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Learning the Language of Just War Theory: The Value
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Cian O'Driscoll a
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 Journal of Military Ethics,
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Vol. 6, No. 2, 107
116, 2007

Learning the Language of Just War

Theory: The Value of Engagement
CIAN O’DRISCOLL
Department of Politics, Adam Smith Building, University of Glasgow, UK

ABSTRACT This paper argues that the significance of Michael Walzer’s seminal Just and
Unjust Wars (JUW) lies in its excellence as a spur to political activism and debate. If JUW
teaches us anything, it is the value of political engagement. It reminds us that we all have a
responsibility as citizens to participate in the body politic, by holding our leaders accountable for
their foreign policy and international endeavours, among other things. The signal achievement of
JUW is that it teaches us how to do this, by providing instruction in the language of engagement
and the art of political argument. In doing so, it does us an invaluable service and provides a useful
resource for coming to grips with the world we live in. By teaching us how to argue about war, this
book has armed us for the struggles, both military and ideological, that the ‘war on terror’ will
surely present us with in the coming years. This essay will focus upon the manner by which Walzer
achieves this lofty end, revolving mostly around his innovative re-interpretation of just war theory
as a moral language.

KEY WORDS: Walzer, Just War, political language, tradition

Introduction
Like many others, I was introduced to the study of war and military ethics by
Michael Walzer’s Just and Unjust Wars (JUW). I first encountered this book
as an exchange student at SUNY, New Paltz, in 1999. Previously shy to
engage in political discussions
not for want of holding an opinion, rather
because I lacked the means to express these opinions
I found in JUW a
powerful resource. It provided an entry point for me, and my classmates, into
the rough and tumble of international politics as we discussed the rights and
wrongs of modern war, both during and after class, and often late into the
night. More than that, though, it taught us how to engage with the world by
providing us with a language and a vocabulary through which we might make
sense of, and address, the burning issues of the day. Consequently, when I
reflect upon what JUW might mean to us today, I am inclined to respond that
its significance lies in its excellence as both an invitation and a spur to
political activism and debate. It has inspired generations of readers to
participate in the cut and thrust of political argument by instructing them in
the language of engagement. This essay will focus upon the manner by which

Correspondence Address: Cian O’Driscoll, Department of Politics, Adam Smith Building, University of
Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8RT, UK. Tel.: 44-(0) 141-3302002. E-mail: cian.odriscoll@socsci.gla.ac.uk

1502-7570 Print/1502-7589 Online/07/020107
10 # 2007 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/15027570701408998
 108 C. O’Driscoll
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JUW achieves this lofty end, revolving mostly around Walzer’s innovative re-
interpretation of just war theory as a moral language.
The first section of this paper will explain in more detail what it means to
treat just war theory as a language. Section two delves a little deeper into
the theory of language, drawing upon the work of Michael Oakeshott and
James Boyd White to demonstrate the evolutionary or protean character of
all language, including just war theory when it is understood in this way.
Section three switches attention to those critiques that have been levelled
against Walzer’s approach in JUW. In particular, it will consider the charges
of conservatism and historical relativism that have been laid at Walzer’s
door. Finally, Section four will appraise the utility of Walzer’s brand of just
war theory today, and will address the big question facing the contempor-
ary just war community: can just war theory still serve as a site of critique
at a time when the terminology of just war has been so successfully
appropriated by political and military leaders? By way of conclusion, I will
contend that the analysis provided by Walzer in JUW still has a lot to
offer with respect to the vocation of arguing about war in a so-called time
of terror.

Speaking Just War as a Language

The subject matter of JUW is, of course, the question of the relationship
between justice and the use of force
the stock fare of the just war tradition.
Walzer’s approach to this question is anything but conventional. Instead of
locating this question within the just war tradition, understood as a historical
canon of thought running from Augustine through the Scholastics to the
legalists of the modern age, Walzer re-casts it as a matter of ‘just war theory’.
But what is meant by just war theory? The answer to this question will clarify
why I think it is possible to regard JUW as an extended practical instruction
in the art of political engagement.
Walzer (2004: x) introduces just war theory as ‘the ordinary language in
which we argue about particular wars. It is the way most of us talk when we
join political debates about whether to fight and how to fight.’ It comprises
an idiom, or set of ideas, which informs ‘the ordinary language in which we
argue about particular wars’. These ideas, he writes, are ‘our common
heritage, the product of many centuries of arguing about war,’ and they
provide us with a ‘moral language’ for carrying on those arguments (Walzer
2004: 7
8). Writing in an autobiographical style, Walzer comments that he
was first moved to argue in terms of the just war in the course of protesting
against the Vietnam War in the 1970s. Where these protests were concerned,
the just war provided a ‘vocabulary’ through which to express his anger and
indignation at the actions of his government. Thus, he learned to use words
such as ‘aggression’, ‘just cause’, ‘intervention’, ‘self-defence’, ‘neutrality’,
and ‘atrocities’, and to appreciate that they brought a certain weight, born of
their historicity, to bear on his protests (Walzer 1992: xxv).
Crucially, however, he also came to understand that his protests, as well as
his anger and indignation, were ‘shaped’ by these words that the just war
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tradition made available to him (Walzer 1992: xxv). So while it is true that this
language may be used instrumentally, it also possesses ‘its own structure’
which determines what may be argued to some extent (Walzer 2004: 12).
The just war tradition, then, ought to be understood as a language through
which we can access, debate, and contribute to the moral questions that every
war inevitably provokes. It provides us with a ‘medium of shared under-
standing and an arena of action’ with which to make sense of, and respond
to, the moral experience of war (Ball et al. 1989: 2). The terms of the just
war, Walzer writes, ‘reflect the real world . . . They are descriptive terms,
and without them we would have no coherent way of talking about war’
(Walzer 1992: 14).
If Walzer understands the just war tradition as a descriptive language, he
recognizes that it is also constitutive of the moral reality of war that it
purports to describe. The just war tradition not only provides us with a
glossary of terms to describe war, it also assigns (moral) meaning to war, and
establishes our relation to it. How we ‘arrange and classify and think’ about
war in moral terms is deeply delimited, or partly determined, by the
‘conceptual, argumentative, and rhetorical resources’ of the tradition (see
Ball 1988: 4). As Walzer (1992: 15) writes:
Reiterated over time, our arguments and judgments shape . . . the moral reality of war

that is, all those experiences of which moral language is descriptive or within which it is
necessarily employed. It is important to stress that the moral reality is not fixed by the
actual activity of soldiers but by the opinions of mankind. That means, in part, that it is
fixed by the activity of philosophers, lawyers, publicists of all sorts.

While Walzer acknowledges that our arguments and judgments do not take
place in isolation from the experience of combat, and have value only insofar
as they render that experience comprehensible, he still wishes to argue that
they contribute to how we experience combat in the first place. It is, he argues,
how we argue about war that ‘makes [it] what it is’ (Walzer 1992: 15). As a
language, then, just war theory does two distinct things, though they can
hardly be separated: first, it contributes to the moral reality of war by
establishing it as a frame of reference, and, second, it provides us with a set of
terms with which to make sense of that reality.

Interpreting Just War as a Language

By tutoring us in this language of just war theory, JUW provides us with the
means to discuss and engage the issues of the day. We should be careful,
though, not to overstate the role of just war theory as a structural force in the
world. While the way in which we speak about war must constitute, to some
degree, the experience of war itself, just war theory should not be understood
as a linguistic prison house from which one cannot escape.
Just war theory is not an argumentative iron cage, hermeneutically sealed,
in which people may find themselves trapped. As Michael Oakeshott (1975:
58)
whose influence is clearly discernible in JUW-writes, moral languages
(such as just war theory) do ‘not impose upon an agent demands that he
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shall think certain thoughts, entertain certain sentiments, or make certain

substantive utterances. [They] come to him as various invitations to under-
stand, to choose, and to respond.’ On this view, a language such as just war
theory is not a set of instructions to follow, nor is it a logic to be perfected.
Rather, it is an inheritance that must be interpreted and re-interpreted, made
and re-made, by those who invoke it and engage its terms. Indeed, Walzer
himself offers that moral languages such as just war theory are most usefully
regarded as the ‘products of many people talking, of real if always tentative,
intermittent, and unfinished conversations . . . the work of many years of trial
and error, of failed, partial, and insecure understandings’ (Walzer 1987: 24).
They are, it follows, never finished or complete; rather they appear as
‘perpetual works in progress’ (Erskine 2007: 140).
This approach emphasizes the evolutionary nature of just war theory. By
treating just war theory as a language, we acknowledge that it must, like all
languages, be subject to change, revision, and even re-invention at the hands
of its speakers. As James Boyd White (1984: 8) writes, to learn and speak a
language is ‘also to change it, for one constantly makes new gestures and
sentences of one’s own, new patterns or combinations of meaning. Language
is in part a system of invention, an organized way of making new meaning
in new circumstances.’ Extending this logic to just war theory, it seems
obvious that it must always be subject to the processes of negotiation and
re-negotiation as its advocates seek to re-interpret and apply it to new
scenarios and historical contexts. Thus, for example, we can read the
current debate regarding the limits of self-defence as an attempt to re-
negotiate the ‘old rules’ of just war theory to fit the ‘new threats’ posed by
global terrorism.
Key here is the understanding that every act of just war theorizing is an act
of interpretation and, to borrow Walzer’s own typology (1987: 20), not an act
of invention or discovery. Interpretation involves examining our moral
languages as they are manifested in our ‘daily practices’ with a view to
elucidating them more clearly and subjecting them to internal critique
(Walzer 2003: 205). It entails a working out of principles already present or
latent in our daily practices, though they may hitherto have only been
partially fulfilled, so that we might contribute to their progressive realization.
By way of example, we might think of the manner by which the abolition of
slavery was achieved in America: it was made possible by challenging every
American to live up to that article of faith, already proclaimed, that all men
are born free and equal. Interpretation always follows this course: at its core,
it reflects a quest to realize more fully the principles upon which our common
life is based.
Walzer’s work on just war theory follows this model precisely. JUW
takes the form of an extended re-construction of our understanding of
the morality of war as it is reflected in the legal, moral, and political
arrangements of international society. Consider, for example, Walzer’s
(1992: 58
63) presentation of the ‘legalist paradigm’. It is not a work
of discovery or invention; rather it is a sketch of the rules and principles that
already structure and inform our understanding of war in international
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society. Its principles and terms are merely expressions of the moral realities
of war which are embedded in the conventions of international society.
Thus, the propositions of the legalist paradigm reflect the rules governing
interstate conduct. These rules, it is supposed, have been worked out over
time by members of international society in their dealings with one another
(Walzer 1992: 63). It is worth noting that even in those cases where Walzer
opts to revise the legalist paradigm
as in his desire to acknowledge the
justice of humanitarian war or a more expansive right of anticipatory war

his stated aim is to reconcile the paradigm more closely with ‘the judgments
we actually make’ (1992: 75).

Critiquing Just War as a Language

Not surprisingly, Walzer’s presentation of just war theory as a language, and
his reliance on an interpretative approach to moral philosophy, has not been
to everyone’s liking. This approach tends, in the eyes of some critics, to steer
an unsure course between the perils of conservatism and relativism.
Ronald Dworkin (1983), for instance, delivers a critique of Walzer’s
interpretative approach to moral philosophy (though not specifically his
approach to just war theory), which can be extended to his just war theory.
Dworkin (1983: 4) accuses Walzer of demeaning moral philosophy as little
more than the ‘elaboration’ of ‘conventional social arrangements’. Conse-
quently, Dworkin argues, moral philosophy of the type produced by Walzer’s
approach naturally tends towards conservatism and may be fairly adjudged
to lack critical bite. Extending this critique to Walzer’s just war theory, we
might contend that it constitutes little more than a ‘mirror’ of society,
reflecting its shared understandings (and the compromises these entail),
rather than a ‘yardstick’ against which we measure the rights and wrongs
of any chosen course of action or argument (Dworkin 1983: 5; cf. Walzer
1987: 22). This conception of the tradition, the critique goes, is too ‘relaxed
and agreeable’: it promises a tradition that is at peace with society, rather than
one that can stand against society as a site of criticism (Dworkin 1983: 4). In
other words, it reflects the practices of society back upon itself instead of
holding them to some external standard. The just war tradition, thus
conceived, is unlikely to provide a vehicle for speaking truth to power. A
similar critique has also been offered by James Turner Johnson (2006: 194

195), who accuses Walzer of stripping the just war tradition of its critical edge
by severing it from its historical foundations. This is a serious accusation to
level at Walzer. The fact that just war thought has historically provided a site
of criticism is one of its perceived strengths, according to Jean Bethke
Elshtain (1992: 265
266):
A specific strength embedded in its ontology of peace is the vantage point it offers with
reference to social arrangements, one from which its adherents frequently assess what the
world calls peace and find it wanting. From Augustine’s thunderings against the Pax
Romana to John Paul II’s characterization of our present armed-to-the-teeth peace as
the continuation of war by other means . . . just war thinking has . . . offered a critical
edge.
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Walzer, however, is able to respond to Dworkin and Johnson’s critique by

pointing to the possibility of ‘internal criticism’, which he alludes to in the
preface to the first edition of JUW. We can hold the judgments and
justifications people commonly make to account, Walzer writes, by seeking
out their coherence and laying bare the principles they exemplify. We can
‘expose the hypocrisy of soldiers and statesmen who publicly acknowledge
these commitments while seeking in fact only to their own advantage . . . [W]e
hold such people to their own principles, though we may draw these out and
arrange them in ways that they had not thought of before’ (1992: xxix; also
Walzer 1987: 39). Again, we might think here of the success achieved with
respect to the abolition of slavery in America by this form of social criticism.
It is not, then, as toothless as its critics would have us believe.
Walzer is still prone, however, to the charge that his understanding of just
war theory slides into historical relativism. During those periods when
international society is undergoing some form of radical change, just war
theory as it is presented by Walzer must absorb these developments and come
itself to reflect them. We do not have to look far for an example of such an
instance: consider how the realities of American hegemony currently impose
upon just war thought, forcing some consideration of questions related to jus
post bellum and the responsibilities of empire. Incidentally, it is Walzer (2004:
162
168) who is leading the way in addressing these questions. The broader
point here, however, is that just war theory (as it is presented by Walzer)
resembles little more than a weather vein turning with the prevailing winds of
international society, both accommodating and in thrall to the vagaries of
power politics. This suggests a degree of historical mutability bordering on
relativism. This is hardly surprising, for mutability is a characteristic of all
languages, as noted above (see section two). It is potentially worrying though;
given the malleability of just war theory, it must be open to abuse by those
who choose to draw upon it
most obviously political and military leaders. I
will return to this issue later. For the moment, I will concentrate on the issue
of relativism.
While it is true that Walzer’s just war theory presupposes some degree of
historical mutability or even relativism in theory, he suggests that the
historical record does not quite bear this out. Although the theory’s capacity
for change and variation is certainly real enough, and makes for a compelling
tale, ‘the importance of that tale . . . is easily exaggerated’ (Walzer 1992: 16).
Empirically speaking, Walzer claims, just war thought has remained relatively
stable from generation to generation. It is a language which spans centuries,
displaying a remarkable consistency over the passage of time. Thus it is
possible that we share the same basic words and means for arguing about war
as did our historical predecessors (Walzer 1992: 16). Walzer supports this
assertion by pointing to the commonalities shared by the various, historically
separated, accounts of King Henry’s conduct at the Battle of Agincourt.
Holinshead, David Hume, and William Shakespeare, writing at very different
times and for very different audiences, all offered their thoughts on this
episode. What is striking for Walzer (1992: 19) is that these accounts are still
‘structured by underlying agreements’ and work within the same paradigm of
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meaning. There is, then, for Walzer, a certain timelessness about just war
theory, though it is best characterized as historical, sociological, and
contingent. So while it displays a potential for renovation and change, the
theory also reflects a strong element of continuity. Subsequently, we can be
relatively confident that when we tap into the language of the just war, we are
participating in a trans-historical dialogue with the great and the good of
previous generations (for discussion see Johnson 1981: 38).

In the Politician’s Pocket?

Crucially, such dialogue should be understood as challenging and developing,
rather than canonizing, the ideas of those who have come before us (see
Erskine forthcoming). Walzer’s faith in the critical capacity of dialogue is
evidence of his firm belief that just war theory offers an internal perspective
from which inconsistencies in its own practices, foundations, and espoused
norms might be scrutinized. Such a belief supposes that shared under-
standings may be latent within the just war theory. Dialogue, it follows, is an
interpretative process which involves the working out of shared meanings in a
given historical context. It provides a means through which we can determine
whether the internal rules, maxims, and ideals of the theory support certain
interpretations and derivations or not. It allows us, in other words, to ‘mark
off better from worse arguments, deep and inclusive accounts of the just war
tradition from shallow and partisan offerings’ (Walzer 1983: 43). This is
crucial for, as I suggested earlier, shallow and partisan appropriations of just
war theory mark a serious threat to its integrity and function.
Peter Temes (2003: ch. 6) tells an apocryphal story relating to the pre-
sidency of George H. W. Bush circa the first Gulf War that makes this point
quite forcefully. Prior to the declaration of war, Bush was apprehensive that
he could not reconcile his role in declaring war on Iraq with his Christian
faith. Seeking reassurance, he contacted a minister known to his family and
requested that he lay out the basic points of the Christian just war tradition
on an index card, so that Bush might reflect upon them at his convenience.
As the story goes, the minister obliged and Bush kept the index card in his
shirt pocket for the duration of the war. Temes tells this story to illustrate
the point that just war theory always lies in danger of residing in the
politician’s pocket, to be drawn upon at the politician’s expedience. The point
is that just war theory is a language which invites abuse by providing
unscrupulous politicians with a vocabulary of justice with which to mask their
realpolitik.
What this story calls our attention to is the potential for the transformation
of just war theory into a strategic discourse, which serves rather than
challenges realpolitik.1 As the vocabulary of just war theory is internalized by
the military and political leaders of the world, the possibility that this theory
may be deployed as a strategic partner in battle is increased. Military lawyers
have undoubtedly become adept at manipulating the language made available
to them by just war theory, frequently using it to extend the range of action
available to their commanders. By way of example, we might think of the
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manner by which the catch-all term of ‘collateral damage’ was invoked by

NATO lawyers as legal cover for the targeting of dual-use installations

power plants, radio stations, oil refineries, water-treatment plants, et cetera

in Kosovo in 1999. In such cases, the language of just war theory appears to
be mobilized by the military as a strategic asset, serving to enable rather than
constrain the violence of war, and sometimes even to ‘defend the indefen-
sible’.2 It should not come as a shock that the military are so adroit with just
war theory, for JUW is a core text at the United States Military Academy.
They too have been taught by Walzer.
Subsequently, we are led to wonder whether the aphorism that the road to
hell is paved with good intentions pertains acutely to just war theory? Does
just war theory act, in the final analysis, as the handmaiden to imperialism, as
critics (from Carl Schmitt (2003) to Ken Booth (2001)) have charged? By
allying itself to power in order to restrain the ‘monstrous barbarity’ that war
sometimes unleashes, does it compromise too much and risk its own
integrity? Or, to paraphrase Nicholas J. Rengger’s (2004: 107
116) riff on
The Lord of the Rings, is the very project of just war theory in danger of
falling prey to, and being consumed by, Sauron’s ring of power? These
charges have haunted contemporary just war theorists who have found
themselves consistently decried as apologists of power. The recent and
vitriolic response to Elshtain’s Just War Against Terror (2004) is only the
starkest example of this tendency. There is, however, a response to these
concerns, and it may be found in Walzer’s work.
Walzer allows that just war theory occupies a problematic space by virtue
of its close relationship to power. Just war theory, he writes, was developed by
early Christians like Ambrose and Augustine ‘in the service of the powers’,
and in order that war might be made ‘morally and religiously possible’
(Walzer 2004: 3). Contra early-Christian pacifism, the function of Augustine’s
ministry was to justify Christian participation in wars fought on behalf of the
worldly city. But while Walzer acknowledges that just war theory lies in close
proximity to power, he argues that this is not necessarily something to be
lamented. Rather, he writes, it poses an opportunity for critique. If just war
theory is the lingua franca of state leaders and generals as they seek to justify
their military campaigns, it also provides a means of keeping them honest. It
affords us a way of calling such leaders to task on their hypocrisy, and holding
them to their word (Walzer 1992: xxix; 2004: 12). Through the language of
just war theory, we can scrutinize the claims of our leaders and take on their
casuistry. Was the threat posed by Iraq’s putative stockpile of weapons of
mass destruction (WMD), or its alleged links with al-Qaeda, really
‘imminent’? Was there a ‘just cause’ for the invasion of Panama? Has the
‘humanitarian’ function of the intervention in Afghanistan been well served
by the manner in which the war has been conducted? It is this manner of
question that just war theory empowers us to ask. In doing so, it enables us to
turn the language of power back upon itself, opening it up to engagement and
critique. There is, then, in Walzer’s work a response to the charge that just war
theory marks a surrender, rather than a challenge, to the pursuit of power and
empire.
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Conclusion
By way of concluding, I would like to return to the claim made in the opening
remarks that the significance of JUW lies in its excellence as both an
invitation and a spur to political activism and debate. Indeed, if JUW teaches
us anything, it is the value of political engagement. It reminds us that we all
have a responsibility as citizens to participate in the body politic, by holding
our leaders accountable for their foreign policy and international endeavours,
among other things. The only other choice is disengagement and withdrawal
from the world, which is not desirable. Disengagement and withdrawal simply
cede power, only this time unchecked, to those who have no qualms in
abusing it. Moral quietism is achieved at the expense of good-faith citizen-
ship. Instead of allowing this to happen, we must be prepared to step into the
political fold and grapple with the burden of power (our own as well as that of
others). We must participate in the political process rather than stand back
from it. The signal achievement of JUW is that it teaches us how to do this. It
provides instruction in the language of engagement and teaches us the cut and
thrust of the art of political argument. In doing so, it does us an invaluable
service and provides a useful resource for coming to grips with the
contemporary political and security environment. By teaching us how to
argue about war, and by extension how to argue about politics, this book has
armed us for the struggles, both military and ideological, that the ‘war on
terror’ will surely present us with in the coming years.

Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Alex Bellamy for inviting me to participate in this
symposium, Serena Sharma for her helpful and insightful comments, Ian
Clark for his advice over the past few years, and Toni Erskine for sharing her
understanding of Walzer’s work with me.

Notes
1
I am leaning heavily here on David Kennedy’s (2006) recent analysis of the relationship between the
practice of war and the discourse of international law.
2
George Orwell, ‘Politics and the English Language’, Horizon (April 1946).

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