International Political Theory, Just War Theory, and the Moral Equality of Combatants

Abstract

The recent revisionist turn in just war theory, led by McMahan, Rodin, Shue, and Frowe, among others, poses a significant challenge to the traditional view of the principle of the moral equality of combatants (MEC). These scholars argue that the moral standing of combatants and the justice of their actions depends upon the justice of the war itself. This challenge to the MEC is based on a highly individualist and cosmopolitan approach to the ethics of war that seeks to apply everyday interpersonal moral principles to war. This individualist and cosmopolitan approach would completely transform the nature and practice of war and, concomitantly, the nature of the international system. It also has significant, and often overlooked, political implications regarding, for example, the relationship between the citizen or soldier and the state, the state and soldiers of other states, and the need for some form of global decision-making body to which states would, in some areas, be subordinate. These questions bring the debate into contact with the debates in International Political Theory between communitarians and cosmopolitans and those related to broader questions of global justice and the place of individuals and individual rights in the international system. This panel seeks to further the debate over the MEC by engaging with the political questions and implications of the revisionist challenge. In particular the papers take seriously the revisionist critique but seek to develop a defence of the orthodox position and the principle of the MEC.

Title	Details
Normative Individualism: Cosmopolitanism and Constructivism in Contemporary Just War Theory	View Paper Details
Tolerating Injustice in War	View Paper Details
Death in War and the Moral Equality of Combatants	View Paper Details
A Tale of Two Moralities	View Paper Details