PUBLIC WAR AND THE MORAL EQUALITY OF COMBATANTS

Abstract

Following Hugo Grotius, a distinction is developed between private and public war. It is argued that, contrary to how most contemporary critics of the moral equality of combatants construe it, the just war tradition has defended the possibility of the moral equality of combatants as an entailment of the justifiability of public war. It is shown that contemporary critics of the moral equality of combatants are denying the possibility of public war and, in most cases, offering a conception of just war as exclusively private war. The work of Jeff McMahan is used to exemplify this. Against these contemporary critics, it is argued that the reasons McMahan and others offer against the possibility of the moral equality of combatants undermine not only public war but also the possibility of fully realized and effective political authority. The conclusion is drawn that defenders of the moral equality of combatants must defend the possibility of fully realized and effective political authority over war while critics of the moral equality of combatants must either (1) reject the possibility of fully realized and effective political authority altogether, or, less radically, (2) deny the possibility of fully realized and effective political authority over war.

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