Monday, October 1, 2007
Jus in Bello: Means Must be Proportional to Ends
In the article from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Just War Theory, it states, "In fighting a just war in which only military targets are attacked, it is still possible to breach morality by employing disproportionate force against an enemy." This claim states that no military force disproportionate to another should be used to it's capacity. That doesn't make sense to me because the point of war is to defeat the enemy and without using all available man power the stronger nation inhibits it's ability to win. The ancient Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu claims in The Art of War, a compilation of his principles of war, that a nation should not enter a battle unless victory can be possible. With this in mind, why should a nation not use all of its forces? Is it the violence the force could inflict upon the enemy? If that is the case, then could a strong ethical foundation within a military organization justify the use of unlimited soldiers?
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2 comments:
I think the point is to distinguish a (perhaps certain) military victory from a "massacre."
The act of a massacre would be dependent upon the combatants involved and their superior officers to give the orders to execute any target in sight. Therefore, a possible revision of this could be made to account for the means generals and leadership uses to accomplish their ends instead of making this appearance of restricting forces.
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