PAPER 1, MALENE HASBERG KJAER, REL 606 (S16) For my paper I have chosen the following thesis concerning Thomas Aquinas’s conditions of a just war: According to Aquinas’s Summa, what are the conditions of a just war? Are the conditions adequately stated? In this paper, I will first analyze the three conditions Aquinas states for a war to be just and define the terms he uses, and I will then move on to a discussion of his view of these conditions, to argue whether they are sufficient or not to call a war just. In Summa Theologiae Aquinas proposes three conditions of a just war. He discusses this matter in question 40, which consists of four articles. In this paper, the focus will be on the first article that inquires: “Whether some kind of war is lawful?”1 Before this question is addressed, it is necessary to distinguish between jus ad bellum and jus in bello. In stating his conditions of a just war, Aquinas only discusses how a war can be lawfully waged and therefore focuses on jus ad bellum. Therefore this question addresses how it is possible for the act of war to be lawful and not whether the acts in war are lawful or not. With this distinction in mind we shall now proceed to his first condition. For a war to be just, it first of all has to be waged by a proper authority, Aquinas writes: “In order for a war to be just, three things are necessary. First, the authority of the sovereign by whose command the war is to be waged. […] And as the care of the common weal is committed to those who are in authority, it is their business to watch over the common weal of the city, kingdom of province subject to them.”2 This authority is to be seen as opposed to the private individual. Aquinas stresses that “it is not the business of a private individual to declare war”, and the sharp distinction between the waging of war as a private and as a public authority is important to have in mind here. Johnson writes in his article that the difference between the two 1 2 Aquinas, Thomas, Summa theologiae II-II, question 40, article 1. Ibid. Page 1 of 7 kinds of authority stands in the center of the just war tradition and different terms are being used to define them: bellum and duellum - the latter being the term used to describe the use of force by a private individual.3 The Latin word describing the use of force by a private authority therefore clearly distinguishes it from the waging of war by a public authority. The idea of the public authority as the only proper authority to wage war is also found in Augustine’s “Contra Faustum”, which Aquinas quotes in this first article: “The natural order conducive to peace among mortals demands that the power to declare and counsel war should be in the hands of those who hold the supreme authority.”4 The idea found here is founded in the view of the public authority as a part of God’s government of the world.5 The essential part to understand in Aquinas’s first condition is the sovereign authority’s right to wage war because of its obligation and responsibility to protect the good and watch over the common weal of the civitas. This is both in defending the people against internal disturbances and external enemies.6 This makes it unnecessary for a private individual to wage war since the authority would always protect him. Aquinas’s second condition for a war to be just is that it has to have a just cause. He writes: “Secondly, a just cause is required, namely that those who are attacked should be attacked because they deserve it on account of some fault.”7 The immediate questions that arise when reading this are: how do we determine whether someone deserves it? And is this description sufficient for the understanding of a just cause? The following quote from Augustine sheds some light on this, stating that a just cause is “one that avenges wrongs, when a nation or state has to be punished, for refusing to make amends for the wrongs inflicted by its subjects, or to restore 3 Johnson, James Turner, “Aquinas and Luther on War and Peace. Sovereign Authority and the Use of Armed Force” in Journal of Religious Ethics vol. 31, no. 1, pp. 3-20, 2003, p. 5. 4 Aquinas (II-II, q. 40, a. 1). Aquinas here quotes Contra Faustum xxii 75. 5 Johnson (2003: 6). 6 Aquinas (II-II, q. 40, a.1). 7 Ibid. Page 2 of 7 what it has seized unjustly”8. The quote partly answers the question of how to deserve attack, but this still does not seem sufficient to define a just cause. In Aquinas’s reply to objection three, which claims that war is always sin, he argues that a just war aims for peace and therefore that “we go to war [in order] that we may have peace.”9 It seems that, for Aquinas, peace and protection constitute the most basic causes for war, and since peace is in accordance with justice, “a cause is just when it attempts to restore true peace.”10 This helps us to a better understanding of the just cause but raises yet another question: If the goal of waging war is to obtain peace, is the cause of war then similar to the goal of war? To answer this question we must firstly consider the final condition of Aquinas’s prescriptions of just war. As his final condition, Aquinas states that it is necessary to have the right intention when waging war. He writes: “Thirdly, it is necessary that the belligerents should have a rightful intention, so that they intend the advancement of good, or the avoidance of evil.”11 This condition resonates what we claimed to be the meaning of the just cause, and Aquinas’s following quote from the canon law elaborates it, saying that: “True religion looks upon as peaceful those wars that are waged not for motives of aggrandizement, or cruelty, but with the object of securing peace, of punishing evildoers, and of uplifting the good.”12 If the rightful intention then follows to be the object of securing peace it appears rather like the just cause. But Aquinas must have had a distinction in mind when he stated three criteria and not only two. Johnson explains this by describing that right intention has two components: a positive one and a negative one - the positive side of intention being the aim of peace, and the negative side of intention being “the 8 Ibid. Aquinas here quotes Augustine’s “Quaestiones in Heptateuchum, q. x, super Josue”. Ibid. Aquinas here quotes Augustine’s “Epistula ad Bonifacium” letter 189. 10 Vorster, Nico, “Just War and Virtue: Revisiting Augustine and Thomas Aquinas” in South African Journal of Philosophy vol. 34, no. 1, pp. 55-68, 2015, p. 8. 11 Aquinas (II-II, q. 40, a. 1). 12 Ibid. 9 Page 3 of 7 avoidance of wrong intention”. Johnson defines the two sides of intention by using the quote from the canon law cited above.13 The intention thereby covers two parts - the goal or object, which is similar to that of the just cause, and the negative side of intention, which provides a moral assessment. In this way the twofold use of the rightful intention differentiates it from the just cause. Returning to the question raised above, the just cause must then be considered in line with the goal of the war - to obtain peace. The use of cause and intention however overlaps in many ways and it is therefore necessary to view the cause in the light of the intention or vice versa, even though the two should still be kept apart in account of the moral assessments that the rightful intention presents. Is obtaining peace and punishing wrongdoings then the proper definition of a just cause? I believe that it is, considering how Aquinas follows up his third condition as he now moves on to describing the unlawful war, stating that a proper authority and a just cause is not enough to render a war lawful. All three conditions must however be fulfilled for a war to be just. This means that neither the rightful intention nor the just cause can be removed and for this reason it is adequate to regard the cause and intention as overlapping. It is important to keep in mind that when Aquinas speaks of rightful intention, he is still speaking of the authority who wages the war and not of the individuals fighting the war, which signifies that the focus is still not on jus in bello. It might be fruitful to ask though if rules for the conduct of war is necessary when we have a just cause and a rightful intention, as Cole writes: “If the cause is just, the virtuous will attack people who deserve to be attacked. This means that no one undeserving of attack will be intentionally attacked.”14 It is an interesting question since Aquinas later in Summa moves on to a smaller 13 Johnson (2003: 6). Cole, Darrell, “Thomas Aquinas on Virtuous Warfare” in The Journal of Religious Ethics, vol. 27, no. 1, pp. 5780, 1999, p. 72. 14 Page 4 of 7 treatment of the conducts of war.15 Having analyzed and defined Aquinas’s three conditions of a just war, some questions arise. The first question that claims our attention is concerned with Aquinas’s intention of these conditions: is his goal to justify war in its species or simply to describe when the waging of war can be justified? To answer this question it would be beneficial to examine whether Aquinas writes about war in general or about the Christian waging of war. This will provide an idea of whether he attempts to justify a Christian waging of war or to justify war in its species. First of all we must therefore take into consideration that the subject of just war is placed within Aquinas’s treatment of the cardinal virtue, charity, which is the distinct Christian virtue of love. This fact provides an assumption that Aquinas is talking about the Christian waging of war and nothing else. If he would have placed the discussion within the treatment of justice, which is a virtue known to all humans, the assumption would have been that he was talking about the waging of war in general. In the second article of question 40 Aquinas writes: “Now, among the faithful, carnal wars should be considered as having for their end the Divine spiritual good”.16 This end is here described as not only the good, but as the Divine good. Since the human act “terminates at that which the will intends as the end”17, the will must then intend the Divine spiritual good. This might shed some light on our question, seeing that Aquinas’s conditions for a just war particularly concern the Christian waging of war. With this in mind I will assume that Aquinas is 15 Aquinas treats the subject of jus in bello in 40.3 “Whether it is lawful to lay ambushes in war?” where he states that “no one ought to deceive the enemy” and again in question 64 in the discussion of self-defense. Gorman claims that the principle of double effect, which states that an action might have two different outcomes, is applicable in the conduct of war. He writes: “a military action might have as its primary intention to defend innocent lives, yet an unintended result may be that some innocent people are killed.” He thereby places Aquinas’s considerations of double effect not just in the light of self-defense but as applicable to determine jus in bello. Gorman, Ryan R., “War and Virtue in Aquinas’s Ethical Thought” in Journal of Military Ethics, vol. 9 no. 3, pp. 245-261, 2010, p. 254. The conditions of jus in bello will not be considered further in this paper, due to Aquinas’s stress on jus ad bellum. 16 Aquinas (II-II, q. 40, a. 2). 17 Ibid. (I-II, q. 1, a. 3). Page 5 of 7 trying not to justify war in its species but to say that these three criteria are the only way to justify going into war. The final matter that needs our attention in this paper is the question of whether or not Aquinas’s conditions are adequately stated in order to call a war just. As stated above I do not understand these conditions as means to justify war in itself and for that reason I believe that Aquinas in some ways argues sufficiently for his three conditions. In relation to the first condition, he requires the authority to be given only to the highest political authority, and thus it is placed in the context of the concern of all of the people.18 The criteria of just cause and right intention are Aquinas’s way of insuring innocents against attack and the intention of advancement of the good – herein determined the goal of the war to be peace. Even though I believe that in some way Aquinas adequately states the conditions, one must have in mind that later just war tradition expands these criteria in order for war to be just. At the end of the medieval period jus ad bellum was defined by seven criteria: right authority, just cause, right intention, war as last resort, reasonable hope of victory, the goal of peace, and that the war achieves more good than harm.19 With the need of expanding the criteria in mind, I must infer that Aquinas’s three conditions probably were not adequate in order to define a just war. But given the fact that each criterion has to be satisfied in order for the war to be just, Aquinas produces a kind of safety net in stating how to claim a war just. This, I believe, makes the conditions adequately stated in his analysis of a just war, but in a broader perspective, I suggest the later conditions to be taken into consideration in order to characterize a just war. 18 Johnson, James T., “Paul Ramsey and the Recovery of the Just War Idea” in Journal of Military Ethics, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 136-144, 2002, p. 142. 19 Johnson, James Turner. "Just War Theory" in The Oxford Companion to American Military History, Oxford University Press, 2000. Page 6 of 7 REFERENCES: Aquinas, Thomas St. 1947 The Summa Theologica, Translated by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province, New York: Benziger Brothers. Childress, James F. 1992 “Just War Criteria,” in War in the Twentieth Century, ed. Richard B. Miller, pp. 351-372, Louisville: WJK Cole, Darrell 1999 “Thomas Aquinas on Virtuous Warfare” in The Journal of Religious Ethics, vol. 27, no. 1, pp. 5780 Gorman, Ryan R. 2010 “War and Virtue in Aquinas’s Ethical Thought” in Journal of Military Ethics, vol. 9 no. 3, pp. 245-261. Johnson, James Turner 2003 “Aquinas and Luther on War and Peace. Sovereign Authority and the Use of Armed Force” in Journal of Religious Ethics vol. 31, no. 1, pp. 3-20. 2002 “Paul Ramsey and the Recovery of the Just War Idea” in Journal of Military Ethics, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 136-144. 2000 "Just War Theory" in The Oxford Companion to American Military History, Oxford University Press. Vorster, Nico 2015 “Just War and Virtue: Revisiting Augustine and Thomas Aquinas” in South African Journal of Philosophy vol. 34, no. 1, pp. 55-68. Page 7 of 7