such grounds.

Punitive justice is thus better regarded not as a just cause for war but rather animportant constituent of a just peace. Punitive justice has a crucial role to play after awar has concluded in bringing to justice those war leaders who were guilty ofinitiating an unjust war or those guilty of war crimes in its conduct. And the lattermay, indeed, include ordinary combatants who, while not responsible for the incep-tion of war, are legitimately held morally responsible for their own conduct in it.

Since 1 July 2002 the International Criminal Court has been empowered to takeaction against genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes where states areunable or unwilling to take action themselves. The court’s remit is still restricted tooffences in bello, with no agreement yet on what constitutes a crime of aggression ininitiating war. Its membership is not yet universal (the USA, Russia or Israel have yetto join). There is also a concern on the part of the UN Security Council, reflecting thewider concerns about punitive justice noted earlier, that the pursuit of such justiceshould be undertaken with care and not at the expense of peace and security. This wasunderlined by the doubts expressed by the UN Secretary General over the timing ofthe ICC prosecutor’s efforts to initiate proceedings in July 2008 against Omar al-Bashir, the President of Sudan, just when the UN Security Council was seeking toengage the President in the peace settlement process for Darfur.4

But the establishment of a permanent forum for international justice, whatever itscurrent limitations, does represent an important step forward. The punishment ofthose who disturb the tranquility of the commonwealth by waging unjust war has animportant role to play in establishing a just peace after the conflict is concluded and indeterring other offenders against the peace in order to prevent future conflicts.Establishing a just peace after a bitter conflict will need, moreover, not just thepunishment of offenders but also a range of more positive steps, including buildingsocially just institutions, acts of reparation, apology, and forgiveness, to ensure “therestoration of right relationship within or between political communities” as requiredby restorative justice (Philpott 2012, p.16).

What then of distributive justice? It was the perceived unfairness in the sharing outof resources which provoked Achilles to withdraw his support after Agamemnon hadseized from him, the slave girl, Briseis, whom he had won as booty in war. This led tothe tragic unfolding of events narrated in the Iliad that culminated in the death ofAchilles’ companion, Patroclus, and Achilles’ brutal slaying in revenge of the Trojanhero, Hector. Perceived unfairness in the distribution of resources, including the vital

4 Such concerns were voiced by both the UN Secretary General and the British Government (see Smith2008).

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resource of land, is a potent cause of war, as the current conflict between Israel andPalestine amply testifies. Conversely, securing a fairer distribution of resources mayreduce or remove the grounds for war. A fair distribution of land will be an essentialcomponent of any durable settlement of the conflict between Israel and Palestine.Distributive justice has thus an important role to play in war. But it too is not a centralor defining concept.

This then leaves the broadest sense of justice as what is morally right, what conducesto, or promotes, human welfare. A just war is a war that is morally right. It is this broadsense of justice which can most helpfully be regarded as the central concept of justice injust war. But if that is what is meant by a just war how do we determine when a war isjust? Part of the answer is provided by the rules or principles which the just war traditionteaches need to be complied with for a war to be just. Before a decision is taken to go towar we need to be satisfied that the action is undertaken:

& With just cause& With right intention& With competent authority& As a last resort& Such that the harm likely to be caused should be judged not to outweigh the good

to be achieved, taking into account the probability of success (principle ofproportion).

In the conduct of a war two further tests have to be met:

& The harm judged likely to result from a particular military action should not bedisproportionate to the good to be achieved by that action, and

& non-combatants should not be deliberately attacked.

Finally the war should end in the establishment of a just peace.5

All of these conditions have to be met for a war to be just. But the two most importantconditions are those of just cause that defines what is the good to be achieved by war;and that of proportion that requires that the harm judged likely to be caused by warshould not outweigh the good to be achieved, as defined by the just cause. In otherwords, war should not be undertaken if it is judged likely to cause more harm thangood. Just cause thus not only defines the grounds for war but sets the parametersagainst which the conduct of war and the peace established thereafter are to beassessed. But what constitutes a just cause?

Aquinas, as we noted earlier, quoted with approval St. Augustine’s view of war aspunitive. But Aquinas also employed a very different concept of justice: “Since thecare of the community is committed to those in authority . . . they lawfully use thesword to protect the commonweal from foreign attacks” (Aquinas 1972, 2a2ae, 40,1). Indeed, “it is the king’s task to furnish the community subject to him withprotection against enemies” (Aquinas 2002, p.44, De regimine principum, Book I).For Aquinas, as for Aristotle, man is a political animal, a communitarian being wholives and flourishes in a polis or community (Politics 1253a1). A community isentitled to use force to defend itself from external aggression and so protect the

5 For a fuller explanation of the just war principles, see Fisher 2011, chapter 4, “The Just War Tradition.”

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common good. A community’s entitlement to do so is, moreover, not, as in somemodern accounts, derived from the individual’s right to defend himself but is rather amore fundamental right since it is only through our communal life that individualscan themselves flourish.6 Protective justice does thus constitute a just cause for war.Force may be used against those who are posing a threat of harm. But those notposing such a threat, those who are, in the original sense of the Latin, ‘innocent’, areto be spared.

That protection may, moreover, be extended beyond our own community toprovide for what Vitoria calls the “lawful defense of the innocent from unjust death”(Vitoria 1991, p.288, On the American Indians, 3.5) or, as Grotius argues, to counter“injuries which . . . grossly violate the laws of nature or of nations in regard to anyperson whatsoever” (Grotius 2006, p.407, On the Law of War and Peace, Book II,ch.XX, sect.XL(1)). Protective justice can thus furnish grounds for humanitarianintervention to protect even innocent strangers from attack.

The just war principles define what constitutes a just war, in the broad sense of justidentified by Aristotle. Adhering to the principles is thus necessary if a war is to bejust. But are they sufficient to ensure that war is begun, conducted and concludedjustly? The just war tradition is usually presented in contemporary accounts as if therules or principles furnish all the guidance that is required. Moreover, while credit forthe development of the principles may be attributed to Aquinas, what is overlooked inthese accounts is that Aquinas’ discussion of war is only a brief excursus in hisextended treatment of the virtues. The chapter on war is, in fact, in a book on thevirtue of charity. The chapter seeks to answer the question whether war is always a sinagainst the virtue of charity. Aquinas argues that it is not such a sin, provided the testsare complied with. But for Aquinas, as for Aristotle who he is faithfully following,the key to our moral life is the practice and exercise of the virtues—which is as true inwar as in peace.

The Role of the Virtues in War

The just war principles are necessary in adjudicating whether a war is just. But theyare not sufficient to ensure a war is just. For our aim is not that our political leadersand service people should be well versed in just war principles but that they shouldbehave justly. To enable them to do this they need to have acquired the necessaryskills to put those principles into practice, even amidst the fog and fury of war. Theyneed, in other words, the virtues—those habits of thought, feeling and action—thatenable us not only to choose what is right but thereafter to act rightly. The virtues areimportant for our moral life generally but are particularly critical in war where thepressures to act unjustly are often intense and where life or death decisions may needto be taken in split seconds. As in our daily conduct, so in war, all the virtues arerequired. But the virtues that are of particular importance in both peace and war arethe virtues designated by medieval theologians as pre-eminent or cardinal—namely,practical wisdom, courage, self-control and justice.

6 Indeed, St. Augustine did not consider private individuals, as opposed to public officials, had a right touse force in self-defense, see St. Augustine, On Free Choice of The Will, bk.1.chs. 5 and 6.

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Aquinas distinguishes three kinds of practical wisdom. The highest form is called“statesmanship,” which is the practical wisdom required of the political leader whohas charge of a state or kingdom. “The execution of justice to serve the commongood,” which Aquinas notes is the duty of the ruler, “needs the guidance of practicalwisdom” (1974, p.85, 2a2ae, 50, 1).7 The next variant, which Aquinas calls “polit-ical,” is the practical wisdom which the subjects of a state need to exercise to fulfilltheir important but subordinate role in securing the common good. The third variant iscalled “military practical wisdom.” This is the virtue needed to ensure that “war ismanaged by due ordering” (1974, p.91, 2a2ae, 50, 4). Aquinas notes that, “Actualfighting calls for courage, but its direction calls for practical wisdom, especially thatof the good generalship of the officer commanding” (1974, p.93, 2a2ae, 50, 4). Let usconsider each variant in turn.

It is the duty of a statesman to serve only the common good, resisting anytemptation to use his office to promote his own interests or line his own pockets.Determining how best to promote the common good requires the guidance of thevirtue of practical wisdom, which Aristotle defines as “the ability to reach soundconclusions . . . about what conduces to the good life as a whole” (1953, p.176).Practical wisdom is not a remote or academic attribute. It is rather “a habit of soundjudgment about practical matters” (Geach 1977, p.160). It is the exercise of this virtuewhich distinguishes the statesman from a jobbing politician. It is also this virtue thatis needed, above all, to guide our political leaders in taking the fateful decision ofpeace and war and in applying the just war principles to the messy realities of thepolitical world to ensure that war is only undertaken when it is just, is conductedjustly, and concluded in a just peace.

Political practical wisdom also needs to be exercised by the subjects of a state. Inthe princely kingdoms that Aquinas took as the ideal, the political responsibilities ofthe subjects were very limited but still judged important. Of far greater importance arethe political responsibilities of the citizens of a democracy who have the power toelect governments of their own choosing and of all those in the media, academe, thinktanks, and elsewhere who can influence and shape the formation of policy on issuesof peace and war. We all need the guidance of practical wisdom in fulfilling our dutiesas citizens.

Aquinas thought that the third—military—variant of practical wisdom was espe-cially required of the general commanding an army. The military leaders who advisepoliticians on whether or not to go to war and determine the strategy and tactics for itsconduct require practical wisdom. Sound judgment about practical matters is whatdistinguishes a good military commander from an indifferent one. But it is a feature ofthe modern battlefield that responsibility is being devolved to ever lower levels and toservice people of junior rank. It is the strategic corporal who may have to decide insplit seconds whether the woman acting suspiciously on the bus in Tel Aviv is asuicide bomber from Hamas or an innocent to be protected by the just war principleof non-combatant immunity. If the military are to have any chance of taking the rightdecisions amid all the fog and fury of the battlefield and with time running short, they

7 I have used ‘practical wisdom’ instead of ‘prudence’ to translate prudentia which was Aquinas’translation for the Greek phronesis in Aristotle, which is usually translated “practical wisdom.”

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need to have been trained and practiced to exercise a habit of sound judgment aboutpractical matters so that it becomes for them second nature.

Along with practical wisdom, Aquinas notes the importance of the virtue ofcourage in situations of war. Courage is required to enable us to persevere in theface of difficulty or danger, not allowing fear to cloud our judgment of what needs tobe done. Since Homeric times, physical courage has been the most prized virtue ofthe soldier on the battlefield. It was the virtue that Achilles displayed in abundance.But a service person will also require moral courage to enable him or her to challengeunacceptable behavior and even, if necessary, to disobey an order that is judged to beimmoral or illegal. It was such moral courage that was lacking in the officers and men—including, shockingly, the padre and doctor—who failed to report or do anything elseto stop the savage beating of Baha Mousa and other Iraqi civilian detainees byBritish Army personnel in Basra in September 2003. Baha Mousa, a hotel reception-ist, was arrested in the early hours of Sunday 13 September. He was so savagelybeaten that he died in the evening of Monday 14 September, just 36 hours after hisarrest—having sustained 93 external injuries. The need to find better ways to teachmoral courage was underlined by Sir William Gage in his report following the publicenquiry which he chaired into these events (Gage 2011). Moral courage is alsorequired of our political leaders to enable them to resist the many pressures andtemptations there may be to resort to war too hastily or in its conduct to sanctionunjust measures for the sake of speculative military gains.

As well as practical wisdom and courage, service personnel need the other cardinalvirtues of self-control and justice. Self-control is the virtue needed to help us quell ouranger or other emotions so that they do not prevent us from reaching a calm anddispassionate judgment of what is the right thing to do. It was self-control that waslacking from the US Marines who, angered at the death of a beloved comrade, wenton a killing spree in Haditha in November 2005 that left twenty four innocent Iraqicivilians dead, including women and children. It was his anger at the death of hisbeloved companion, Patroclus, that drove Achilles to return to the battlefield to slayHector and profanely drag his mutilated corpse around the battlefield behind hischariot, in defiance of the laws of god and men. Self-control is an important virtue forour military, as it is for our political leaders whom we need to take decisions on peaceand war calmly and wisely, not fuelled by anger or lust for revenge, but only guidedby what will conduce to the common good.

The cardinal virtue of justice is the habit of thought, feeling and action that weneed our political leaders and military at all levels to cultivate so that they showconcern for others and seek to promote their welfare. Respect for others—“the duty toput others first”—is identified in the British Army’s statement of its core values andstandards as one of the key qualities required of its soldiers.8 Such respect needs,moreover, to include all victims of conflict, even people who may be enemies,however difficult that may be.

If we are to ensure that war is engaged in only when it is just and is conducted andconcluded justly we need our political leaders and military from the highest to thelowest levels to have been trained and practiced in the virtues. But, as Shakespeare

8 The ‘Values and Standards of the British Army’ can be viewed at: http://www.army.mod.uk/documents/general/v_s_of_the_british_army.pdf

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observed, “Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied.”9 The virtues are, as Aristotleinsists, only virtues if undertaken for the sake of a good end.10 Character traits that arevirtues when serving a good end, can be turned into vices when the end to beachieved is evil.

An extreme instance of this is furnished by the activities of the German ReservePolice Battalion 101 examined by Christopher Browning (1992) in his exploration ofhow ordinary men can become agents of genocide. The reserve policemen, who werenot Nazi fanatics but respectable burghers of Hamburg, were ordered on 13 July 1942to round up all the Jews in the Polish village of Jozefow and kill those not of workingage. Their commanding officer, who realized that many would find this a distastefulduty, explained that obedience to the order was not compulsory and no penalty wouldbe attached to anyone who chose not to undertake the task. Nonetheless, 85 % of thereserve policemen obeyed the order. They rounded up the Jews, mostly the elderly,women and children, took them to the forest outside the village and shot them.

Why did so many comply with the order? The reserve policemen were not drivenby Nazi ideology and anti-Semitic fervor. What motivated them was a respect forauthority and obedience coupled with a sense of loyalty to their comrades. They had anatural inclination to obey orders, but they also regarded it as an unpleasant task andthey did not want to let their comrades down by not taking their own share of thegrisly work. So they obeyed the order, in part, from a misplaced sense of loyalty totheir comrades. And, after some initial hesitation, they became according to Brow-ning “increasingly efficient and calloused executioners” (Browning 1992, p.77).Character traits, such as obedience and loyalty, that if directed towards good endsare virtues, can thus be corrupted to become vices if exercised in pursuit of an evilend.

So the virtues, however important for our moral life, are not sufficient. Thepractice of the virtues needs to be guided by a theory of the good. We need a clearunderstanding of the good to be achieved by our actions, of how they will promotehuman welfare and reduce suffering. In the case of war such guidance is provided bythe just war principles. The principles seek to ensure that force is only used when it isnecessary to protect the common good and that care is taken in its use to minimize thesuffering caused. Where application of the principles is unclear or uncertain, deeperdeliberation may then be required to determine what action will best promote humanwelfare or reduce human suffering.11 This will require the exercise of practicalwisdom, the virtue which, as noted earlier, is according to Aristotle, “the ability toreach sound conclusions . . . about what conduces to the good life as a whole.”Neither the just war principles nor the virtues are on their own sufficient to ensure thejust conduct of war. Both are required, each mutually reinforcing and supporting theother.

9 The words are those of Friar Laurence in Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Sc iii.10 So, for example, the brave man endures danger for the sake of what is good, and chooses so to actbecause it is good (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1115b11 and 1116a11-12).11 The nature of our ethical reasoning—characterized as virtuous consequentialism—is explored in Fisher2011, passim and especially chapter 7, “Virtuous Consequentialism.”

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Conclusion

So what is the virtue of justice needed to make war just? War is a complex andprotracted activity and has occupied a tragically prominent role in human life andhistory. It is, therefore, perhaps unsurprising that a variety of virtues of justice arecalled for to help guide the application of the use of force and reduce the sufferingcaused thereby. We need justice as fairness to guide the distribution of resources andso reduce the grounds for war. We need corrective and restorative justice to restore thewrongs of war and help establish a just peace. Protective justice helps define whatconstitutes a just cause for war and so constrains the occasions for war.

The just principles set out the criteria to be met if war is to be morally permissiblein its inception, conduct and conclusion. To enable this challenging demand to be metrequires that our political leaders and military at all levels learn and practice the virtueof justice as respect for others, as well as the other cardinal virtues of courage, self-control and, above all, practical wisdom. If we are to make war just and to make onlyjust war we need thus justice in its broadest sense. Such justice, as Aristotle noted, “isnot a part but the whole of virtue.”

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