Arguments Against Just War

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The past century has witnessed lots of wars, WW1, WW2, Iraq war and many others. Some of them were claimed to be morally justified but can wars really be morally justified? Well, some people claim that morality can never be applied once guns have been armed, but a pacifist - “A person who is opposed to war or violence of any kind” (dictionary.com, 2017) - claims that there is no such a thing as a moral theory that could approve wars under any circumstances, and in the middle of the two opinions the just war exists, which is “A military action that is justified as being permissible for legal or moral acts” (dictionary.com, 2017), though, it is fallacious to say that the middle ground is correct without careful consideration and critical thinking. The problem is there is a flaw in all options, that is, none of them is complete, with wars taking the lives of thousands of people, and peace cannot always solve the problems. An example of a somewhat recent just war is the 6th of …show more content…

Just causes for declaring war can be self-defense, protecting innocent people, or defending allies, but revenge is not considered to be a just causes as some people may think. Another criterion is proportionality, which says that the good outcome of the war must outweigh the destruction that will happen because of the war. Secondly, the jus in bello directs the actions of combatants in the war itself. Combatants should attack only enemy combatants and not harm a civilian that gets caught in the circumstances, in addition to not harming enemy combatants who are imprisoned or who are injured. Thirdly, the jut post bellum are rules written by philosophy professor Brian Orend that deal with the ethical termination of

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