Individual and collective moral responsibility for systemic military atrocity

Journal of Political Philosophy

Volumn 15, Issue 2, 2007, Pages 187-212

  Crawford, Neta C ^a  

^a USA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 34249017546     PISSN: 09638016     EISSN: 14679760     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9760.2007.00278.x     Document Type: Article

References (13)

1. I thank Toni Erskine, Joy Gordon, C.S. Manegold, David Mayers and Richard Price for thoughtful comments, Tracy Isaacs and Dave Estlund for sharing unpublished work, and Anthony Dworkin, Steven Ratner and David Wippman for suggestions regarding international law. A longer version of this paper was presented at the CERI Symposium on The Ethics of War and the Fight against Terrorism: Democracies Put to the Test, Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales, Sciences Po, Paris, France 12-13 October 2006.
2. Ellen Knickmeyer, "In Haditha, Memories of a Massacre," The Washington Post, May 27, 2006, p. A1.
3. Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations (New York: Basic Books, 1977), p. 314.
4. Armed Forces Press Service, "Coalition, Iraqi Forces Detain Terrorists; Iraqis killed in IED Attack," Armed Forces Information Service, November 29, 2006; available at http://www.defenselink.mil/news/NewsArticle. aspx?ID=2247 (accessed January 22, 2007).
5. Ibid.
6. I restrict my discussion to cases of atrocity and potential war crimes in combat situations. Systemic atrocity can occur in wars we consider either just or unjust.
7. Carl Von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), p. 605.
8. See Mervyn Frost, "Constitutive Theory and Moral Accountability: Individuals, Institutions, and Dispersed Practices," Can Institutions Have Responsibilities? Collective Moral Agency and International Relations, ed. Toni Erskine (New York: Palgrave, 2003), pp. 84-99.
9. Aristotle, Book III of The Nicomachean Ethics, trans. David Ross (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), pp. 48-9.
10. Associated Press, "Accused GIs: We had Orders To Kill," CBS News, July 21, 2006; available at http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/07/21/iraq (accessed July 21, 2006).
11. See Toni Erskine, "Assigning Responsibility to Institutional Moral Agents: The Case of States and 'Quasi-States,'" Can Institutions Have Responsibilities? Collective Moral Agency and International Relations, ed. Toni Erskine (New York: Palgrave, 2003), pp. 19-40.
12. Virginia Held Group Responsibility for Ethnic Conflict The Journal of Ethics, 6 (2002 157 78
13. Galtung Cultural Violence Journal of Peace Research 27 (1990 291 305.