Question: Can a pre-emptive war be ethical?

Question: Can a pre-emptive war be ethical?

Whether you are worried, angry or confused, there are thousands of questions surrounding the Iraq crisis. The Iraq Questions Panel is trying to give you some answers.

QUESTION
Duncan Isaac, South Carolina, US
Can the doctrine of pre-emptive war ever be considered ethical? What kind of precedent will this set for future International Law?

ANSWER
From Julian Baggini
There is no general reason why a pre-emptive war cannot be ethical. Just war theory demands jus ad bellum: good reasons for going to war. These reasons include that the cause is just, that war is a last resort, that it is fought by a legitimate authority, that it is likely to succeed, and that it must do more good than harm.

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Dr Julian Baggini is the editor of The Philosophers' Magazine

He is also the author of Making Sense: Philosophy Behind the Headlines

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With a UN mandate, a pre-emptive war against Iraq would satisfy the condition of legitimate authority.

Whether it is likely to succeed and will cause more good than harm is a question for intelligence experts, not philosophers, but there is no reason why a pre-emptive war could not in principle fulfil these conditions.

Similarly, surely the cause is just if it is for the liberation of a people and the maintenance of regional and global security. Again, whether these are in fact the causes for which this war would be fought is moot, but if they were, then the cause would be just.

Even the condition of last resort can in theory be met by a pre-emptive war. It surely is the last resort to attack a hostile nation that is irreversibly set on attacking others, even if its first attack has not yet come. This is most evident where the kind of attack being pre-empted is a chemical or nuclear strike.

However, in the case of Iraq it is not clear that these conditions have been met. War does not seem a last resort, with UN inspectors still doing their work and with Saddam Hussein posing no imminent threat. And should the US and its allies go to war without a clear UN mandate, then it would not be a war fought by a legitimate authority.

So a pre-emptive war launched in accordance with the principles of just war theory would be ethical and would not set any kind of dangerous precedent.

But a pre-emptive war that flouts these principles could do so. The cause could still be just, the consequences good and the war a success, but it is hard to see how it could be justifiable to move to a situation where war can be waged by an authority lacking legitimacy as something less than a last resort.

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