In Defense of the Defenseless

The Morality of the Laws of War

Dados Bibliográficos

ID10382011
AutoresTamar Meisels (0000-0003-0240-9443, Tel Aviv University, autor correspondente)
Ano2012
Volume60
Fascículo4
Páginas919-935
Data de publicação2012-05-04
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoPolitical Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0032-3217 • E-ISSN: 1467-9248
EditoraSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1111/j.1467-9248.2012.00945.x
OpenAlexW1540056260
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas2
Referências citadas15

This article takes issue with Jeff McMahan's well-known argument according to which, morally speaking, some civilians and POWs may be liable to wartime attack, and that in this respect the laws of armed conflict prohibiting such attacks diverge significantly from the deep morality of war. I reject McMahan's suggestion that at the deepest moral level it is sometimes justified to violate these legal protections of non-combatants and prisoners. I argue instead that the rules of war – moral as well as legal – are grounded in an age-old commitment to protect the defenseless and vulnerable, and can go only so deep without rendering them totally inapplicable to belligerent action. Consequently, I argue that there is little divergence between the laws of war and its deep morality. Ultimately, I suggest, this moral commitment to the defenseless supplies us with a significant point of convergence both between the law and morality of war, and between ad bellum and in bello considerations

Argument (complex analysis · Belligerent · Jus ad bellum · Just war theory · Morality · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Spanish Civil War · Global Peace and Security Dynamics · Law · Torture, Ethics, and Law · War, Ethics, and Justification