Can war ever be 'just'

In Britain for Armistice day the Royal British Legion 'sell' (for donations) paper/plastic red poppies to wear as a sign of respect. A couple of weeks before Armistice day I went to my Quaker meeting and one of the Friends had white poppies instead, the message being 'respect, but peace'.

In the light of increased attacks on ISIS in Syria in response for what happened in France, I believe we should be asking ourselves if war can ever be just. The 'just war' tradition suggets that war can be conducted in a moral manner... but when people are being killed, can there truly be a moral war?

Is war truly 'the final answer'?

from one perspective, yes it is a final answer as it seldom leaves many to question it afterwards...

in an ideal world it wouldn't even be considered...

can it be fought morally?....by whom's standards are the morals....moral and just for one, may not be for another...

a point to consider...to the islamic extremists the slaughter of non-combatants, women and children IS moral since they (the victims) do not share the extremists' views...to the rest of the world these acts ARE NOT moral....

Edan wrote: In the light of increased attacks on ISIS in Syria in response for what happened in France, I believe we should be asking ourselves if war can ever be just. The 'just war' tradition suggets that war can be conducted in a moral manner... but when people are being killed, can there truly be a moral war?

We've recently covered this topic in my Political Philosophy class. As a general rule wars are never or barely ever just. But there are instances in which one can be said to be fighting a just war. The most common is when you are fighting in self-defence (this could also be in defence of an ally who is also attacked).

There is also a case for humanitarian intervention, sometimes getting a country involved in a war may not actually be worse than the conditions the persons of that country are already suffering under... Humanitarian intervention can typically bring down a regime in a shorter amount of time than that regime will oppress its people. None of this is to say that it's ever been done correctly, but a war could be just in this way.

Edan wrote: Is war truly 'the final answer'?

I don't think so. I think self-defense is just, but war is a tragedy. I think the US and France now have a good reason for going to war with ISIS, but I don't think killing each other could ever be called "just". It's just "reason".

I'm not sure that made sense :dry:

Here's my 2 cents and you'd lucky to sell it for half that.

My personal opinion is yes and very often is, because right/wrong are probably not objective terms that exist beyond their creators. Judgement beyond those groups is moot, so we have to go with societal version of them.

Just is a subjective claim, but if you mean within our western view of justice, then yes. We have established a justice system, that system has oversights and previews for war crimes, therefore any war without war crimes or at least without them at the levels of leadership is just.

As for war...well again, if we mean the technical politically and socially agreed upon definition of war that varies from country to country. Then the US technically has been at war in decades, even though we call our conflicts like Vietnam, Iraq, Korea wars...they aren't. Not in the agreed upon way that the people of America have established.

Of course, we are going to have different thoughts and opinions on this. It could be argued a million different ways. That's the reason why we have these social and political things in the first place. It seems kind of dumb, because we won't all agree. But that's why we have them, because one person doesn't fight a war or declare justice. We have to make these kind of general agreements and concessions in order for higher level society to function, thus politics. IMHO, this kind of discourse is good, but it has be to put into democratic action (i.e. voting).

I have found in my years alive on this Earth that war is not just. Ever. It is the 'common' people fighting the rich (wo)man's fights for them.

For a change, I'd like to see the world leaders that desire war, for whatever reason, fight it out for themselves and leave the rest of us out of it.

War is an immature and juvenile method for solving problems; problems that are, in fact, not solved through war...war causes more war. Violence begets violence.

May the Force be with You.

Sure, war can be "just," it hasn't been in my life time, not that i am aware of anyways. Alot of people who would complain whether war is "right" or "wrong" miss the big picture, it's profitable, and as long as people are willing to fight and die for the greed of the 1%, or until mankind puts down his phone long enough to realize he is being lied to, and decides to do something about it, than it will continue. A war fueled by greed can only be stopped by those willing to wage war using information, convincing others on a massive scale somehow that the system is broken and must be started anew. So long as the rich are allowed to lead the masses, nothing will change. When mankind wakes up, and realizes that only by fighting together will improve the status quo, then that will be a "just" war...

I believe that war is just war, and that no war is just. The result of unresolved conflict is armed physical confrontation. There is no justification for war itself… but there is an explanation for it. Nor can the exchange of hostilities be just, or moral.

The moral obligation of conducting war is to do so in a manner that leaves the state intact and the populace untarnished. This of course is what makes conducting war difficult. Otherwise it would appear to be nothing more than opposing terrorist organizations having at each other.

War is the last step in the breakdown of negotiations and even uneasy co-existences. Once an outcome to the war is reached then the rebuilding phase, or reopening of lines of communication can begin to bring peoples back to the peaceful existence.

Two major issue that seem to repeat themselves throughout history is that either the war is considered resolved before all parties are content to end or the rebuilding process does not fairly consider all parties involved. And so further confrontation begins/continues.

But these are just my opinions based on research and observation. Take them for what they are.

I think the ocean makes waves, ideas contend, and people are as they are. By virtue of its existence war is as just(or unjust)as anything else. A person can ascribe it a value, and a group of people can all agree on that value if they want. If the purpose here is to find out what value we answering Jedi would ascribe it, or more directly, what circumstance would be required to ascribe it the value of "just" I personally can not...but nor can I ascribe it unjust.

Perhaps one day I will be in a situation where I need to go to war. When I do, my opinion might change...at least in that moment if not permanently.

ive never been to war

as i understand it war tends to bring the very worst out of individuals and societies

i belive that there are people and organizations and even families that have, over generations, gotten very good at exploiting the war scenario for their own financial and political ends

i think there is a distinction between JUST and JUSTIFIABLE

inherent to war is injustice, i dont think there ever has been, or could ever be a war that is JUST by my interpretation of JUST and WAR

but in some situations war is justifiable

the nazi regime was such a case

had usa involved itself in the darfur genocide i would likely have been supportive

others examples can be found, and it certainly appears to like this daesh situation is or will turn out to be the most current, although i am still not informed enough to be certain

before engaging in any kind of war i belive it is mandatory to understand who "the enemy" is, what they want, why they choose to do what they do and if there is any agreeable peaceful compromise - but there is a seriously flawed logic which concludes that we should attempt to peacefully coexist with genocidal groups or nations/states who intend our own destruction - in such a case it is not a coexistence but a contest of resource aquisition, and the longer that contest goes on the more desructive it may be when/IF the one side develops the resources to implement their own will

legitimation can be an effective tool in some instances - legitimate the enemy, bring them in to the global dialogue as equals, offer them the means to flourish peacefully and let them see that cooperation works in all of our interets

but "live and let live" is a policy that only works if everyone agrees with it

when one group decides that the other MUST DIE, or must be dominated and made to submit, then war is justifiable

Sadly some people and/or groups only respond to the greater power. If warmongers were the vanguard this would be different. "The Art of War" I think handles this as well as anything I've read.

We don't live in a perfect or fair world. That's just the way it is, that's the reality.

Hey Edan

Nice to see you! I think a good general will appear to have many good qualities and many terrible skills. Deception, Subversion, Manipulation, Destruction: to name a few behaviors present in war time.

Who said these tools in the good generals armory cannot be used for a good outcome? I mean if it stops the 'bad guy' you would use any toy to prevent evil. But that being said, I don't think there is a 'bad guy' or a 'good guy' because each people will have unique likable qualities and every enemy and even the legitimate authority will have the same capacity for evil.

Fighting war usually means to uphold our way of life and just surviving war isn't our top priority: War is there to preserve the virtues of the nation. And we do this by appealing to public opinion and global opinion and in the west we have a good level of cooperation with other countries who agree with war time strategy.

The virtues of our organizations shows in how we fight, we preserve the good and kill the threat to our way of life. An enemy that is morally wrong for the right reasons in my humble opinion would loose local and international support vital for a victory. An enemy that creates enemies would be overwhelmed.

An enemy that is morally right and he wants to win, would possibly consider a level of acceptable losses. In that its justified to kill a few innocents. An authority can win a war but become isolated by its own strategy and loose in many other ways. I think to fight a war is easy but having a victory you need to be correct in justifying yourself and nation.

You can be ideologically morally correct and have proper moral behavior, but that doesn't justify anything. It has been groomed into us that good behavior is rewarded and evil is punished.

Just because you live a certain way, nothing logically follows those actions, i mean so what 'good', 'bad' whats the difference? When war is necessary the only thing that matters is if you can win and at best you pander the necessary authorities to support each other.

The problem is do you want to be defined by your enemy or by someone you respect, wouldn't it be awful if England became like their enemy. The question is who do you want to be and defined as?

The first victim in war is Truth and the second casualty is your Soul. When a nation starts to demonize another nation, thats when you start asking questions.

If you consider morals to be relative then everything is moral even killing, if you support moral realism. That’s the view that the truth of moral beliefs is independent of what anyone thinks, much like the truth about other matters within objective fact then morals are universal and some morals are waiting to be discovered. Some have proposed that societies develop moral rules, such as the prohibition on killing, to establish peace and order and that morals are societal creation then any nation given the chance could do anything if they had time to justify them.

Thanks
Peace & Blessings
Love & Light

To me a just war seems to be a contradiction of terms. Of course, I feel as though we should probably say what is meant by war. War can mean a lot of things to a lot of people and in debating the particulars of specific instances which we refer to war we muddy the waters of a general position on just wars.

War, to me, would then be an armed conflict over land, resources, or ideology in which the value of those three things is deemed worth killing other people to control. In that sense, I don't see a way to justify war because it requires first devaluing human life. That said, there is the trouble of wanting to save lives. In theory, one could engage in armed conflict to protect those who are in harms way. There are so few instances in which the primary motivation for armed conflict was to save the lives of others that I don't even know that they truly exist (the only one that comes to mind is US involvement in the Bosnian war, but even then some have speculated that US involvement had more to do with keeping control of the region than allowing Russia to have further influence)

Does 'just' mean justice? If warring sides don't operate under the same system of justice then its impossible for a war to serve it. Obviously either side can assert their own moral, legal, ethical, religious etc justifications but it's hardly a relevant measure when it causes unknown nature and quantity of results.

So I'm again with the 'discrimination' in warfighting, being the effort to do least harm and also increase the chances of managing and control downstream effects. There was a lot of confusion about the use of the term 'combat effect' in how to operate systems in war, so perhaps it should mean some capacity to measure the ongoing ripples of cause and effect from any action, and not just the immediate objective/damage assessment. All we can do is measure intent throughout the various levels of its application and assess how pacifist it is throughout - not in the sense of no war, but rather avoiding progression to/of war as much as possible. Unfortunately sometimes sticking your head in the sand makes things worse, so it depends on the intentions of both sides in a conflict.

Basically who wants peace & freedom, and if fighting is required then who is fighting for its restoration, will align more with my beliefs. I don't think because it aligns with my beliefs though it would be appropriate to call it 'just'. Doesn't feel right to me, but another very interesting question
:pinch:

If it was our purpose to destroy the enemy, there is little they could do about it. In terms of military power, they are outnumbered and outgunned. The reason we don't squash them like a bug is a purely strategical one: We do not want them to become martyrs of their cause and we don't want their adherents who already have infiltrated our population to become even more aggressive than they already are. Cared we less about potential havoc in our home lands, the enemy would be out of luck.
And so here we are with a war. One side is fighting for the safety and security of their civilian population, the other is fighting to bring about the prophesied end of days and is convinced that in this war there is no such thing as a civilian on either side.

There is both good and evil in this world and in all of us. Killing is an evil act but at a certain point it might become unavoidable. Is it just or moral? Those are interpretations based on personal morals and ethics. To one it could be and to another it could be a travesty. One person cannot decide this for another. When they do there tends to be problems. Harmony is the answer but there will always be someone whom over steps their boundaries. Until we are all United in love conflict is inevitable.

I don't think war can ever be "just", but I think it is often necessary.

We are a warring species, not all war needs to be violent but our's often are. We have an inherent need for conflict, whether it involves geopolitical concerns or just locally based societal problems. Without it, we find ourselves listless, without purpose, or drive. Even the fight for peace is a conflict within itself, as it is fighting against violence.

If we also truly believe the doctrine of the order, we know there is no absolute "death", and all life continues in some form after the end of its current form. In this way, war is just a game we play during the time we are here for this incarnation.

I'm sure many here will disagree with this view, but I would ask them to consider what they would do if our society was in a state of utopia, with no further problems to be solved, no work to be done, and no personal development to be had. Could they still be happy, could they be content?

respectfully, i do disagree with that view, at least once you scale it up to the level of war

i dont really NEED to fight with even with my family, although i admit i am pretty grumpy sometimes

i most definitely dont have any desire or need to kill anyone, or to put myself in the position to be killed

not at all for any reason, especially not for economic resources or religion or geo political blabbity blah

that we arent dropping bombs on one another does not mean that there is no work to be done or progress to be made, it means that we get a chance to do the work and make the progress without bombs dropping on our homes

During the Vietnam War the term "fighting for peace is like sex is for virginity."

Makes sense doesn't it.