A Pacifist Perspective

I’ve always taken for granted that war is, in specific—though very rare—situations, a necessary evil. However, as I examine Henry Shue’s essay, I begin to doubt whether war can really be justified at all and whether attempts to make war closer to an ethical endeavor actually only serve as an attempt justify the immoral activity. I am not fully committed to the view of a complete pacifist, but here is my current thinking.

Henry Shue begins by discussing the surface immorality of intentional killing. Though he goes on to justify such killing in a situation of war, he does admit that, as moral beings, we have a “presumption against killing” (735). The reason for this presumption, in my opinion, is that we inherently value human life. This creates a dilemma for the military official or the soldier faced with the decision to go to war. The only way a soldier has left to cope with the possibility of committing such an immoral act as killing a fellow human being is to see their adversary as less than human. Even Shue admits during his discussion on ʿwho counts?ʾ that the “ʿdestruction of the forcesʾ—in plain language, the killing and wounding of the combatants and the destruction and immobilization of the equipment—of the adversary” (750) is a necessary condition of war. He concludes this argument that “Proportionality can, then, here mean only: no more casualties than necessary inflicted on the other side” (750). Shue’s condition of ‘no more than necessary’ intends to eliminate the possibility of pointless massacres, prisoner mistreatment, and the like. However, the fact that one’s enemy’s are, as a necessary part of war, being viewed as less than human beings, provides near certainty that, regardless of the circumstances of the war, they will be treated as such.

I certainly don’t intent to imply that a person who chooses to fight for his country in a war he feels is just is an immoral person or that he will necessarily violate the standards for war set by international law. Nor is it only the people fighting in a war who have a tendency to view their enemies as less than humans. As a society we tend to label peoples whom we disagree with as ‘terrorists’ or ‘communists’ in an effort to strip them of their humanity. War is, in and of itself, a dehumanizing endeavor. It seems every war, regardless of the initial purity of one’s intentions, results in atrocities that are judged to be immoral even by international standards. The type of wanton cruelty that is condemned in international law is a result of an institution that, by its very definition, devalues the life of one’s adversary.