Expanding Responsibility for the Just War: A Feminist Critique by Rosemary Kellison (review)

Rosemary Kellison draws on feminist ethics to "critique the tradition of just war reasoning" specifically with regard to "responsibility for harm to noncombatants" (3). Feminist ethicists' emphasis on human relationality and their attention to power dynamics, demand an expansion of our concept of responsibility for civilian deaths in warfare, and of what that responsibility entails.

Kellison treats several major concepts from the just war tradition including necessity and intention as they relate to the killing of noncombatants. The discussion of intention in chapter 4 is compelling. Drawing on Aquinas and Dewey, Kellison notes that intention flows from character, developed through habits that are constructed not only personally, but also pursuant to particular social structures, institutions, and "patterns of action" (147). Through this analysis, she determines that the principle of double-effect depicts intention in ways that minimize the relationship between intentions and acts, and diminish "the social and practical nature of intention" (109). Instead, Kellison wants to expand our notion of intention, especially as it relates to killing civilians in warfare. It is true, but insufficient, to state that we should never directly and intentionally kill civilians. Instead we must actively intend not to harm civilians. This positive intention to do no harm and "take due care" (135) has the moral capacity to direct the actions of both individual soldiers and military institutions toward the well-being of noncombatants. It demands habits of character that seek positively to protect civilians and that take responsibility for the harm that civilians endure in war.

Christian ethicists working with restorative justice will be on familiar ground in chapter 5. Here Kellison applies her understanding of asymmetrical power dynamics between relatively powerful soldiers and military institutions who do harm on the one hand, and relatively vulnerable civilians who suffer it on the other, to press her expanded concept of responsibility. By focusing primarily on responsibility to the harmed individuals or communities, and only secondarily on the culpability of particular soldiers and/or military institutions, Kellison aims to "construct more equitable relationships that promote the mutual development of relational autonomy" (177–178) and decrease the likelihood of future harm to noncombatants. Thus Kellison argues for a fourfold notion of responsibility for harms committed against noncombatants in war: recognize the harm done, respond to the needs of the harmed person or community, repair the damage to the best of our ability, and rehabilitate the harm-doer.

Expanding Responsibility for the Just War is a smart critique and feminist reconstruction of aspects of the just war tradition. Kellison convinces her readers that, while the tradition has not ignored the morality of killing civilians during warfare, it has failed to take it seriously enough. This failure can be understood, in part as a function of Enlightenment anthropology with its focus on the human person as a hyper-rationalized autonomous individual, but ignores human relatedness and interdependence, as well as inequitable distributions of power. Beyond its important contributions to the just war tradition, the book's strengths include its use of feminist ethics, methods, and concepts, as well as its interdisciplinarity—drawing from philosophy, theology, anthropology, military science, political science, and international law. At times, the text dwells unnecessarily on literature reviews of particular ideas or concepts, though this does add to its thoroughness. Parts of the book will be helpful to those teaching the ethics of war and peace at the undergraduate level, and it is suitable in its entirety for reading and discussion at the graduate level. Moreover, those engaged in just war scholarship ought to contend with the book's central arguments in their work lest we continue to evade responsibility for harm done to vulnerable people and communities during war.