Proportionality in the Morality of War

Abstract

Just war theory, the most widely accepted theory of the morality of war, contains two proportionality conditions that say a war or an act in war is justified only if the damage it causes is not excessive.These conditions have figured prominently in recent debates about the morality of particular wars, including the Gulf, Kosovo, and Iraq wars.But commentators often say the conditions are poorly understood, so it is unclear exactly what they do and do not forbid.In this article I will try to clarify the idea of proportionality in war, or explain what makes damage in war excessive.I will not, however, arrive at simple conditions that can be applied mechanically to acts in war.This is partly because judgments about proportionality in war require empirical assessments that are complex and controversial, but also because the conditions themselves can be formulated in different ways that have different implications even given an agreed-on set of facts.I will try to identify some of these differences and show how they affect specific judgments about war.But first I must place the proportionality conditions in the larger context of just war theory as a whole.

Cite this

Thomas Hurka (2004). Proportionality in the Morality of War. Philosophy &amp Public Affairs. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1088-4963.2005.00024.x

@article{thomas2004proportionality,
  title  = {Proportionality in the Morality of War},
  author = {Hurka, Thomas},
  year   = {2004},
  journal = {Philosophy &amp Public Affairs},
  doi    = {10.1111/j.1088-4963.2005.00024.x}
}

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