War, Duties to Protect, and Military Abolitionism. Issue 3 (2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Fabre, Cécile
• Is Part Of: Ethics & international affairs. Volume 35:Issue 3(2021)
• Page Start: 395
• Page End: 406
• Publication Date: 2021
• Subjects: duty to protect -- humanitarian intervention -- military abolitionism -- moral injury -- national defense -- pacifism -- wars of aggression; International relations -- Moral and ethical aspects -- Periodicals; 172.405
• DOI: 10.1017/S089267942100037X
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0892-6794

Abstract

Abstract: Just war theorists who argue that war is morally justified under certain circumstances infer implicitly that establishing the military institutions needed to wage war is also morally justified. In this paper, I mount a case in favor of a standing military establishment: to the extent that going to war is a way to discharge duties to protect fellow citizens and distant strangers from grievous harms, we have a duty to set up the institutions that enable us to discharge that duty. I then respond to four objections drawn from Ned Dobos's recent book Ethics, Security, and the War-Machine .