Michael Walzer on War and Justice. . - book review

Michael Walzer on War and Justice. By Brian Orend. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2000. 234 pages. $24.95. Reviewed by Shannon E. French, Ph.D., ethics professor in the Department of Leadership, Ethics, and Law at the US Naval Academy, where she teaches a course on "The Code of the Warrior."

Issues of war and justice are on everyone's mind since the horrific events of 11 September. President Bush and the members of his Administration have toiled admirably to assemble a strong, international coalition for the "New War on Terrorism." Nearly all nation-states (excluding those targeted as terrorist supporters) have joined in a cross-cultural, interfaith denunciation of the attacks on the Pentagon and New York's World Trade Center. Various levels and forms of assistance have been pledged in support of the US-led anti-terrorism campaign, from aid in freezing the terrorists' finances, to intelligence sharing, airspace and military base access, and the actual commitment of troops and equipment. The United States was able to unite its allies so successfully in part because it could appeal persuasively to the justice of the cause. America's leaders and spokespeople have made an effort to stress that, in retaliating against the terrorists and those who harbor them, the United States is striking not from mer e rage, but from moral necessity. This "new war," we have assured the world and ourselves, is a just war.

Philosophers, statesmen, and theologians have long struggled with the question of how to determine when--if ever--it is morally justifiable to take a nation to war. The list of scholars who have made key contributions to the just war tradition, either by addressing the subject directly or through broader work in the field of ethics, includes Augustine, Aquinas, Grotius, Kant, Hegel, and Mill, among many others. Since the 1977 publication of his magnum opus, Just and Unjust Wars, the first name in present-day just war scholarship has been Michael Walzer. In Just and Unjust Wars and subsequent related works, Walzer uses classical discussions of jus ad bellum (on the rules for taking a nation to war) and jus in bello (on the rules for conducting a war) as a launching pad to create an updated theory that has been labeled the legalist paradigm.

Classical just war theory demands that certain criteria be met before a war is regarded as "just." These include: (1) the war must be declared by a legitimate authority; (2) the war must be fought in a just cause (e.g. to avenge wrongs or restore unjustly seized land or property); (3) the war must be fought with good intentions (e.g. to restore peace); (4) going to war must be the last resort (peaceful alternatives having been exhausted); (5) there must be a reasonable probability of success; and(6) the benefits of going to war must outweigh the predictable costs (macro-proportionality). Classical just war theory is still sound in many respects, but it also has many weaknesses open to exploitation. For instance, classical just war theory has been used to try to justify wars to reclaim "unjustly seized" territory when that territory has been integrated into a new nation for many years and to condemn revolutions against tyrannous sovereigns. Walzer presents a more complex, modem interpretation of the appropriat e justifications for war. The legalist paradigm draws connections between the rights and responsibilities of individuals and those of nations. It demands that the sovereignty of existing states be respected, that aggressive nations be punished (in some cases with preemptive strikes), and that actions be taken to prevent crimes against humanity--even, under certain conditions, if it means getting involved in civil conflicts.

Brian Orend's recent work, Michael Walzer on War and Justice, carefully examines Walzer 's version of just war theory and how it coheres with the theory of distributive justice elucidated elsewhere in Walzer's writing, such as in Walzer's 1983 treatise, Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality. Orend, a professor of philosophy at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, writes much more gracefully than do most philosophers. Thankfully, he also does not overuse the field-specific jargon that so often limits the potential audience for contemporary scholarship. Orend's style, which includes brief summaries at the end of each chapter and a comprehensive conclusion at the close of the book, should make his analysis of Walzer accessible to all interested parties.

Much of Orend's book is dedicated to his attempt to reconcile the universal theory of international justice found in Walzer's earlier just war writing with the assertion found in Walzer's later works that distributive justice depends on the recognition that the value of goods, far from being universal, is in fact culturally relative. Whether Walzer is consistent across the corpus of his publications may not be of great concern to non-philosophers. However, in the course of presenting a well-reasoned case that Walzer's general theory of justice can provide grounds for his seemingly contradictory theories of just war and distributive justice, Orend simultaneously does an excellent job of explicating the most interesting aspects of Walzer's views. Nor is Orend's look at Walzer limited to mere exegesis. In an evenhanded manner, Orend alternately praises and criticizes Walzer. Some of the best segments of the book come when Orend identifies a gap in one of Walzer's theories, such as Walzer's far-too-limited mentio n of the issues of jus post bellum (justice after war), and proceeds to offer his own original suggestions on how the hole could be filled by building on Walzer's foundations.

The topics Orend covers in his expertly routed tour of Walzer's theories include: (1) the tension between "thin morality" (the basic moral commitments shared, according to Walzer, by nearly all humans, encompassing prohibitions against murder, torture, and extreme cruelty and an insistence on certain fundamental human rights, such as the rights to life and liberty) and "thick morality," which is Walzer 's term for the more specific morality that guides our daily lives and which is, "thick, robust, resonant, culturally particular, close to home"; (2) the value of democratic socialism (a subject on which Orend is rightly critical of Walzer, given Walzer's completely counterintuitive assumption that his socialist vision is in harmony with existing American values); (3) responses to realist and pacifist challenges to just war theory; (4) Walzer's perspectives (or those inspired by Walzer) on jus ad bellum, jus in bello, and jus post bellum; and (5) the complexities of international justice.

Even those readers who do not much care whether or how Walzer's approach to these diverse topics can be integrated into a single, general theory of justice stand to enjoy a great deal of intellectual stimulation from engaging with Orend on subjects that could not be more timely. The brutal assaults on our nation placed a sudden, tragic weight on our understanding of war and justice. For all who suffered the emotional impact of an autumn that saw the moral and political landscape worldwide change in a day, there may be some unexpected solace in Orend's painstaking, academic precision.

COPYRIGHT 2002 U.S. Army War College
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