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HUM-Fagkomiteen for humaniora

Rights, evil, and the moral permissibility of war

Awarded: NOK 0.39 mill.

My research project addresses the question: on those occasions when war is morally permissible, all things considered, what explains its permissibility? I have two main aims: (i) to argue against an explanation that frames the permissibility of war narro wly in terms of rights and (ii) to argue in favour of a value pluralist explanation that retains an important place for rights, but also insists that considerations to do with preventing and resisting evil, where the concept of evil is understood as a mar ker of intense disvalue, are what, in the final instance, may make war permissible. A subsidiary aim is to examine the connection between certain principles of individual morality and the principles that apply at the collective level, to and in war: are t he latter a straightforward extension of the former, mutatis mutandis, or are they different in important respects? The first part of the thesis asks: Why should it be thought permissible to use lethal force against morally innocent combatants, or to exp ose morally innocent non-combatants to a high risk of death and serious harm? These are questions that an argument for the permissibility of war must answer adequately to succeed, I contend. And, I argue, further, an argument predicated on respect for rig hts does not do so, for it cannot perform the volte-face required to be able to allow such violations, without becoming incoherent. In the second part of the thesis I argue for an alternative answer from within a value pluralist position (that of thresho ld deontology), which builds on intuitions from an ethical realm beyond that of rights and justice narrowly conceived. The concept of evil is encountered there, I argue, as a marker of intense disvalue. And without resort to this concept explanations of t he permissibility of war are likely to fail. I argue that while war itself is always evil, it is nevertheless permissible on those occasions when it is the only means to resist and prevent even greater evil

Funding scheme:

HUM-Fagkomiteen for humaniora

Thematic Areas and Topics

No thematic area or topic related to the project