Just cause

Abstract: The central contention of this essay is that a just cause for war is a wrong that is of a type that can make those responsible for it morally liable to military attack as a means of preventing or rectifying it. This claim has many implications that conflict with assumptions of the currently orthodox theory of the just war. Among the implications explored in the text are that the requirement of just cause is logically and morally prior to all the other requirements of a just war, that this requirement governs all phases of a war and not just the resort to war, that it is thus impermissible to continue to fight a war once the just cause or causes have been achieved, that it is impermissible to fight at all in a war that lacks a just cause, that just cause is a restriction on the type of aim that may be pursued by means of war and is not a matter of scale, that a war that lacks a just cause may be morally justified even if it is not just, and that a belligerent can pursue both just and unjust causes in the same war, which may then have elements or phases that are just and other elements or phases that are unjust.

Abstract: Introduction to the second edition: Just War, past and present Introduction to the first edition Part I: Images of war 1. Realism 2. Militarism 3. Pacifism 4. The Just War Part II: Principles and concepts of the Just War 5. Legitimate authority 6. Just cause and right intention 7. Proportionality and the recourse to war 8. Last resort 9. Proportionality and the conduct of war 10. Noncombatant immunity 11.Peacemaking Part III: Terrorism and counterterrorism 12. On defining terrorism 13. Terrorism: some moral aspects and variables 14. Counterterrorism Index

Abstract: The free market may not lead to the efficient level of just-cause employment protection if workers are heterogeneous. Any firm that switches to just cause will attract a disproportionate share of workers that provide low effort yet are difficult to dismiss with cause. Thus, there is an externality concerning each firm's just-cause policy. If all firms had just-cause policies, then the efficiency gains of just cause might outweigh the burden of the undesirable workers. Nevertheless, no single firm may find it in its interest to switch to just cause. It is possible for laws that require just cause to increase efficiency.

Abstract: This paper argues that certain central tenets of the traditional theory of the just war cannot be correct. It then advances an alternative account grounded in the same considerations of justice that govern self-defense at the individual level. The implications of this account are unorthodox. It implies that, with few exceptions, combatants who fight for an unjust cause act impermissibly when they attack enemy combatants, and that combatants who fight in a just war may, in certain circumstances, legitimately target noncombatants who bear a significant degree of moral responsibility for a wrong, when the prevention or rectification of that wrong constitutes a just cause for war.