Many nongovernmental forms of business regulation aim at reducing ethical violations in commerce. We argue that such nongovernmental ethics standards, while often laudable, raise their own ethical challenges. In particular, when such standards place burdens upon vulnerable market participants (often, though not always, SMEs), they do so without the backing of traditional legitimate political authority. We argue that this constitutes a structural analogy to wars of humanitarian intervention. Moreover, we show that, while some harms imposed by such standards are desirable, (...) others are best thought of as a form of collateral damage. We thus look at the well-developed literature on just war theory for inspiration and find that the principles of jus ad bellum and jus in bello contain many insights that can be fruitfully adapted to the case of nongovernmental standard-setting. Consequently, we propose the Ius ad Normam—a set of principles that should guide would-be standard-setters in assessing whether imposing those burdens is ethically justifiable in particular cases. We also discuss how powerful multinational businesses often act simultaneously as standard-takers and standard-setters and explore the normative implications of this dual role. (shrink)

Provided that traditional jus ad bellum principles are fulfilled, military humanitarian intervention to stop large scale violations of human rights (such as genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes) is widely regarded as morally permissible. In cases of “supreme humanitarian emergency”, not only are the victims morally permitted to rebel, but other states are also permitted to militarily intervene. Things are different if the human rights violations in question fall short of supreme humanitarian emergency. Because of the importance of respecting (...) political self‐determination, in cases of “ordinary oppression”, we normally think that rebellion might be permissible, but not military humanitarian intervention. Thus, according to the received view, the conditions for the permissibility of intervention coincide with the conditions for the permissibility of revolution in cases of supreme humanitarian emergency, but not in cases of ordinary oppression. In cases of ordinary oppression there is an asymmetry between the conditions for the permissibility of revolution and intervention (call this the Asymmetry View). Should we accept the Asymmetry View? I answer this question by outlining an account of political self‐determination and by illustrating the complex role that this notion should play in discussing the morality of revolution and intervention. (shrink)

This paper offers a non-reductivist account of the requirement of legitimate authority in warfare. I first advance a distinction between private and public wars. A war is private where individuals defend their private rights with their private means. A war is public where it either aims to defend public rights or relies on public means. I argue that RLA applies to public war but not private war. A public war waged by a belligerent without legitimate authority involves a form of (...) illegitimate domination of the people. Contra the conventional wisdom that RLA is only an ad bellum principle, I show that RLA is also a vital in bello principle. Relying on the Kantian non-voluntarist account of political authority, I argue that only legitimate states have the right to wage public wars. However, I also contend that RLA is not an absolute requirement, even regarding the justice of public war. Under extremely unfavorable conditions, this requirement may be overridden by weighty considerations in favor of resorting to public war without legitimate authority. In sum, my account of RLA protects ordinary people from illegitimate coercion involved in guerrilla warfare in general yet generates proper permission for responsible, aspiring state founders to secure social justice by coercive means under extraordinary situations. (shrink)

Provided that traditional jus ad bellum principles are fulfilled, military humanitarian intervention to stop large scale violations of human rights (such as genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes) is widely regarded as morally permissible. In cases of “supreme humanitarian emergency”, not only are the victims morally permitted to rebel, but other states are also permitted to militarily intervene. Things are different if the human rights violations in question fall short of supreme humanitarian emergency. Because of the importance of respecting (...) political self-determination, in cases of “ordinary oppression”, we normally think that rebellion might be permissible, but not military humanitarian intervention. Thus, according to the received view, the conditions for the permissibility of intervention coincide with the conditions for the permissibility of revolution in cases of supreme humanitarian emergency, but not in cases of ordinary oppression. In cases of ordinary oppression there is an asymmetry between the conditions for the permissibility of revolution and intervention (call this the Asymmetry View). Should we accept the Asymmetry View? I answer this question by outlining an account of political self-determination and by illustrating the complex role that this notion should play in discussing the morality of revolution and intervention. (shrink)

Contemporary just war theory is divided into two broad camps: revisionists and traditionalists. Traditionalists seek to provide moral foundations for something close to current international law, and in particular the laws of armed conflict. Although they propose improvements, they do so cautiously. Revisionists argue that international law is at best a pragmatic fiction—it lacks deeper moral foundations. In this article, I present the contemporary history of analytical just war theory, from the origins of contemporary traditionalist just war theory in Michael (...) Walzer's work to the revisionist critique of Walzer and the subsequent revival of traditionalism. I discuss central questions of methodology, as well as consider the morality of resorting to war and the morality of conduct in war. I show that although the revisionists exposed philosophical shortcomings in Walzer's arguments, their radical conclusions should prompt us not to reject the broad contemporary consensus, but instead to seek better arguments to underpin it. (shrink)

In a recent article Duncan Purves, Ryan Jenkins, and B. J. Strawser argue that in order for a decision in war to be just, or indeed the decision to resort to war to be just, it must be the case that the decision is made for the right reasons. Furthermore, they argue that this requirement holds regardless of how much good is produced by said action. In this essay I argue that their argument is flawed, in that it mistakes what (...) makes an agent morally good for what makes an act morally good. I argue that the main thrust of Purves et al.’s argument in fact undermines the conclusion they wish to draw, and that the reasons for one’s action do not make an in principle difference to the morality of actions in war. I further argue that this position undermines the traditional ad bellum just war constraint of right intention, and that the morality of actions in war is, at core, only concerned with outcomes. I conclude by clarifying that one’s reasons for action do in fact matter when deciding to enter war or kill in war, but only because one’s reasons significantly impact the way in which one acts. The purpose of this paper is to clear the theoretical space by showing why intentions/reasons do not in principle matter when assessing the morality of war (or killing), but this should not be taken as an argument that we should ignore intentions/reasons altogether. (shrink)

Many think that it would be wrong to defend an individual from attack if he competently and explicitly refuses defensive intervention. In this paper, I consider the extent to which the preferences of victims affect the permissibility of defending groups or aggregates. These cases are interesting and difficult because there is no straightforward sense in which a group can univocally consent to or refuse defensive intervention in the same way that an individual can. Among those who have considered this question, (...) the dominant view is that that consent imposes only an extremely weak constraint on defending groups. I argue that this is mistaken and defend a much more robust requirement. Indeed, on the account that I develop there are cases in which the refusal of a single member of a victim is enough to make it impermissible to defend a much larger group. At the heart of my account is the idea that consent functions as an internal component of the broader requirement that defensive harms be proportionate: if a victim validly refuses defensive intervention, the fact that defence will benefit him cannot be used to justify harming innocents as the lesser-evil. An important implication of this view is that what constitutes sufficient consent from the members of a victim group will vary on a case-by-case basis. (shrink)

Since its earliest incarnations, just war theory has included the requirement that war must be initiated and waged by a legitimate authority. However, while recent years have witnessed a remarkable resurgence in interest in just war theory, the authority criterion is largely absent from contemporary discussions. In this paper I aim to show that this is an oversight worth rectifying, by arguing that the authority criterion plays a much more important role within just war theorising than is commonly supposed. As (...) standardly understood, the authority criterion provides a necessary condition for the justification of the resort to war, but has no bearing on the question of permissible conduct in war. In opposition, I argue for an alternative interpretation of the criterion, which attributes to it a fundamental role in assessing this latter question. With this revised interpretation in place, I then demonstrate its advantages by applying it to the practical issue of armed conflicts that are initiated and fought by non-traditional belligerents. While several theorists have recognised that this common feature of modern armed conflict poses a challenge to mainstream just war theory in general—and to the authority criterion in particular—I argue that existing discussions frequently misconstrue the nature of the challenge, since they assume the standard interpretation of the authority requirement and its role within the theory. I then show that the revised interpretation provides a clearer account of both the challenge posed by non-traditional belligerency and the kind of response that it requires. (shrink)

If people have a right to rebel against domestic tyranny, wrongful foreign occupation, or colonial rule, then the normative principles commonly invoked to deal with civil conflicts present a problem. While rebels in some cases might justifiably try to secure human rights by resort to violence, the three normative pillars dealing with armed force provide at best only a partial reflection of the ethics of armed revolt. This article argues that the concept of “terrorism” and the ongoing attempt to define (...) it in international law, the laws of war and their application to armed conflict, and the Responsibility to Protect all obscure as much as clarify the problem. Given the prevalence of political oppression and the occurrence of civil conflicts originating in attempts to confront it, there is therefore a pressing need to establish a place for the rights of rebellion in the international normative architecture. (shrink)

Today, it is widely held that while authorization may be helpful in assuring that the other jus ad bellum criteria are met, legitimate authority is not itself a condition for just recourse to war....

Why does it matter that those who fight wars be authorized by the communities on whose behalf they claim to fight? I argue that lacking authorization generates a moral cost, which counts against a war's proportionality, and that having authorization allows the transfer of reasons from the members of the community to those who fight, which makes the war more likely to be proportionate. If democratic states are better able than non-democratic states and sub-state groups to gain their community's authorization, (...) this means that some wars will be proportionate if fought by democracies, disproportionate if not. (shrink)