Just Wars, Holy Wars, and Jihad

All forms of human social organization that we have ever known forbid the killing of other humans—at least, without valid justification. Another way of putting it is that human civilization, from the simplest to the most complex, has always justified the killing of other humans under certain conditions. The circumstances that allow for killing may lie within the boundaries of what we could call today policing—that is, treating, controlling, or threatening individuals or groups within society whose behaviors or ideas and beliefs are considered dangerous enough that the offenders are deemed eradicable. Justification in these cases is applied within the social organization and among those whom we identify as “fellow citizens,” “members of the tribe,” etc. The context for justifiable killing may also lie largely without the social organization. In such a situation, killing is directed against an “other” external to the group—that is, outsiders or strangers whose identity lies beyond the defining characteristics of the community. When such killing is organized en masse by one community or polity against another, it is defined as war. War is intentional mass violence that includes killing, usually widespread, and clearly directed outward against an “other” (there are modern semantic exceptions to this rule such as “cold wars” or “cyber wars,” but these are idioms and are constructed from the accepted definition of war as given here).

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