Is There a “Presumption Against War” In Aquinas’s Ethics?

The Thomist 66 (2002): 337-67 IS THERE A "PRESUMPTION AGAINST WAR" IN AQUINAS'S ETHICS? GREGORY M. REICHBERG International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO) Oslo, Norway I OVER THE PAST FEW YEARS a debate has arisen among proponents of just-war thinking about the correct starting point for moral reflection on war.1 The debate concerns how moral reasoning should proceed when the just-war criteria of legitimate authority, just cause, and right intention are made to inform decision making about resort to military force (jus ad bellum). Some authors have maintained that moral reasoning about war should begin with a reflection on the obligation "do no harm." From this obligation there derives, they argue, a strong presumption against the use of force, a presumption which can be overridden only in "exceptional circumstances."2 On this understanding, as articulated inter alia by the American Catholic Bishops, 1 An early draft of this article was presented in Boston in September 2000, at the American Political Science Association annual meeting, for a special session on medieval conceptions of just war, organized by the "Politica" group in medieval political theory. I am grateful to Gerson Moreno-Riano, who commented on my paper at the conference, Henrik Syse, and an anonymous reviewer for The Thomist, for many useful questions and suggestions. 2 Richard B. Miller, InterpretationsofConflict: Ethics, Pacifism, andtheJust-WarTradition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 16. Cf. James F. Childress, "Just-War Criteria," in War or Peace? The Search for New Answers, ed. Thomas A. Shannon (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1980), 40-58. 337 338 GREGORY M. REICHBERG Just war teaching has evolved ... as an effort to prevent war; only if war cannot be rationally avoided does the teaching then seek to restrict and reduce its horrors. It does this by establishing a set of rigorous conditions which must be met if the decision to go to war is to be moraily permissible. Such a decision, especially today, requires extraordinarily strong reasons for overriding the presumption in favor ofpeace and against war.3 By contrast, other authors have argued for a more proactive conception of military force. Moral thinking about war should begin, they argue, with a reflection on the duty of civic leadership to oppose grave wrongdoing. Its starting point, in the words of James Turner Johnson, is a presumption against injustice. [T]he development of Christian just-war tradition follows a line of reasoning focused on the rightness ofthe resort to force to combat the evil of injustice, and that development did not construe at any point the use of force to be a moral problem in itself. In classic just-war theory the use of force is morally problematical only when it is the source of injustice. But even then, wrong uses of force do not call force itself into question, but instead justify the resort to force to set matters right. What Christian just-war doctrine is about, as classically defined, is the use of the authority and force of the rightly ordered political community ... to prevent, punish, and rectify injustice. There is, simply put, no presumption against war in it at all.4 Significantly, each of these rival versions of just-war theory appeal to Thomas Aquinas as a source for their respective views. Thus, we read in the American Catholic Bishops' pastoral letter that in the twentieth century, papal teaching has used the logic of Augustine and Aquinas to articulate a right of self-defense for states in a decentralized international order and to state the criteria for exercising that right.5 From the opposing perspective, Johnson writes that 3 National Conference of Catholic Bishops, The Challenge ofPeace: God's Promise and Our Response (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1983), p. 27. 4 James Turner Johnson, "The Broken Tradition," The National Interest (1996): 27-36, on30. 5 NCCB, The Challenge ofPeace, p. 27. A "PRESUMPTION AGAINST WAR" IN AQUINAS? 339 the pos1t1on of Thomas Aquinas looms as especially important [for the development of just war thinking along the lines of a presumption against injustice}.... What is morally condemnable in war [for Aquinas] ... is not force itself but the use of force with the...