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Book Reviews, Philosophy

In Defense of the Innocent

April 7, 2014 By Christopher O. Tollefsen

Although Nigel Biggar’s new book on just war has many strengths, the
author gets himself into a moral muddle over the question whether the
deaths of innocent non-combatants can be deliberately chosen in war.

Nigel Biggar’s book In Defence of War has received much praise in recent
months for its treatment of just war. The virtues of this book are many, and
it deserves to be read and discussed by anyone interested in the ethics of
war. But it also contains an ambiguity, or error, that should be noted by
those same readers. In the bulk of this essay I’ll attempt to identify this
crucial turning point of Biggar’s discussion and suggest an alternate route.
How great a deviation that route is from Biggar’s will depend on whether
the turning point is indeed merely an ambiguity or, as I rather think, a
mistake, a lapse in an otherwise very impressive book.

The Praiseworthy

Consider four features of IDoW that rightly merit the praise recently
bestowed by National Review: “hands-down the most ambitious and
consequential defense of the Christian just-war tradition we’ve seen in
decades.”

First, Biggar’s opening chapter on Christian paci sm is exemplary. He looks

at three of the most important Christian paci sts of the past few decades:
Stanley Hauerwas, John Howard Yoder, and Richard Hays. Hauerwas he
accuses of failing to present an adequate scripturally-based defense of his
view; and Yoder, he argues, illicitly generalizes beyond the data of Jesus’s
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rejection of violence in service of political nationalism to a complete

rejection of the use of force.

Hays also generalizes beyond the New Testament’s explicit prohibition of

certain forms of violence to a blanket prohibition. Yet, as Biggar argues,
right where one would expect the Gospels to repudiate warfare—namely,
in Christ’s numerous encounters with soldiers—we do not nd this at all.
There is no suggestion, for example, that the centurion at Capernaum,
whom Jesus praises for his faith, should renounce his soldiering.

Second, Biggar’s discussion in Chapter Two on “Love in War” is exceptional.

Among its virtues are a highly nuanced and persuasive account of
forgiveness as a two-step process encompassing (unconditional)
compassion and (conditional) absolution. And the nal account of the
motives of soldiers in battle, which makes the case that love can be among
those motives, is the best I have seen. It manifests a characteristic strength
of the book as a whole: Biggar’s attention to empirical data. In this case, the
data consist of the accounts of soldiers from a number of wars who
collectively make clear that love for one’s fellow soldiers, and respect for
one’s opponents, are at least as central to the phenomenology of the
soldier’s experience as is hatred of the enemy.

Third, Biggar recognizes that an inadequately developed feature of just war

casuistry is its account of proportionality. Biggar’s chapter on this idea is
again very strong and contains an extended and helpful case study of the
British action at the Somme against the Germans in World War I.
Particularly helpful in this chapter is his explanation of the “non-
arithmetical and non-quantitative nature of judgments of proportionality.”

Finally, the chapter on the Iraq war contains one of the fairest extended
discussions of the justice of that war I have seen. Biggar puts to bed the
oft-repeated claim that President Bush lied in the run-up to that war;
presents a fairly convincing argument that the damage done in the war to
civilians was proportionate to the gains, while admitting that there should
have been substantially better planning for postbellum Iraq; and addresses
the question of legality with considerable nuance. Privacidade - Termos

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He notes—rightly, I think—that the claim to legality is not the strongest of

the claims that can be made in defense of that war. Indeed, I am not wholly
convinced by his argument on this topic. But by situating the question of
legality of the 2003 action in the broader context of resolutions dating back
ten and twelve years before that, Biggar argues that at least the invasion of
2003 was not “clearly or simply illegal.” And, as he notes, there could have
been (as he believes there were) moral grounds for the invasion “even if it
had been illegal.”

These are all, in my view, standout discussions in this book, and my

engagement now with an aspect of Biggar’s approach that I disagree with is
intended in no way to detract from my praise of it.

The Problem of Intention

Let me begin with a claim of Biggar’s with which I am, on the surface of
things, entirely in agreement, and which, again, on the surface, might be
expected to engender some controversy. That claim is the assertion, in
Chapter Four, that soldiers ought not to intend to kill their enemy. I have
defended a similar claim here at Public Discourse, from which Biggar’s claim
follows: there should be no intentional killing whatsoever.

In consequence, all killing as may be permissibly accomplished, in war or

elsewhere, must be not intended, must be outside the intention, in St.
Thomas’s phrase. Hence, as Biggar puts it, “The Christian doctrine of just
war comes from the same Thomist stable as the principle of double e ect;
and insofar as it remains Thomistic, the former involves the latter.” The
death of combatants must be, to put it another way, always a side e ect,
and never something intended by a fully reasonable and upright soldier.

With all this agreement, where is the problem? It is in Biggar’s account of

intention, and in his subsequent treatment of what may be done not only
to enemy combatants, but even to innocent civilians. Here, I will argue,
Biggar parts company with the best recent (and, I believe, classical) moral
analyses.
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Consider an example given by Biggar of double e ect in action. In Master

and Commander, the ship will capsize unless the fallen mast is cut free. But
a sailor hangs on the end of the mast and when the mast goes, so will he to
certain death. His best friend sadly chops the mast away. “Did he,” Biggar
asks, “intend to kill his friend?”

Both Biggar and I would answer no. In my view, the sailor’s end is the
safety of the ship, and the means is the cutting away of the mast. The
death of his friend enters into his deliberations neither as the end he
pursues, nor any of the nested means by which he hopes to bring about
that end: fetching the ax, so as to chop, so as to free the mast from the
ship. All of this is within his intention; yet that which forms no part of his
proposal for action is not within his intention. The death of his friend
manifestly is neither an end nor a means for him.

One could see this example as an illustration of the claim that what is not
chosen is not intended, but Biggar would disagree. As he puts it, “His friend’s
death was quite beside his intention—even though he chose it.”

So what then is intention, in Biggar’s account? He holds that to intend is not

just to choose but also to want—want not in an emotional sense, but as a
matter of rational desire, the desire for the good. And here again, there is
the appearance of agreement, for in my view, what one intends is the end
one rationally desires, and everything one takes to be needful for the
attainment of that end, and thus sets oneself to achieve for its sake. And
one can straightforwardly be understood to “desire,” in the sense of
rationally willing, all that one sets oneself to do for the sake of one’s end,
however emotionally repugnant one nds it.

There are occasional suggestions that Biggar too would accept this
analysis, for, as he realizes, “a human action comprises ends and means,”
and, in his account, intention makes the di erence between behavior that
is a human action and behavior that is not. Moreover, he should accept it,
for each means that is adopted stands as a proximate end on the agent’s
way toward the achievement of his overall objective. So if, as Biggar clearly
believes, intention is of ends, then it is of means as well. Privacidade - Termos

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Were this reading correct, then some other claims made by Biggar would
not be wrong, but only dangerously ambiguous. The most prominent of
these claims is the statement that “the deliberate killing of the innocent is
not wrong as such.” Biggar also strongly suggests that it can be permissible
to deliberately kill a soldier who is in agonizing pain with no prospect of
relief.

Perhaps “deliberately” is being used here merely to indicate acceptance of

that which is a side e ect. One deliberately wears down one’s sneakers in
running, although one intends their wear as neither an end, nor as a
means. This could be a passable usage, though “deliberate” strongly
suggests “deliberation,” which is precisely one’s rational inquiry into the
means that one will or will not adopt for the sake of one’s end. So the
ambiguity is dangerous: it suggests strongly that intentional mercy killing
and the intentional killing of the innocent are both permissible.

Troubling Conclusions

But is it ambiguity, or error? I believe it is the latter, for if we look at the

cases where Biggar believes the killing to be deliberate but not intended, it
is clear that, contrary to his account, they are intended.

Consider, as paradigmatic, his dialectical exchange with David Rodin over

the killing, in Rwanda, of Théoneste Hakizamungu by his brother Vénuste,
who had been ordered to do so by the Hutu Interahamwe, lest they kill the
entire Hakizamungu family. Drawing on classical Christian sources (I cannot
here address the adequacy of his exegeses), Biggar argues that there
would be no murder—no intentional killing—were Vénuste to kill his
brother with his brother’s consent (as actually happened) or without his
brother’s consent, for his brother is “obliged to sacri ce his life,” and thus
“has no right to it.” Thus, “if Vénuste kills him, no such right is violated.”

Or consider the hypothetical case of the mercy killing of the soldier: the
soldier’s throat is cut to bring him relief from his su ering. Biggar appears
to believe that this is justi ed deliberate killing, yet also that it is not
intended, since justi ed.
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Such analysis requires for its success a awed understanding of intention.

Such an understanding, I believe, limits the willing that is part of intention
to that which is rationally desired as an ultimate end. The killing of
Théoneste is a means to the saving of the Hakizamungu family, as nearly
every philosopher who has considered such cases would attest. And the
slitting of the soldier’s throat is e ective for his relief only by means of the
soldier’s death, so death seems to be a means chosen for the sake of
eliminating the soldier’s su ering. If these actions are means, then they
must be intentionally chosen or rejected. Biggar gives us no reason to think
that chosen means are not intended, and there is, as I noted above, very
good reason to think they are intended, whether by considering what it is
to rationally desire something, or by considering the status of means as
proximate ends.

If Biggar is to be read as I have read him here, then he is suggesting

something very problematic indeed, and something I take to be absolutely
contrary to the thrust of the just war tradition, and to the broader natural
law tradition of which it is a part: namely, the idea that it can be morally
permissible to intend to the death of innocent human beings, whether for
their own sake (the wounded soldier) or for the sake of others (Théoneste
Hakizamungu).

Such an error does not detract from the great strengths of Biggar’s book;
but it is important to recognize it as such, lest the formulation of the
erroneous claim be taken for the assertion of the true claim that human
beings should never be intentionally killed, whether in war or elsewhere.

About the Author

CHRISTOPHER TOLLEFSEN
Christopher O. Tollefsen is College of Arts and Sciences
Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of
South Carolina.
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