Aquinas and the Justification of War: Establishmentarian Misconstructions

AQUINAS AND THE JUSTIFICATION OF WAR: ESTABLISHMENTARIAN MISCONSTRUCTIONS M ODERN analytical philosophy, as one sees in the pages of Christian writers like Ian Ramsey, Peter Geach, Norman Malcolm and Alvin Plantinga, has relevance to many sorts of basic problems about man, problems that philosophers in the great Western traditions have tried to to many sorts of basic problems about man, problems that philosophers in the great Western traditions have tried to solve 1 But recently not a few analytical philosophers, especially in North America, have been subjected to almost hysterical pressures from within and without to make their work "more relevant." Instead of being invited to cope merely with strings of printed wisecracks from Russell and Gellner, then with ensuing letters in the London Times, participants at some recent meetings of the American Philosophical Association 2 have been disturbed by noisy confrontations over "relevance." Analytical admirers of genuinely systematic thinkers like Aquinas, Aristotle, Hegel, Hume, Kant, Locke, Marx, Plato, Sartre, and Spinoza have in many cases been moving over the years towards broadening the application of the tools of modern analysis .3 Among them some would say that such disturbances are not necessarily bad. Perhaps more analysts should be moving more quickly in this direction towards a broader view of their field. But no progress is made when a journal noted for strong 1 As " serious philosophers " concerned over such relevance, we have often found ourselves at odds over the question how much relevance modern Analytical Philosophy has or should have to such problems and the form that this relevance should take. We are agreed, nevertheless, that such relevance is possible and desirable. 2 For example, in New York, December, 1969, and Berkeley, March, 1970. 3 See especially works by Gregory Vlastos, Stuart Hampshire, Wilfrid Sellars, and P. F. Strawson. 94 AQUINAS AND THE JUSTIFICATION OF WAR 95 analytical contributors simply bows to the demand for " relevance ," when it prints a polemical paper that distorts and wildly castigates the history and " relevance " of Christian thought in order to further a dubious political thesis. When such a paper is then rapidly placed in an anthology which will command much wider attention, it is suitable for Christian philosophers in particular, but also for any philosopher concerned with standards of historical exposition and critical thinking, to examine the paper and strike back. The essay that we are discussing, Professor Donald Wells's "How Much Can the 'Just War' Justify?", appeared first in an issue of The Journal of Philosophy during December, 1969 4 and was shortly afterwards anthologized by A. K. Bierman and J. A. Gould in Philosophy for a New Generation (New York, 1970) . Some of its numerous errors will repay careful examination by Christian philosophers of many kinds, especially for two reasons. First, it seems to reflect a good deal of popular or easily popularizable confusions about ethics and war. There are monsters of muddle in moralist dress that Christian philosophers can really perform a "relevant " service by unmasking . Second, the dissection of these errors affords a pleasing chance to show how the allegedly sterile tools of analysis can be used together with concrete (sometimes elementary) political and historical points 5 to very good advantage. The main analytical tool we shall use, and use often, is the old and much maligned one of drawing "relevant" distinctions. And so we must apologize in advance for a profusion of distinguishing numbers and letters in brackets. I. An Introduction to Some Confused Modern Thinking About War Throughout "How Much can the 'Just War' Justify?,. Professor Wells alternates to emotive advantage between two largely incompatible views of war as if they were the same. The • December 4, 1969 (LXVI, 23), pp. 819-829. 5 Cf. John King-Farlow, " The Concept of Mind," Inquiry (1964), pp. 268-276. 96 WILLIAM N. CHRISTENSEN AND JOHN KING-FARLOW one view (V1) holds that war, violence, and taking of life are intrinsically wrong always. In addition, however, there is an implicit contradiction which discussants of war and justice ordinarily recognize. Since the havoc of war is normally classed with immoral actions and evil consequences , what the notion of " the just war" attempts to do is to show that under...