Australian National University
These are papers that I’ve been working on over the last year. They are all available in advanced draft stage, so if you would like to read them, please just get in touch above.
Argument for the principle of noncombatant immunity that draws on multiple overlapping arguments, including a high threshold for liability, the distinctive vulnerability of noncombatants, the institutional dimensions of the combatant/noncombatant distinction, and rule-consequentialist and contractarian arguments. Still writing this one, but it grew out of this working paper from 2010.
Like this paper on necessity in self-defence and war, this essay on the necessity-based argument for noncombatant immunity grew out of an earlier project. It’s currently under review. Introduction follows.
My contribution for Cecile Fabre and my co-edited volume on Justifying National Defence, which we’re hoping to publish in 2012. Read on for the introduction:
Although the principle of noncombatant immunity has achieved widespread support across cultures and epochs, it has proved embarrassingly difficult for contemporary philosophers to justify. Both consequentialist and nonconsequentialist arguments in its favour have come up short. In recent and forthcoming work, a number of scholars occupying otherwise diverse positions in the debate have settled on the view that noncombatant immunity can be grounded in the principle of necessity. Because killing noncombatants is so rarely military necessary, it is almost always impermissible. This view has been advocated by Jeff McMahan and Henry Shue, as well as Yitzhak Benbaji, Helen Frowe, and Judith Lichtenberg. I think it is a mistake to think that necessity can play a significant role in justifying noncombatant immunity. In this paper I look in particular at the strategic nature of asymmetric conflicts, arguing that there are numerous instances when it is at least reasonable to believe that attacking noncombatants is militarily necessary. I then present an alternative argument for noncombatant immunity, grounded in the distinctive vulnerability and defencelessness of noncombatants. Continue reading »
Short paper focusing on how to characterise bystanders, obstructors and threats in the ethics of self-defense; primarily a response to ideas on this topic from Helen Frowe.
Theorists of both war and self-defence share a concern to justify harming those who pose a threat, while retaining a firm prohibition on harming those who do not. Just war theorists would thereby reinforce the principle of noncombatant immunity, a cross-cultural linchpin of permissible conduct in wars which is embarrassingly difficult for philosophers to sustain; theorists of self-defence would be able to explain the permissibility of killing innocent threats, without condoning obviously objectionable acts of murderous self-preservation. Unfortunately for both sets of theorists, however, if they adopt a certain view of permissible killing, it is difficult to explain just why it is permissible to kill threats, without by the same token bringing bystanders and noncombatants within the scope of permissible harm. The view in question states that, unless in order to avert a catastrophe, another person can be killed without his consent only if he has something to render himself liable to that killing—that is, to make it so that killing him does not also wrong him. Since becoming liable to be killed is a serious matter indeed, one should only become liable for very good reasons. Many think that responsibility for an unjustified threat is the only reason weighty enough—if you are responsible for an unjustified threat to my life, then I may kill you in self-defence without wronging you. But if it’s responsibility for a threat that matters, then on the one hand, individuals who are responsible for a threat without posing it will be liable to be killed; while on the other hand, individuals whose pose a threat for which they are not responsible (innocent threats), will not be liable. Continue reading »