Killing in War

Killing in War

Volumn , Issue , 2009, Pages 1-272

  McMahan, Jeff ^a  

^a Rutgers University English Department   (United States)

Author keywords

Civilian immunity; Just combatants; Law of war; Liability; Moral equality; Proportionality; Requirement of discrimination; Self defense; Terrorism; Unjust combatants

Indexed keywords

EID: 84922574098     PISSN: None     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book    
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199548668.001.0001     Document Type: Book

References (119)

1. Uwe Steinhoff, "Jeff McMahan on the Moral Equality of Combatants," Journal of Political Philosophy 16 (2008): 220-6
2. Jeff McMahan, "Justification and Liability in War," Journal of Political Philosophy 16 (2008): 227-44.
3. Jeff McMahan, "War as Self-Defense," Ethics and International Affairs 18 (2004): 75-80, pp. 75-6.
4. See his "Rights and Liabilities at War," in Paul H. Robinson, Kimberly Ferzan, and Stephen Garvey, eds., Criminal Law Conversations (New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).
5. Jules Coleman, Risks and Wrongs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 219-20.
6. Judith Jarvis Thomson, "Self-Defense," Philosophy and Public Affairs 20 (1991): 283-310.
7. Exceptions include Yitzhak Benbaji, "A Defense of the Traditional War Convention," Ethics 118 (2008): 464-95;
8. Jonathan Quong, "Killing in Self-Defense," Ethics (forthcoming);
9. Haque, "Rights and Liabilities at War."
10. I attempted to defend this claim in "The Basis of Moral Liability to Defensive Killing," Philosophical Issues 15 (2005): 386-405, esp. pp. 399-402.
11. Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, p. 37.
12. Thomas Hurka, "Liability and Just Cause," Ethics and International Affairs 20 (2007): 199-218, p. 210.
13. Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volkhonsky (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007), pp. 774-5.
14. David Estlund, "On Following Orders in an Unjust War," Journal of Political Philosophy 15 (2007): 213-34, p. 213.
15. Guy Grossman and Rami Kaplan, "Refusal in Israel: The Third Wave 2002-2005," Peace Review 18 (2006).
16. David Enoch, "Some Arguments Against Conscientious Objection and Civil Disobedience Refuted," Israel Law Review 36 (2004): 227-53.
17. Lizette Alvarez, "Army Giving More Waivers in Recruiting," New York Times, February 14, 2007.
18. Thom Shanker, "Young Officers Leaving Army At a High Rate," New York Times, April 10, 2006.
19. Some passages in this section draw on arguments first presented in my "Collectivist Defenses of the Moral Equality of Combatants," Journal of Military Ethics 6 (2007): 50-9.
20. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, translated by Gerard Hopkins, in Social Contract: Essays by Locke, Hume, and Rousseau (London: Oxford University Press, 1947), pp. 249-50.
21. Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, p. 58.
22. Rousseau, Social Contract, p. 251.
23. Noam J. Zohar, "Collective War and Individualistic Ethics: Against the Conscription of 'Self-Defense'," Political Theory 21 (1993): 606-22.
24. Christopher Kutz, "The Difference Uniforms Make: Collective Violence in Criminal Law and War," Philosophy and Public Affairs 33 (2005): 148-80, p. 173.
25. George P. Fletcher, Romantics at War: Glory and Guilt in the Age of Terrorism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002).
26. Augustine, The City of God, translated by Marcus Dods (New York: Modern Library, 1950), bk. I, ch. 21, p. 27.
27. Thomas Hobbes, De Cive, ch. 12, para. II. This book may be found online at .
28. Samuel Pufendorf, De Jure Naturae et Gentium, Libri Octo (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934), pp. 1141-2. (Bk. VIII, ch. i, §6.)
29. F. M. Kamm, "Responsibility and Collaboration," in Intricate Ethics: Rights, Responsibilities, and Permissible Harm (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), p. 312.
30. Michael Winerip, "Recognizing the Honor of a Son," New York Times, November 11, 2007.
31. See, for example, David Malament, "Selective Conscientious Objection and the Gillette Decision," in Marshall Cohen et al., eds., War and Moral Responsibility (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974): 159-82.
32. See .
33. See and .
34. For further discussion, see Jeff McMahan, "Humanitarian Intervention, Consent, and Proportionality," in N. Ann Davis, Richard Keshen, and Jeff McMahan, eds., Ethics and Humanity: Themes from the Philosophy of Jonathan Glover (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).
35. Milgram, Obedience to Authority, p. 187.
36. Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (New York: Penguin, 1977), p. 247.
37. Gitta Sereny, Into That Darkness (New York: Vintage, 1974), p. 260.
38. Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem, p. 231.
39. Vasily Grossman, Life and Fate (New York: Harper & Row, 1985), pp. 304-5.
40. Graham Greene, The Quiet American (New York: Viking, 1956), p. 63.
41. Jeff McMahan, "Self-Defense and the Problem of the Innocent Attacker," Ethics 104 (1994): 252-290, p. 258;
42. McMahan, "Innocence, Self-Defense, and Killing in War," p. 200.
43. Levi, The Drowned and the Saved, p. 174.
44. Samantha Power, "A Problem From Hell": America and the Age of Genocide (New York: HarperCollins, 2002), p. 36.
45. George Orwell, The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, vol. III: As I Please, 1943-1945, Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus, eds. (London: Secker and Warburg, 1968), pp. 151-2.
46. Michael Walzer, "Terrorism and Just War," Philosophia 34 (2006): 3-12, p. 4.
47. Jeff McMahan, "The Morality of War and the Law of War," in Rodin and Shue, eds., Just and Unjust Warriors: 19-43;
48. Jeff McMahan, The Morality and Law of War forthcoming).
49. Vitoria, "On the Law of War," p. 307.
50. Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, p. 36.
51. Peter Westen and James Mangiafico, "The Criminal Defense of Duress: A Justification, Not an Excuse-And Why It Matters," Buffalo Criminal Law Review 6 (2003): 833-950.
52. Michael Massing, "The Volunteer Army: Who Fights and Why?," New York Review of Books 55 (3 April 2008): 34-6.
53. Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1990), pp. 21 and 61-2.
54. See Michael Holroyd, Lytton Strachey: The New Biography (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1994), esp. pp. 337-51.
55. Noam Zohar, "Innocence and Complex Threats: Upholding the War Convention and the Condemnation of Terrorism," Ethics 114 (2004): 734-51, pp. 750-1.
56. Zohar, "Collective War and Individualistic Ethics," 615.
57. Gerhard Øverland, "Killing Soldiers," Ethics and International Affairs 20 (2006): 455-75, pp. 462 and 455.
58. See Jeff McMahan, "Innocence, Self-Defense, and Killing in War," Journal of Political Philosophy 2 (1994): 193-221, esp. pp. 209-11.
59. Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, p. 39.
60. Carolyn Marshall, "Corpsman Sentenced to Prison in Case of Iraqi Civilian Who Was Killed," New York Times, 7 October 2006.
61. Compare McPherson, "Innocence and Responsibility in War," p. 496.
62. (viewed on 6 June 2008).
63. Richard Goldstein, "Paul W. Tibbets Jr., 92, Dies; Dropped Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima," New York Times, 2 November 2007;
64. Bob Greene, "Life After Wartime," New York Times, 12 November 2007.
65. S. L. A. Marshall, Men Against Fire (Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1978).
66. For discussion, see Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, On Killing (Boston: Little, Brown, & Co., 1996).
67. Gordon C. Zahn, In Solitary Witness: The Life and Death of Franz Jägerstätter (Springfield, IL: Templegate Publishers, 1986).
68. Anscombe, "War and Murder," p. 52.
69. Compare McMahan, "Innocence, Self-Defense, and Killing in War," pp. 206-7.
70. Vitoria, "On the Law of War," pp. 311-12.
71. Grotius, De Jure Belli Ac Pacis, p. 592 (bk. II, ch. 26, §4).
72. Pufendorf, De Jure Naturae et Gentium, p. 1141 (bk. VIII, ch. 1, §6).
73. Emmerich de Vattel, The Law of Nations (Philadelphia: T. & J.W. Johnson, 1863), p. 304.
74. Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved (New York: Vintage, 1989), pp. 28-9.
75. Anscombe, "War and Murder," p. 53.
76. Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (Oxford: Blackwell, 1974), pp. 34-5
77. Thomson, "Self-Defense," p. 287.
78. Warren S. Quinn, "Actions, Intentions, and Consequences: The Doctrine of Double Effect," Philosophy and Public Affairs 18 (1989): 334-51, p. 344.
79. Zohar, "Collective War and Individualistic Ethics," pp. 612-13.
80. see Jeff McMahan, The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 405-7.
81. see McMahan, "The Ethics of Killing in War," pp. 709-14.
82. McMahan, "The Basis of Moral Liability to Defensive Killing," pp. 399-401.
83. see Jeff McMahan, "Commentary," in Michael Doyle, Striking First: Preemption and Prevention in International Conflict (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008).
84. Vitoria, "On the American Indians," in Pagden and Lawrance, eds., Political Writings, pp. 282-3.
85. Michael Walzer, "Response to McMahan's Paper," Philosophia 34 (2006): 43-5, p. 44.
86. Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, pp. 155 and 156.
87. The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), p. 244
88. Levi, The Drowned and the Saved, p. 43.
89. see P. W. Singer, Children at War (New York: Pantheon Books, 2005), esp. chs. 4 and 5.
90. See Ray Monk, Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius (New York: The Free Press, 1990), pp. 110-66.
91. David Edmonds and John Eidinow, Wittgenstein's Poker (New York: Ecco, 2002), pp. 89-90.
92. Monk, Wittgenstein, p. 111.
93. Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars (New York: Basic Books, 1977), p. 21.
94. George F. Fletcher and Jens David Ohlin, Defending Humanity: When Force is Justified and Why (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 20.
95. Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, pp. 34 and 41.
96. Compare Judith Jarvis Thomson, The Realm of Rights (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990), p. 122.
97. G. E. M. Anscombe, "Mr. Truman's Degree," in her Ethics, Religion, and Politics, Collected Philosophical Papers, vol. iii (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981), p. 67.
98. Thomas Nagel, "War and Massacre," Philosophy and Public Affairs 1 (1972): 123-43, p. 139.
99. Also see Anthony Kenny, The Logic of Deterrence (London: Firethorn Press, 1985), p. 10;
100. George I. Mavrodes, "Conventions and the Morality of War," Philosophy and Public Affairs 4 (1975): 117-31;
101. Robert K. Fullinwider, "War and Innocence," Philosophy and Public Affairs 5 (1975): 90-7;
102. Jeffrie G. Murphy, "The Killing of the Innocent," The Monist 57 (1973): 527-50
103. John Finnis, Joseph M. Boyle, Jr., and Germain Grisez, Nuclear Deterrence, Morality and Realism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), pp. 86-90.
104. Nagel, "War and Massacre," p. 139.
105. Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, p. 145.
106. Nagel, "War and Massacre," p. 140.
107. Compare Murphy, "The Killing of the Innocent," pp. 532-4.
108. Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, p. 146.
109. Pierino Belli, A Treatise on Military Matters and Warfare (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936), Pt. II, ch. 2, p. 65.
110. John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, ed. Peter Laslett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 402.
111. See e.g. Henry Shue, "Do We Need a 'Morality of War'?", in David Rodin and Henry Shue, eds., Just and Unjust Warriors: The Moral and Legal Status of Soldiers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 87-111.
112. Hugo Grotius, De Jure Belli Ac Pacis, Libri Tres, vol. ii (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1925), p. 593 (Bk. II, ch. 26, §VI, 1).
113. see George P. Fletcher, A Crime of Self-Defense: Bernard Goetz and the Law on Trial (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990).
114. Adam Roberts and Richard Guelff, eds., Documents on the Laws of War (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), p. 416.
115. Francisco de Vitoria, "On the Law of War," in Anthony Pagden and Jeremy Lawrance, eds., Political Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 303.
116. Francisco Suárez, "On War" (Disputation XIII, De Triplici Virtute Theologica: Charitate), in Selections from Three Works (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1944), pp. 845-6.
117. G. E. M. Anscombe, "War and Murder," in Ethics, Religion, and Politics, p. 53.
118. see Robert L. Holmes, On War and Morality (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989).
119. Nicholson Baker, Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008), p. 134.