Shue

Shue attempts to address the justification of the resort to war, the justification of the conduct of war, and the relationship between the two. He methodically lays out a variety of philosophical questions on the ethics of war. Using many concrete examples, he explores the idea that the justification of the resort to war is in fact unified with the justification of the conduct of war.

One of his main ideas that stuck out to me was the development of the 'twin-born' justification, first brought up by Theologian Paul Ramsey. This is the idea that both the justification of the conduct and resort to war are created from the same logic. If there is a reason to go to war (resort), then that reasoning will directly dictate the way war is waged (conduct). The nature of these two actions initially seems unified. Even though this idea in its philosophical and theoretical sense is logical, it cannot be applied to many wartime situations. This was the main problem I had with his article. He tried to back up abstract theories that were not practical by using very concrete examples.

What I liked about this article was the section on 'Humanitarian Military Intervention'. Shue brings up not only issues of the past, but how the current international community is facing a pressing ethical question on internal sovereignty. If a nation-state is being aggressive towards its own people, who decides when someone needs to step in to stop the aggression? Clearly this problem was not figured out for hundreds of thousands of Rwandans. Despite Shue's presentation of the problem of 'who decides', I am far less pleased with his solution. Not only does he give a solution in the 'abstract', he doesn't address how the Security Counsel could even be practically reformed.

Despite Shue's inability to connect his ideas to his examples, he properly lays out an argument on the relationship between the justification of the conduct and resort to war. I must agree with Shue's idea of the unity of the conduct and resort to war. If they truly weren't unified, it would be a slippery slope towards barbarism.