War and self-defense: a critique and a proposal

Article Sidebar

PDF (Język Polski) PDF
Published: Mar 1, 2010
DOI: https://doi.org/10.13153/diam.23.2010.382

Main Article Content

Phillip Montague

Abstract

Discussions of the ethics of war commonly – and reasonably – assume that defensive wars are morally justified if any wars are. They also assume that explanations of why defensive warfare is morally justified must be based on principles that also explain the moral justifiability of individual self-defense. David Rodin has recently argued that the second of these assumptions is mistaken, and he has developed an alternative account of the morality of defensive warfare. The purpose of this paper is to show that Rodin’s argument fails, and to explain how defensive warfare can indeed be justified in terms of principles that also apply to individual self-defense.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Article Details

How to Cite
Montague, Phillip. 2010. “War and Self-Defense: A Critique and a Proposal”. Diametros, no. 23 (March):69-83. https://doi.org/10.13153/diam.23.2010.382.
Issue
No. 23 (2010)
Section
Special topic – The Ethics of War

By submitting his/her work to the Editorial Board, the author accepts, upon having his/her text recommended for publication, that Diametros applies the Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license to the works we publish. Under this license, authors agree to make articles legally available for reuse, without permission or fees. Anyone may read, download, copy, print, distribute or reuse these articles without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author, as long as the author and original source are properly cited. The author holds the copyright without any other restrictions. Full information about CC-BY: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.

Author Biography

Phillip Montague

Phillip Montague Western Washington University
Share |
Crossref
Scopus
Google Scholar
Europe PMC

References

Hohfeld [1919] – Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld, Fundamental Legal Conceptions, Yale Univer- sity Press, New Haven 1919.

Montague [2000] – Phillip Montague, Self-Defense and Innocence: Aggressors and Active Threats, ”Utilitas” (12) 2000: 52-78.

Montague [2004] – Phillip Montague, Blameworthiness, Vice, and the Objectivity of Morals, “Pacific Philosophical Quarterly” (85) 2004: 68-84.

Rodin [2002] – David Rodin, War and Self-Defense, Oxford University Press, New York 2002.

Simmons [1979] – A. John Simmons, Moral Principles and Political Obligation, Princeton University Press, Princeton 1979.

Sumner [1987] – L.W. Sumner, The Moral Foundation of Rights, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1987.