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War and Peace in Outer Space
 The Oxford Series in Ethics, National Security,
and the Rule of Law

Series Editors
Claire Finkelstein and Jens David Ohlin
Oxford University Press

About the Series

The Oxford Series in Ethics, National Security, and the Rule of Law is an interdisciplinary
book series designed to address abiding questions at the intersection of national security,
moral and political philosophy, and practical ethics. It seeks to illuminate both ethical
and legal dilemmas that arise in democratic nations as they grapple with national security
imperatives. The synergy the series creates between academic researchers and policy
practitioners seeks to protect and augment the rule of law in the context of contemporary
armed conflict and national security.
The book series grew out of the work of the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law
(CERL) at the University of Pennsylvania. CERL is a nonpartisan interdisciplinary
institute dedicated to the preservation and promotion of the rule of law in twenty-​first
century warfare and national security. The only Center of its kind housed within a law
school, CERL draws from the study of law, philosophy, and ethics to answer the difficult
questions that arise in times of war and contemporary transnational conflicts.
 War and Peace
in Outer Space
Law, Policy and Ethics
Edited by
CASSANDRA STEER AND MATTHEW HERSCH

Assistant Editor
K I E R NA N M C C L E L L A N D

With a foreword from Lieutenant General David D. Thompson,

United States Space Force

1
 3
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s
objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is
a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries.

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

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You must not circulate this work in any other form

and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.

Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data

Names: Steer, Cassandra, editor. | Hersch, Matthew H., editor.
Title: War and peace in outer space : law, policy, and ethics /​
edited by Cassandra Steer and Matthew Hersch.
Description: First edition. | New York : Oxford University Press, [2021] |
Series: Ethics, National Security, and the Rule of Law | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020025855 | ISBN 9780197548684 (hardcover) |
ISBN 9780197548707 (epub) | ISBN 9780197548691 (updf) |
ISBN 9780197548714 (digital-​online)
Subjects: LCSH: Space law. | Space law—​United States. | Space security. | Anti-​satellite weapons.
Classification: LCC KZD1145 .W37 2020 | DDC 341.4/​7—​dc23
LC record available at https://​lccn.loc.gov/​2020025855

DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197548684.001.0001

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed by Integrated Books International, United States of America

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 Contents

Foreword by Lt. Gen D. Thompson, U.S. Space Force  vii

Editors and Contributors  ix
Introduction: Why Space Law Matters in War and Peace  1
Matthew Hersch and Cassandra Steer

PA RT I . T H E L AW O F WA R A N D P E AC E I N SPAC E

1. International Humanitarian Law and Its Application in

Outer Space  23
Cassandra Steer and Dale Stephens
2. Norm Setting and Transparency and Confidence-​Building in Space
Governance  55
Theresa Hitchens
3. The Rule of Law in Outer Space: A Call for an International Outer
Space Authority  91
Icho Kealotswe-​Matlou

PA RT I I . T H E E T H IC S O F SPAC E SE C U R I T Y

4. Peaceful Purposes for the Benefit of All Mankind: The Ethical

Foundations of Space Security  109
P.J. Blount
5. U.S. Space Dominance: An Ethics Lens  123
Joan Johnson-​Freese and Kenneth Smith

PA RT I I I . C U R R E N T A N D F U T U R E T H R E AT S
T O SPAC E SE C U R I T Y

6. What Should the Space Force Do? Insights from Spacepower

Analogies, Doctrine, and Culture  153
Peter L. Hays
7. The Legal Challenge of Arms Control in Space  181
Jinyuan Su
vi CONTENTS

8. The Legality of Keep-​Out, Operational, and Safety Zones

in Outer Space  201
Matthew Stubbs
9. Prominent Security Risks Stemming from Space
Hybrid Operations  229
Jana Robinson

PA RT I V. T OWA R D S TA B I L I T Y

10. A Proposed Transparency Measure as a Step Toward Space

Arms Control  247
Gilles Doucet
11. Outer Space and Crisis Risk  265
Laura Grego
12. Diplomacy: The Missing Ingredient in Space Security  287
Paul Meyer

Conclusion: Cooperation, Collaboration, and Communication

in Space  301
Cassandra Steer and Matthew Hersch

Index  309
 Foreword

In April 2018, I had the opportunity to participate in a conference on the use of

military force and cooperation in space, hosted by University of Pennsylvania’s
Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law (CERL), and led by Dr. Cassandra Steer,
co-​editor of this volume. It was an important event in many respects.
First of all, the conference dealt with a matter of great consequence. The
space domain has been an area of human competition and potential conflict
since the dawn of the Space Age more than 60 years ago. Early forays into
space were conducted for the purposes of science, discovery and explora-
tion; and nations and their leaders have understood what operating in space
meant to national pride, prestige and standing on the world stage. Over the
years, the use of space for commercial purposes and for the benefit of civil
society has emerged as well, so much so that the free and open access to the
domain has become important to economic vitality and public safety of many
nations and the global community in general. Increasingly, the space sector
provides technologies and capabilities that we have come to depend on in our
daily lives.
The importance of space capabilities to the defense and security of nations
drove early space activity as well –​surveillance and reconnaissance, early
warning, and communications among them. With time, space-​based systems
have created such a tremendous advantage for military operations, those systems
and their supporting infrastructure have become prospective targets among po-
tential antagonists. The spectrum of threats has evolved over the years ranging
from reversible to irreversible, and non-​kinetic to kinetic -​-​jammers, dazzlers,
cyber-​attack, direct ascent missiles and co-​orbital interceptors. As with land, sea
and air in the past, perhaps it was inevitable that as more actors became involved
and the stakes grew, nations would take steps to protect their interests in space
and seek to deny advantage to others.
The second reason this was an important event, was because it brought to-
gether participants from different communities and specialties who held a va-
riety of positions and views on the subject matter. Public and private institutions,
academia, government and think tanks were all represented. Policy experts and
thought leaders from many perspectives came together to examine and debate
the topic from all sides. While the underlying objective for the large majority
was the same –​secure, stable and peaceful use of the space domain –​ideas on the
viii Foreword

methods and approaches to achieving that objective varied greatly. The forum
was therefore an opportunity to inform, educate, analyze and test the many ideas
and methods to that end. It was an opportunity to challenge and shape one’s own
views, and the views of others on this vitally important subject.
Finally, while debate was vigorous and forceful, it was also reasoned and meas-
ured, lacking in histrionics, scorn, derision and other pejorative techniques that
seem to pass for debate in so many areas today. No question the discourse was
rough and tumble, but rather than retreating to opposing camps, digging in and
hurling invectives from one side to the other, participants focused on the con-
tent, subjecting all positions and supporting rationale to equal levels of scrutiny.
The group questioned for understanding, challenged assumptions, and most im-
portantly, allowed responses to those with different ideas and perspectives that
were not innately naïve, reflexive or malevolent.
The essays in this volume are drawn largely from that 2018 conference and
provide a wide range of perspectives on the topic of interest. The reader should
find plenty of content to stimulate inquiry, gain understanding, challenge per-
sonal preconceptions, test the ideas of others, and sharpen their own thinking
on the subject matter. Providing for the safe, stable and peaceful use of space
benefits all and preserves the opportunity for current and future generations to
advance scientifically and intellectually, as well as satisfying the need to explore
and discover that which lies deep in the psyche of humanity. This begins with
the acknowledgement that like land, sea and air before it, space has become an
arena of human competition, a domain that provides potential advantage in con-
flict and one where the inherent right to self-​defense must be recognized as well.
With that understanding, it is imperative we seek to build broad consensus on
norms of behavior and responsible operations in space in order to secure safe,
stable and peaceful use, and preserve that use for future generations. It is my be-
lief that this volume is intended for that purpose, and my hope that it will be used
to that end.
The opinions expressed are those of the author and should not be construed as
carrying the official sanction of the Department of Defense, Department of the Air
Force, U.S. Space Force, or other agencies or departments of the U.S. government or
their international equivalents.

David D. Thompson,
Lieutenant General United States Space Force
 Editors and Contributors

Editors
Cassandra Steer is Lecturer in Space Law at the Australian National University (ANU), a
Mission Specialist with the ANU Institute for Space, and a consultant specializing in space
security and space law. Formerly she was Acting Executive Director at the University
of Pennsylvania’s Center for Ethics and Rule of Law, Executive Director of Women in
International Security-​Canada, and Executive Director of the McGill Institute of Air and
Space Law. She has a degree in philosophy from the University of New South Wales, and
her law degrees and PhD from the University of Amsterdam, where she was also a lecturer
and Associate Professor. Currently she is Associate Expert on the Woomera Manual on
the International Law of Military Space Operations. She has also been a consultant to mil-
itary lawyers in the Canadian Judge Advocate General’s Office and to the U.S. Department
of Defense on these issues. She is author of the book Translating Guilt: Identifying
Leadership Liability for Mass Atrocity Crimes (Springer, 2017), and several articles on
international criminal law, the law of armed conflict, and space law (cassandra.steer@anu.
edu.au).

Matthew Hersch is an Associate Professor of the History of Science at Harvard University

specializing in the history of aerospace technology. He received his JD from New York
University and his PhD in the History and Sociology of Science from the University of
Pennsylvania, where he later taught in the School of Arts and Sciences and the School of
Engineering and Applied Science. He has held fellowships in history and space technology
with the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum, NASA, the University of
Southern California, and Columbia University, and is the author of Inventing the American
Astronaut (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), and the co-​author, with Ruth Schwartz Cowan, of
A Social History of American Technology (Oxford, 2017) (hersch@fas.harvard.edu).

Assistant Editor
Kiernan McClelland is a PhD student in Political Science at Carleton University working
under the supervision of Dr. Elinor C. Sloan. Kiernan’s research focuses on the strategic
application of space power by Canada in the 21st century, the impact of anti-​satellite tech-
nologies on modern military strategy, and the politics of planetary defense and plane-
tary colonization. Kiernan has a Bachelor of Arts from Carleton University, and Master
of Strategic Studies from the Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies at the
University of Calgary (kiernanmcclelland@cmail.carleton.ca).
x Editors and Contributors

Contributors
P.J. Blount is a postdoctoral researcher in the Faculty of Law, Economics, and Finance at
the University of Luxembourg and an adjunct professor in the LLM in the Air and Space
Law at the University of Mississippi School of Law. He received his MS and PhD in Global
Affairs from Rutgers University, his LLM in Public International Law from King’s College
London, and his JD from the University of Mississippi School of Law. He served as a
Visiting Scholar at the Beijing Institute of Technology School of Law for the Fall of 2017.
He has published and presented widely on the topic of space security law and has given
expert testimony on space traffic management before the U.S. House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Space. Blount serves as the co-​editor-​in-​chief of the Proceedings of the
IISL and was a formerly editor-​in-​chief of the Journal of Space Law. Additionally, he sits
on the Board of Directors of the International Institute of Space Law. He is a member of
the State Bar of Georgia (pjblount@gmail.com).

Gilles Doucet is the President of Spectrum Space Security Inc., with expertise in satel-
lite technologies, military space applications, space systems security assessments, inter-
national space security cooperation and governance (national and international). With
over 35 years’ experience working with the Canadian Department of National Defence,
he is a specialist in analytical methods and scientific analysis methodologies for mil-
itary space applications, space security policy, legal and regulatory concerns, He holds
a Graduate Certificate of Air and Space Law, from McGill University, and a BASc and
MASc (Mechanical Engineering), from the Université d’Ottawa. Gilles is part of the
Technical Experts Group for the Manual of International Law Applicable to Military Use
of Outer Space. He is on the Legal Advisory Council of the non-​profit foundation For
All Moonkind, which advocates for the preservation of human cultural heritage in outer
space (gillespdoucet@gmail.com).

Laura Grego is a senior scientist in the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Global Security
Program, focuses her analysis and advocacy on the technology and security dimensions
of ballistic missile defense and of outer space security. She has authored or co-​authored
numerous papers on a range of topics, including cosmology, space security, and missile
defense, and is a technical advisor for the Woomera Manual on the International Law of
Military Space Operations. She has testified before Congress and addressed the United
Nations General Assembly and the United Nations Conference on Disarmament on
space security issues and serves as an expert for print, radio, and television news. Before
joining UCS, Grego was a postdoctoral researcher at the Harvard-​Smithsonian Center
for Astrophysics. She earned a doctorate degree in experimental physics at the California
Institute of Technology and a BS in physics and astronomy at the University of Michigan
(LGrego@ucsusa.org).

Peter L. Hays retired from the Air Force, supports the Secretary of the Air Force in the
Pentagon, and is directly involved in developing and implementing major national se-
curity space policy and strategy initiatives. Professor Hays currently teaches graduate
seminars at George Washington University, serves as the Space Chair at Marine Corps
 Editors and Contributors xi

University (MCU), and teaches seminars at the MCU School of Advanced Warfighting.
He previously taught at the Air Force Academy, Air Force School of Advanced Airpower
Studies, and National Defense University. Hays holds a Ph.D. from the Fletcher School and
was an Honor Graduate of the Air Force Academy. Major publications include: Handbook
of Space Security, Space and Security, and Toward a Theory of Spacepower (hayspl@gwu.
edu).

Theresa Hitchens is a Senior Research Associate at the Center for International and
Security Studies at the University of Maryland (CISSM), where she focuses on space
security, cyber security, and governance issues surrounding disruptive technologies.
Prior to joining CISSM, Hitchens was the director of the United Nations Institute for
Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) in Geneva, and before that she was the Director at the
Center for Defense Information, where she headed the center’s Space Security Project. She
was also previously Research Director of the Washington affiliate of the British American
Security Information Council (BASIC), where she managed the organization’s program of
research and advocacy in nuclear and conventional arms control, European security and
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) affairs. She has several publications on space
security and holds a Bachelor of Science in journalism from Ohio University in Athens,
Ohio (theresa.hitchens0@gmail.com).

Joan Johnson-​Freese is a Professor and former Chair in the National Security Affairs
Department at the Naval War College (NWC), where she also holds the Charles
F. Bolden, Jr. Chair of Science, Space & Technology. In the capacity of a faculty member
she teaches Security Studies and Regional Security to US military officers and secu-
rity practitioners from the United States and over 50 other countries. Her research
focuses on space security, Professional Military Education (PME) and Women, Peace
& Security. She is the author of seven books on space security, the most recent (2016)
Space Warfare in the 21st Century: Arming the Heavens, and over 100 published arti-
cles, many with a particular focus on the Chinese space program. She was a member
of the Space Studies Board of the National Academies of Science from 2005–​2013,
has testified before Congress on space topics on multiple occasions, and regularly
works with the media on space issues, including: The New York Times, Time, Popular
Science, Popular Mechanics, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and The Discovery Channel
(joanjohnsonfreese@gmail.com).

Icho Kealotswe-Matlou is an independent legal and policy expert in space law. An

admitted Advocate of the High Courts of South Africa and Botswana. She is a member
of the Johannesburg Bar Council and the Botswana Law Society. Icho researches, writes
and speaks frequently at academic and professional conferences. She is currently a nomi-
nated member of the Policy and Legal Committee of the South African Council for Space
Affairs (SACSA). She recently served as co-​drafter and reviewer of the book Global Space
Governance: An International Study, released in 2018 by Springer. Icho is also a member
of the International Institute of Space Law (IISL) and presides yearly over the Manfred
Lachs Space Law Moot Court Competitions (African Region) since 2015 (ichomatlou@
gmail.com).
xii Editors and Contributors

Paul Meyer is a Senior Fellow in Space Security at The Simons Foundation Canada as well
as Adjunct Professor of International Studies at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver.
A former career diplomat with Canada’s Foreign Service he served as Ambassador and
Permanent Representative to the United Nations and Conference on Disarmament
in Geneva (2003-​07) and as Director-​General of the Security and Intelligence Bureau
of the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs until his retirement in 2010. He serves
on the Governance Group for “Space Security Index” an annual publication covering
developments in outer space relevant to space security (pmeyer@sfu.ca).

Jana Robinson is currently Space Security Program Director at the Prague Security
Studies Institute (PSSI). She previously served as a Space Policy Officer at the European
External Action Service (EEAS) in Brussels, as well as Space Security Advisor to Czech
Foreign Ministry. From 2009 to 2013, she worked at the European Space Policy Institute
(ESPI), seconded from the European Space Agency (ESA). Dr. Robinson is a member
of the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA), the International Institute of Space
Law (IISL), and the Advisory Board of CSIS Missile Defense Project. Author of over
30 publications, including co-​editor of 2015 Handbook of Space Security published by
Springer (çjrobinson@pssi.cz).

Kenneth Smith is a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Air Force, and the Materiel
Leader and Program Manager for the Enhanced Polar System satellite acquisition program
at the Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles Air Force Base, California. Prior
to his current assignment, Lt. Col. Smith attended the College of Naval Command and
Staff, Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island where he earned a Master of Arts degree
in Defense and Strategic Studies as well as a graduate certificate in Ethics and Emerging
Military Technology. He earned an MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Management
prior to serving as an Assistant Professor for Marketing Analysis in the Department of
Management at the U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colorado. Lt. Col. Smith
has satellite operations experience with the 4th Space Operations Squadron, Schriever
AFB, Colorado, and has satellite acquisition experience with the Space Based Infrared
System, Overhead Persistent Infrared programs, and military satellite communications
special projects at the Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles Air Force Base,
California (kenny.smith45@gmail.com).

Dale Stephens is a Professor of Law at the University of Adelaide Law School. He is a

former Naval Legal Officer. His operational deployments include East Timor and Iraq. He
has been awarded the Conspicuous Service Medal (CSM), the (US) Bronze Star and the
(US) Meritorious Service Medal. He attained the rank of Captain in the Royal Australian
Navy before transferring to the Reserve in 2013. Professor Stephens holds both a Masters
degree (LL.M) and Doctorate (SJD) from Harvard Law School. He is currently Director
of the Adelaide Research Unit on Military Law and Ethics and Head of the SA/​NT Navy
Legal Panel. He is a fellow of the Australian Academy of Law (dale.stephens@adelaide.
edu.au)
 Editors and Contributors xiii

Matthew Stubbs is Associate Professor and Deputy Dean of the University of Adelaide
Law School and Editor in Chief of the Adelaide Law Review. Matthew is a member of the
International Institute of Space Law, and serves as a Core Expert of the Woomera Manual
on the International Law of Military Space Operations. His professional activities include
being Chair of the Space Law and Human Rights Committees of the Law Society of South
Australia and member of the National Human Rights Committee of the Law Council of
Australia. Matthew is privileged to serve as a Legal Officer in the Royal Australian Naval
Reserve (matthew.stubbs@adelaide.edu.au).

Jinyuan Su is Professor and Assistant Dean at Xi’an Jiaotong University School of Law,
China. His research interests lie in outer space law, the law of the sea, and international
aviation law. Dr. Su holds a PhD in International Law from Xi’an Jiaotong University. He
was an Erin J.C. Arsenault Fellow (2014–​2015) at the McGill Institute of Air and Space
Law, a visiting research fellow (2009–​2010) at the Lauterpacht Centre for International
Law, University of Cambridge, and a visiting scholar (2008–​2009) at School of Law, King’s
College London. Dr. Su is a member of Governance Group of the Space Security Index
(SSI), a lead drafter for the McGill project of Global Space Governance (GSG), a core ex-
pert in the project of Manual of International Law Applicable to Military Uses of Outer
Space (MILAMOS), and a member (2016–​2018) of the Global Future Council on Space
Technologies of the World Economic Forum (WEF).
 Introduction
Why Space Law Matters in War and Peace
Matthew Hersch and Cassandra Steer

For the last three-​quarters of a century, humanity has been a spacefaring civiliza-
tion, capable of building machines and sending them on voyages beyond Earth’s
atmosphere for good or ill. The individuals who built the first vehicles that could
travel into space—​liquid-​fuel bipropellant rockets—​were motivated both by a
desire to explore and by an equally urgent desire to use the environment of space
to wage war. Efforts to use space technology and the space environment to attack
and to defend against attack have been present from the earliest experiments in
spaceflight, yet spacefaring nations have traditionally approached the subject of
warfare in space with judicious concern. A theater of battle unlike any other, the
space environment, especially in Earth orbit, imposes demands on combatants
and risks to combatants and noncombatants alike, that challenge diplomats,
policymakers, and military leaders in profound ways.
This volume examines the legal, policy, and ethical issues animating current
concerns regarding the growing weaponization of outer space and the poten-
tial for a space-​based conflict in the very near future. A collection of diverse
voices rather than the product of a single scholarly mind, it builds upon a con-
ference that was held in Philadelphia in April 2018, hosted by the Center for
Ethics and the Rule of Law, at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and
designed by co-​editor Cassandra Steer. The conference was an exceptionally
high-​level invitation-​only roundtable for the duration of two days, attended
by approximately thirty experts on space warfare from Canada, Europe, and
the United States. The majority of the contributing authors in this volume
attended the conference, among them academics, military lawyers, military
space operators, aerospace industry representatives, diplomats, and national
security and policy experts. This was a unique gathering of international and
interdisciplinary expertise on a topic that is often only discussed in the con-
text of specific government departments, or within the limits of specific discip-
lines. Participants were unanimous that they benefited from the exchange of
perspectives and knowledge, and we hope to have captured this in the volume
before you. Authors who attended the conference have made direct use of

Matthew Hersch and Cassandra Steer, Introduction In: War and Peace in Outer Space. Edited
by: Cassandra Steer and Matthew Hersch, Oxford University Press (2021). © Oxford University Press.
DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197548684.003.0001
2 War and Peace in Outer Space

the outcomes from discussions during the conference for the content of their
chapters. Those authors who were not in attendance were briefed on the inten-
tion and outcome of the conference and were invited to contribute because of
their unique perspectives and expertise.

The History of War in Space

Like the history of space exploration itself, the history of space warfare is one
in which decades of theorizing as to the possibilities and challenges it would
present preceded the development of the machines necessary to undertake
it. Long before space vehicles flew, science fiction authors conjured scenes
of violent space battles, but it was the geopolitical competition during and
after World War II that spurred the development of the first rockets and space
vehicles.
Despite the promises made by inventors, early rocket weapons seldom lived up
to the most optimistic projections of their utility. Rocket bombardment weapons
were already commonplace in Asia by 1000 ce and became part of the arsenal of
many Western powers by the nineteenth century, but remained difficult to use,
due primarily to the lack of any means of guiding them to their targets during
their flight and the meager power of their solid propellants (the same combina-
tion of charcoal, sulfur, and potassium nitrate that powered early firearms). Such
vehicles could not generate the thrust to enable humans to successfully navigate
space or wage war through it, but their insufficiency did not prevent scientists
and popular writers from hypothesizing about the role they still might play in fu-
ture conflicts. At the turn of the twentieth century, theoretical and experimental
work on liquid-​fuel rocketry presented researchers with an even more powerful
technology: one that might produce rockets with the thrust to send weapons and
people into space.
One of the central ironies of the development of space technology is that many
of the researchers most enthusiastic about peaceful exploration of the cosmos
labored throughout their lives to enlist military organizations in their efforts to
create it. Enthused by the science fiction novels of Jules Verne and other writers,
rocket theorists during the first half of the twentieth century planned the con-
struction of spacefaring vehicles based upon rocket technology while offering
rocket weapons to national military organizations, virtually the only entities
wealthy enough to support such research. During the late 1930s and early 1940s,
Robert Goddard and Frank Malina in the United States, Herman Oberth and
Wernher von Braun in Germany, and Sergei Korolev in the Soviet Union the-
orized about the civilian space exploration while attempting to raise funds for
these expeditions by offering their nations weapons systems employing the
 Introduction 3

same components: rockets, guidance systems, and radio control.1 In most cases,
they were unsuccessful: as weapons of war, rockets were fanciful technologies
that had only limited use through World War II, modestly useful in particular
circumstances but never the war-​winning technologies their designers had
hoped them to be.
The most influential peddler of rocket weapons, von Braun, succeeded in
fielding several liquid-​fueled military devices employing rocket motors, the
most famous of which, the Aggregate-​4 (A4, later Vengeance Weapon Two, or
V2), could lob a ton of high-​explosive two hundred miles with poor accuracy.2
A ballistic missile, it accelerated briefly at launch, coasting in an arc to the edge of
space before striking its target, and relying upon gravity alone to guide it during
its descent. Built by slave labor and launched by the thousands, the missiles likely
hastened Nazi Germany’s defeat, soaking up resources and fuel badly needed
to sustain Germany’s war machine and causing little damage to Allied forces or
targets of strategic importance.3 The advent of nuclear weapons at the time of the
V2’s development, though, offered a glimmer of a new weapon that would com-
bine the V2’s range with the city-​destroying power of the atomic bomb, making
long-​distance rocket bombardment and flight into space a potentially central el-
ement in future defense planning, though building a nuclear-​armed rocket ca-
pable of long-​range flight would take another ten years.
Ballistic rocket weapons like the V2 could fly high enough to briefly exit
Earth’s atmosphere4 but could never achieve the speed necessary to fly across a
continent or an ocean. So great was the velocity needed that a rocket achieving
it could not only strike other countries halfway around the world but could, if it
climbed high enough, accelerate its payload with sufficient speed to place it into
orbit, perpetually falling around the curvature of the Earth’s surface without the
need for further propulsion. As early as 1946, American defense planners rec-
ognized that the race to build nuclear missiles and the race to orbit a spacecraft
were essentially the same, although it was not clear, at first, which application of
rocket technology held more military promise. Nuclear weapons appeared, at
first, too heavy to lift by rocket, while, in the absence of reliable long-​range radio
communications, orbiting platforms seemed to offer limited military utility.5

1 See generally Michael J. Neufeld, Spaceflight: A Concise History (2018); Roger D.

Launius, NASA: A History of the U.S. Civil Space Program (1994).

2 See generally Michael J. Neufeld, Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War (2007).
3 Id.
4 The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale recognizes the altitude of 100 km (62 miles) as the

effective outer boundary of Earth’s atmosphere, though other calculations have placed this line closer
to 50 miles, and significant atmospheric traces remain beyond the 62-​mile limit.
5 J.E. Lipp, R.M. Salter Jr., & R.S. Wehner, Utility of a Satellite Vehicle for

Reconnaissance 1 (1951).
4 War and Peace in Outer Space

Fueled by postwar superpower competition in the early years of the Cold

War, research in the United States and the Soviet Union (soon followed by an
array of other nations) set to work on solving these problems and building
missiles suitable for both lobbing nuclear warheads across oceans and launching
instrumented platforms into orbit around the Earth. Researchers increased the
speed and range of rockets, in part, by stacking them atop or alongside each
other and firing them in series. Some rocket pioneers, like Goddard, did not live
long enough to see spacefaring rockets emerge; others, like Malina, abandoned
military rocket research after World War II for moral reasons. (“I just hated the
idea of, say, planning to use all this for bombarding people. So there’s no doubt
that that played a heavy role,” Malina noted of his rocket research in a 1980 in-
terview.)6 Korolev, in the Soviet Union, found himself the subject of political de-
nunciation imprisonment during the war, only to be rehabilitated when his skills
became valuable in the postwar quest to field large rocket weapons. Immediately
preceding the Soviet Union’s successful launch of the first artificial Earth satellite,
Sputnik 1, on October 4, 1957, the Soviets undertook a partially successful test of
Sputnik’s launch vehicle, Korolev’s R.7, configured as an intercontinental ballistic
missile (ICBM).7 American Atlas ICBM launches followed in 1958.8
With the subsequent successful launching of orbiting satellites of ever-​
increasing sophistication, attention in both the United States and the Soviet
Union shifted from conceptualizing rockets principally as a bombardment tech-
nology, to recognizing their ability to launch valuable instrumented platforms
into orbit. With the advent, by the 1960s, of both nuclear-​armed missiles with
intercontinental reach, and an array of orbiting, remotely controlled satellites
eventually able to observe enemy territory, predict weather, and facilitate com-
munications among terrestrial military forces, the space environment had be-
come a potential battleground itself, filled with expensive military assets whose
loss could cripple a nation’s offensive and defense capabilities. In the United
States, politicians and the media seized upon the notion of the “high ground” of
space, likening it as Senator (and future President) Lyndon Johnson did, in 1958,
to a highway overpass, from which nations might observe their enemies, coor-
dinate their forces, and, supposedly, lob nuclear weapons upon adversaries as
easily as children might hurl stones onto passing cars:

6 Frank J. Malina, Interview with Frank J. Malina (1980), 14, <http://​resolver.caltech.edu/​

CaltechOH:OH_​Malina_​F> (accessed Oct. 23, 2017).

7 Asif A. Siddiqi, Challenge to Apollo: The Soviet Union and the Space Race, 1945–​

1974 (National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA History Division, Office of Policy and
Plans, 2000).
8 E.g., United States Aeronautics and Space Activities Annual Report to Congress (NASA Original

Version), published as House Document Number 71, 86th Congress, 1st Session, Feb. 2, 1959, 13.
 Introduction 5

There is something more important than any ultimate weapon. That is the ul-
timate position—​the position of total control over Earth that lies somewhere
out in space. That is . . . the distant future, though not so distant as we may have
thought. Whoever gains that ultimate position gains control, total control, over
the Earth, for the purposes of tyranny or for the service of freedom.9

Comparisons between the space environment and other battle environ-

ments were, however, always strained, none more so than the “highway over-
pass” analogy. Space vehicles required inordinate amounts of rocket propellant
to achieve a stable orbit, and once they did, virtually the same amount of fuel to
change it, making such concepts as space fighter plane or space bomber almost
nonsensical with current propulsion technology. Nor was space an optimal bom-
bardment platform. Warheads released from orbit would not descend to Earth
but continue in their orbital path. To return to the surface, a warhead would need
to be decelerated by a rocket and descend low enough to pass through Earth’s
atmosphere at high speed, a process that would not occur quickly and could
not be performed with sufficient accuracy to ensure the warhead struck when
and where it was supposed to. As will be discussed in full detail in c­ hapter 2
[Hitchens] and ­chapter 7 [Su], the 1967 UN Outer Peace Treaty banned the
placement of space-​based weapons of mass destruction in Earth’s orbit and on
the moon, a relatively easy concession to make for technology of limited military
utility. The use of Earth orbit (or in an even more odd contemporaneous plan,
the moon) as a platform to launch nuclear weapons never materialized for prac-
tical reasons, but over time, the value of military satellites to peacetime and war-
time military operations has led to concerns for a potential space warfare, since it
was already apparent that these satellites would be likely targets for future attack
from the ground, air, or space environment.
The capacity to destroy both ICBMs and satellites in orbit arrived early in the
first Space Age but found no operational use for reasons both technical and polit-
ical. Ballistic missiles and orbiting satellites follow predictable paths easily iden-
tified by radar and already plotted by early computers. In space, nuclear weapons
would produce neutron and X-​ray radiation that would destroy electronics and
shatter the fragile structure of early warheads. Launched quickly enough and
pointed in the right direction, one missile could easily destroy another, by det-
onating a nuclear weapon close enough to it to damage or detonate the warhead
of the target missile. Satellites, too, could be disabled in this way: the intercepting
vehicle would not need to match the satellite’s speed, only place itself close

9 “Speech to Democratic Congressional Conference, January 7, 1958,” reproduced in Lloyd C.

Gardner, From the Colorado to the Mekong, in Vietnam: The Early Decisions 37–​57, 50 (Lloyd C.
Gardner & Ted Gittinger eds., 1997).
Another random document with
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Influence of the
Just as the moral enthusiasm awakened by the
monastic ideal gave a special character and trend to
ideal of chivalry
upon the historymuch of the history of the age of its ascendancy,—
of the epoch
inspiring or helping to inspire the missionary
propaganda among the barbarian tribes of Europe, giving birth to a
special literature (the Lives of the Saints), and fostering the spirit of
benevolence and self-renunciation,—so did the unmeasured
enthusiasm created by the chivalric ideal give a distinctive character
to much of the history of the age of its predominance—lending a
romantic cast to the Crusades, creating a new form of literature, and
giving a more assured place in the growing European ideal of
character to several attractive traits and virtues. Respecting each of
these matters we shall offer some observations in the immediately
following pages, and then shall proceed to speak briefly of some
reform movements which belong to the general moral history of the
epoch under review.

Chivalry and the The Crusades of the eleventh and twelfth centuries
Crusades
against the Moslems of the East, in so far as those
enterprises were inspired by moral feeling,—and religious-ethical
feeling was the chief motive force behind them,—were largely the
translation into action of the ideal of chivalry now commended and
consecrated by the Church. The oath of the Knights of Malta, who
were a perfect incarnation of the spirit of chivalry, was “to make
eternal war upon the Turks; to recognize no cessation of hostilities
with the infidel, on any pretext whatsoever.”
It is an amazing change that, in the course of a few generations,
has come over the ethical spirit and temper of the peoples of
Christendom. In the earlier medieval time the best conscience of the
age was embodied in the monk-saints Augustine, Columba, Winfrid,
and a great company of other unarmed missionary apostles to the
pagan Celts and Germans; in this later time the best conscience of
the age is incarnated in the armor-clad warriors Godfrey of Bouillon,
Raymond, Bohemond, Tancred, and a multitude of other knightly
leaders of the hosts of Crusaders who go forth to redeem with blood
and slaughter the tomb of their martyred Lord.
 No element of civilization responds more quickly to
Romance the changing ethical ideal of a people than its
literature as an literature. The change that passed over the popular
expression of
the ethical spirit
literature of Christendom in the transition of Europe
of the age from the age of asceticism to the age of chivalry is
finely summarized by Lecky in these words: “When
the popular imagination [in the earlier age] embodied in legends its
conception of humanity in its noblest and most attractive form, it
instinctively painted some hermit-saint of many penances and many
miracles.... In the romances of Charlemagne and Arthur we may
trace the dawning of a new type of greatness. The hero of the
683
imagination of Europe is no longer the hermit but a knight.”
An interesting monument of this new species of literature, in what
684
we may view as a transition stage, is the Gesta Romanorum, a
collection of moral stories invented by the monks in their idle hours.
These tales are a curious mixture of things Roman, monastic, and
knightly.
But for a true expression of this romance literature we must turn
to the legends of the Holy Grail, in which a lofty imagination blends,
in so far as they can be blended, all the varied elements of the
knightly ideal in a consistent whole. No age save the age of Christian
knighthood could have produced this wonderful cycle of tales.

Contribution of But it is neither in the crusading enterprises nor in

chivalry to the
moral heritage
the literary products of the age of chivalry that we are
to look for the real historical significance of the ideal of
of the Christian
world chivalry. Its chief import for the moral evolution of the
European nations lies in the fact that it helped to give fuller and
richer content to the Christian ideal by contributing to it, or by giving
a surer place in it, certain nontheological virtues, some of which the
Church had laid little emphasis upon or had entirely neglected.
Thus the enthusiasm for the ideal of chivalry, like the Church’s
685
veneration of the Holy Virgin, tended to elevate and refine the
ideal of woman, and thus to counteract certain tendencies of the
ascetic ideal. It helped to give a high valuation to the moral qualities
of loyalty, truthfulness, magnanimity, self-reliance, and courtesy. We
designate these attractive traits of character as chivalrous virtues for
the reason that we recognize that knighthood made precious
contributions to these elements of the moral inheritance which the
modern received from the medieval world.

Restrictions on Very closely connected ethically and historically

the right of
private war: the
with chivalry is the movement during the later
Truce of God medieval time for the abolition of the right of private
686
war. In the tenth century, as feudalism developed
and the military spirit of knighthood came more and more to
dominate society, the right of waging war, with which privilege every
feudal lord of high rank was invested, resulted in a state of
intolerable anarchy in all those lands where the feudal system had
become established. Respecting this right, claimed and exercised by
the feudal prince, of waging war against any and every other
chieftain, even though this one were a member of the same state as
that to which he himself belonged, there was in these medieval
centuries precisely the same moral feeling, or rather lack of moral
feeling, that exists to-day in regard to the right claimed and exercised
by the different independent nations of waging war against one
another.
As a result of this practice of private war, Europe reverted to a
condition of primitive barbarism. Every land was filled with fightings
and violence. “Every hill,” as one pictures it, “was a stronghold, every
plain a battlefield. The trader was robbed on the highway, the
peasant was killed at his plow, the priest was slain at the altar.
Neighbor fought against neighbor, baron against baron, city against
city.”
In the midst of this universal anarchy the Church lifted a
protesting voice. Toward the end of the tenth century there was
started in France a movement which aimed at the complete abolition
of private war. The Church aspired to do what had been done by
pagan Rome. It proclaimed what was called the Peace of God. It
commanded all men everywhere to refrain from fighting and robbery
and violence of every kind as contrary to the spirit and teachings of
Christianity.
But it was found utterly impossible to make the great feudal
barons refrain from fighting one another even though they were
threatened with the eternal torments of hell. They were just as
unwilling to surrender this highly prized privilege and right of waging
private war as the nations of to-day are to surrender their prized
privilege and right to wage public war.
Then the leaders of the clergy of France, seeing that they could
not suppress the evil entirely, resolved to attempt to regulate it. This
led to the proclamation of what was called the Truce of God. The first
687
certain trace of this movement dates from the year 1041. In that
year the abbot of the monastery of Cluny and the other French
abbots and bishops issued an edict commanding all men to maintain
a holy and unbroken peace during four days of every week, from
688
Wednesday evening till Monday morning. Every man was
required to take an oath to observe this Truce of God. The oath was
renewed every three years, and was administered to boys on their
reaching their twelfth year.
This movement to redeem at least a part of the days from fighting
and violence came gradually to embrace all the countries of Western
Europe. The details of the various edicts issued by Church councils
and popes vary greatly, but all embody the principle of the edict of
1041. Holydays, and especially consecrated periods, as Easter time
and Christmas week, came to be covered by the Truce. The Council
of Clermont, which inaugurated the First Crusade, extended greatly
the terms of the Truce, forbidding absolutely private wars while the
Crusade lasted, and placing under the ægis of the Church the
person and property of every crusader.
The Truce of God was never well observed, yet it did something
during the eleventh and twelfth centuries to mitigate the evils of
private war and to render life more secure and tolerable. After the
twelfth century the kings of Europe, who were now strengthening
their authority and consolidating their dominions, took the place of
the Church in maintaining peace among their feudal vassals. They
came to regard themselves as responsible for the “peace of the
land,” which phrase now superseded those of the “Peace of God”
and the “Truce of God.” Thus the movement to which moral forces
had given the first impulse was carried to its consummation by
political motives. To the Church, however, history will ever accord the
honor of having begun this great reform which enforced peace upon
the members of the same state, and which has made private wars in
civilized lands a thing of the past.
The abolition of private warfare was the first decisive step marking
the advance of Europe toward universal peace. Public war, that is,
war between nations, is still an established and approved institution
of international law; but in the moral evolution of humanity a time
approaches when public war shall also, like private war, be placed
under the ban of civilization, and will have passed upon it by the
truer conscience of that better age the same judgment that the
conscience of to-day pronounces on that private warfare upon which
the Truce of God laid the first arresting hand.

Progress in the Although the Church has done little in a direct way
ethics of war:
to abolish public war, or even directly to create in
sale into slavery
of Christian society at large a new conscience in regard to the
captives wickedness of war in itself as an established method
condemned
of settling international differences, its influence has
been felt from early Christian times in the alleviation of its barbarities
and cruelties. One of the first ameliorations in the rules of war
effected through Christian influence concerned the treatment of war
captives.
Among the ancient Greeks, as we have seen, under the influence
of the sentiment of Panhellenism, there was developed a vague
feeling that Greeks should not enslave Greeks. But aside from this
Panhellenic sentiment, which had very little influence upon actual
practice, there was in the pre-Christian period seemingly little or no
moral feeling on the subject, and the custom of reducing prisoners of
war to slavery was practically universal.
 But the custom, in so far as it concerned Christian prisoners, was
condemned by the Christian conscience as incompatible with the
spirit of Christianity, and the rule was established that such captives
689
should not be enslaved. We observe the first clear workings of
this new war conscience in Britain after the conversion of the Saxon
invaders. The Celts of Britain were Christians, and the Saxons, after
they themselves had been won over to Christianity, ceased to sell
into slavery their Celtic captives. Gradually this new rule was
adopted by all Christian nations. No other advance of equal
importance marks the moral history of public war during the medieval
period.
This humane rule, however, did not, as we have intimated,
embrace non-Christians. Our word “slave” bears witness to this fact.
This term came to designate a person in servitude from the
circumstance that up to the eleventh century, which saw the
evangelization of Russia, the slave class in Europe was made up
largely of Slavs, who, as pagans, were without scruple reduced to
slavery by their Christian captors.
But the earlier rights which the immemorial laws of war conferred
upon the captor were not wholly annulled in the case of Christian
captives. The practice of holding for ransom took the place of sale
into slavery. This custom prevailed throughout the feudal period, but
gradually during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries this
practice finally yielded to the more humanitarian custom of exchange
690
of prisoners. Thus in this department of ethics there is to be
traced a gradual humanization of the code, which, beginning in
savagery with gross cannibalism and torture, advances through
killing in cold blood, sale into slavery, and holding for ransom, to
equal exchange.

Morality in the During the age of chivalry the ideal of the knight
monasteries:
moral
overshadowed the ideal of the monk. Nevertheless
significance of throughout the whole period the monastic ideal
the rise of the inspired a great deal of moral enthusiasm. The
Mendicant
Orders founding and endowment of monasteries divided with
the equipping of knightly expeditions for the Crusades the zeal and
efforts and sacrifices of the European peoples.
In the old orders of monks, however, zeal for the ascetic ideal
would often grow cold, and the high moral standard of the earlier
time would be lowered. Then some select soul, set aflame by a fresh
vision of the ideal, would draw together a group of devoted followers,
and thus would come into existence a new order of monks, among
whom the flame of a holy enthusiasm would burn brightly for a
691
time.
Among the numerous new orders called into existence by these
reform movements there were two which, in the ideal of duty which
they followed, stand quite apart from the ordinary monastic orders.
692
This new ideal had its incarnation in St. Francis and St. Dominic,
the founders respectively of the Franciscan and the Dominican order
of friars.
In this new conception of what constitutes the worthiest and most
meritorious life, the quietistic virtues of the earlier ascetic ideal,
which had developed during the period of terror and suffering which
followed the subversion of classical civilization by the northern
barbarians, gave place to the active, benevolent virtues. In the
earlier monastic movement there was a self-regarding element. The
monk fled from the world in order to make sure of his own salvation.
The world was left to care for itself. In the new orders, the brother, in
imitation of the Master who went about among men teaching and
healing, left the cloister and went out into the world to rescue and
save others. In its lofty call to absolute self-forgetfulness and
complete consecration to the service of humanity, the early ideal of
the Mendicants was one of the noblest and most attractive that had
grown up under Christian influence. The loftiness of the ideal
attracted the select spirits of the age—for noble souls love self-
sacrifice. “Whenever in the thirteenth century,” says the historian
Lea, “we find a man towering above his fellows, we are almost sure
693
to trace him to one of the Mendicant Orders.”
 It is in the exaltation of this virtue of self-renunciation that we find
one of the chief services rendered by the Mendicant Orders,
especially by the Franciscan, to European morality. Just as the early
monks, through the emphasis laid on the virtue of chastity, made a
needed protest against the sensuality of a senile and decadent
civilization, so did the friars, through the stress laid on the virtue of
self-denial for others, make a needed protest against the selfishness
and hardness of an age that seemed to have forgotten the claims of
694
the poor and the lowly. It can hardly be made a matter of
reasonable doubt that the slowly growing fund of altruistic feeling in
Christendom was greatly enriched by the self-devoted lives and
labors of the followers of Saints Francis and Dominic.
But the value of the ideal of the friars as an ethical force in the
evolution of European civilization was seriously impaired by certain
theological elements it contained. It was an ideal in which, as in the
ordinary monastic ideal, the duty of correct opinion came to be
exalted above all others. The ethics of belief took precedence of the
ethics of service. Thus the friars, particularly the Dominicans,
through their zeal for orthodoxy, fostered the grave moral fault of
intolerance. The growth of this conception of Christian duty,
concurring with other causes of which we shall speak in the next
chapter, ushered in the age of the Inquisition.

The ethics of The ethical history of the friars or the preaching

Scholasticism
orders mingles with the ethical history of
Scholasticism. The ethics of the Schoolmen was a syncretism of two
moral systems, the pagan-classical or Aristotelian and the Christian.
With the four classical virtues of wisdom, prudence, temperance, and
justice were combined the three Christian virtues of faith, hope, and
love. But these two moral types, the classical and the theological,
each being taken in its entirety, were mutually inconsistent ideals of
virtue. The pagan code was a morality based on the autonomy of the
individual reason; the Church code was based on an external
authority. The one was inner and natural, the other outer and
supernatural. The scholastic system was thus an incongruous
combination of naturalism and supernaturalism in ethics, of native
virtues and “virtues of grace.” This dualism is the essential fact in the
history of the ethics of Scholasticism.
As it was the great effort of the Schoolmen in the domain of
dogma to justify the doctrines of the Church, to show their
reasonableness and consistency, so was it their great effort in the
domain of ethics to justify the Church’s composite moral ideal, to
show all its duties and virtues to form a reasonable and consistent
system. The best representative of this effort of reconciliation was
the great Schoolman Thomas Aquinas. But a perfect fusion of the
diverse elements was impossible. There were ever striving in the
system two spirits—the spirit of Greek naturalism and the spirit of
Hebrew-Christian supernaturalism.
But there was another line of cleavage in the system which was
still more fateful in its historical consequences than the cleavage
between the Aristotelian and the Church morality. This cleavage was
created by the twofold ethics of the Church, for the ecclesiastical
morality, considered apart from the Aristotelian element, was itself
made up of two mutually inconsistent ethics, namely, Gospel ethics
695
and Augustinian ethics. The saving virtue of the first was loving,
self-abnegating service; the saving virtue of the second was faith,
which was practically defined as “the acceptance as true of the
dogma of the Trinity and the main articles of the creed.” Such was
the emphasis laid by certain of the Schoolmen upon the
metaphysical side of this dual system that there was in their ethics
more of the mind of Augustine than of the mind of Christ. This
making of an external authority the basis of morality, this
emphasizing of the theological virtues, especially the virtue of right
belief, had two results of incalculable consequences for the moral
evolution in Christendom. First, it led naturally and inevitably to that
696
system of casuistry which was one of the most striking
phenomena of the moral history of the later medieval and earlier
modern centuries; and second, it laid the basis of the tribunal of the
Inquisition. Thus does the theological ethics of Scholasticism stand
in intimate and significant relation to these two important matters in
the moral history of Europe.
 CHAPTER XVI
RENAISSANCE ETHICS: REVIVAL OF
NATURALISM IN MORALS

I. Determining Influences

The Toward the close of the medieval ages came that

Renaissance: important movement in European society known as
the new
intellectual lifethe Renaissance, a main feature of which was the
restoration of classical culture. Since the incoming of
the northern barbarians with their racial traits and martial moral code
there had been no such modifying force brought to bear upon the
moral evolution of the European peoples, nor was there to appear a
greater till the rise of modern evolutionary science.
The Renaissance exerted its transforming influence on the moral
life of the West chiefly through the new intellectual life it awakened
by bringing the European mind in vital contact with the culture of the
ancient world; for intellectual progress means normally moral
progress. Hence as the Renaissance meant a new birth of the
European intellect, so did it mean also a new birth of the European
conscience. Just as the conscience of the medieval age had its
genesis in the new religion which superseded the paganism of the
ancient world, so did the common conscience of to-day have its
genesis in the new science, the new culture, which in the
Renaissance superseded medieval ideas and theological modes of
thought. A chief part of our remaining task will be to make plain how
the new intellectual life born in the revival of the fifteenth century,
and expressing itself since in every department of human life,
thought, and activity, has reacted upon the moral feelings and
judgments of men and taught them to seek the ultimate sanctions of
a true morality in the deep universal intuitions of the human heart
and conscience.

The decay of Running parallel throughout the later medieval time

feudalism and
the rise of
with the classical revival, whose significance was so
monarchy: court great for European morality, there was going on a
life political and social revolution which exerted an
influence on the ethical evolution only less potent and far-reaching
than that of the intellectual movement. During this period the petty
feudal states in the different countries of Europe were being
gathered up into larger political units. The principle of monarchy was
everywhere triumphing over that of feudalism. The multitude of
feudal castles, in which had been cradled the knightly ideal of
manhood, were replaced by the palaces and courts of rich princes
and powerful kings. This meant a great change in the social and
political environment of the higher classes.
In the first place, in these later courts there was a brilliancy of life,
a culture and a refinement rarely found in the earlier feudal castles.
In the next place, the relation which every member of the court
sustained to the prince or sovereign was fundamentally different
from that which the vassal had sustained to his lord under the feudal
régime. This relation, it is true, was still a personal one; but
independence was gone, and with this were gone the pride and self-
sufficiency which it engendered. In these princely courts the knight
became a courtier.
The effect of these changes in surroundings and relationships
upon the standard of conduct was profound, as we shall see when, a
little farther on, we come to inquire what were the ethical feelings
and judgments awakened in this new environment.

The growth of Three institutions—the monastery, the castle, and

the towns: the
workshop and
the town—dominated successively the life of the
the market as Middle Ages. Each developed a distinct ethical ideal.
molders of The monastery cradled the conscience of the monk;
morals
the castle, the conscience of the knight; and the town,
the conscience of the burgher.
What particular virtues were approved by the moral sense of the
town dweller we shall note a little farther on. We here merely
observe that in the atmosphere of the town, in the relationships of
the workshop and the market, were nourished the lowly lay virtues of
the artisan and the trader, virtues which, though disesteemed by
classical antiquity, regarded as of subordinate worth by the monk,
and held in positive contempt by the knight, were yet to constitute
the heart and core of the ethical ideal of the modern world.

II. Some Essential Facts in the Moral

History of the Age

Revival of the When Christianity entered the Greco-Roman world

classical with its new moral ideal, the old classical ideal of
conception of
life: the new character, as we have seen, was practically
birth of the superseded. There were, it is true, certain elements of
European
conscience
this pagan morality which were consciously or
unconsciously absorbed by Christianity; but the
classical ideal as a whole was rejected, just as the greater part of the
cultural elements of Greco-Roman civilization were cast aside. For a
thousand years Hebrew-Christian conceptions of the world and of life
shaped the thought and conduct of men. Then came the
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Renaissance.
In the study of this movement the attention of the historian has
ordinarily been centered on the literary, artistic, and intellectual
phases of the revival, while the ethical phase has been given but
slight attention or has been dismissed with the facile observation that
the movement induced a revival of pagan immorality. This is true.
But the really significant thing was not the revival of pagan
immorality but the revival of pagan morality. For just as this classical
revival meant a new enthusiasm for the artistic, literary, and cultural
elements of the earlier Greco-Roman civilization, so did it also mean
a new enthusiasm for the Greco-Roman ideal of character. To many
it was no longer the Church ideal but the classical that seemed the
embodiment of what is ethically most noble and worthy. Such
persons gave up the practice of the distinctively Christian theological
virtues, or, if they still outwardly observed the Church code, this was
merely insincere conformity suggested by prudence or policy; the
code of morals which their minds and hearts approved and which
they observed, if they observed any at all, was the code of pagan
antiquity. It is in this secularization of the ethical ideal, in this divorce
of morality from theology, in this announcement of the freedom and
autonomy of the individual spirit, that is to be sought the real
significance of the classical revival of the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries for the moral history of the Western world.
In two ways chiefly did the Renaissance exert its transforming
influence upon European morals: first, by awakening a new
intellectual life, for, as we have had repeatedly shown us, a new
mental life means a new moral life; and second, by the direct
introduction of various elements of Greco-Roman morals into the
Christian ideal of character. Thus at the same time that the cultural
life of Europe was being enlarged and enriched by the incorporation
of those literary and art elements of classical civilization which had
been rejected or underestimated by the Middle Ages, the moral life
of Christendom was being profoundly modified by the incorporation
of those ethical elements which constituted the precious product of
the moral aspirations and achievements of the best generations of
the ancient world. The conscience of those persons in the modern
world who are imbued with the true scientific spirit, that is to say, with
the humanistic spirit of the Renaissance, is quite as largely Greek as
Hebraic. A recent writer reviewing the life of a distinguished
personage (Julia Ward Howe) recognized this mingling in modern
culture of these diverse elements in these words: “She has blended
and lived, as no other eminent American woman, the humanistic and
the Christian ideals of life. She has preached love and self-sacrifice,
and she has loved beauty and self-realization.”
 In the domain of theological morality the history of
Theological the Renaissance affords one of the most painful
morality: the chapters in European history. This chapter has to do
ethics of
persecution
with the establishment of the Inquisition to maintain
uniformity of religious belief.
It is not an accident that this chapter should form an integral part
of the history of the Renaissance. The spread of heresy, which
threatened the unity of the medieval Church, was largely the
outgrowth of the new intellectual life awakened by the revival of
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learning. Hence it was inevitable that the age of the Renaissance
should be also the age of persecution. It is not a recital of the history
of the Holy Office during the period under review which is our
concern in this place, but only a consideration of the motives of
Christian persecution. That intolerance should ever have been
regarded by the followers of the tolerant Nazarene as a virtue and
persecution of misbelievers as a pious duty, challenges the attention
of the historian of morals and incites earnest inquiry into the causes
of such an aberration of the moral sentiment.
It cannot be made a matter of reasonable doubt that one of the
chief causes of Christian intolerance is the theological doctrine that
salvation is dependent upon right belief in religious matters, and that
error in belief, even though honest, is a crime that merits and
699
receives eternal punishment. This dogma leads logically and
700
inevitably to intolerance and persecution; for if wrong belief is a
crime of so heinous a nature as justly to subject the misbeliever to
everlasting and horrible torments, and if the misbeliever is likely to
bring others into the same fatal way of thinking, then it follows that
heresy should be extirpated, just as the germs of a dreaded
contagion are stamped out, by any and every means however
seemingly harsh and cruel. Thus St. Thomas Aquinas and other
theologians logically “argued that if the death penalty could be rightly
inflicted on thieves and forgers, who rob us only of worldly goods,
how much more righteously on those who cheat us out of
supernatural goods—out of faith, the sacraments, the life of the
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soul.”
 It was this theological teaching that heresy is a fault of
unmeasured sinfulness, an “insidious preventable contagion,” which
was the main root that fostered Christian intolerance and
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persecution. The activities of the Holy Office were maintained not
by bad men but by good men. “With such men it was not hope of
gain, or lust of blood, or pride of opinion, or wanton exercise of
power [that moved them], but sense of duty, and they but
represented what was universal public opinion from the thirteenth to
703
the seventeenth century.”
Reflecting on these facts, we readily give assent to the charitable
judgment of the historian Von Holst in commenting on the acts of the
Terrorists in the French Revolution, that “wrongdoing to others lies
not so much in the will as in the understanding.” The greatest crime
704
of history was committed by men who knew not what they did. It
was a theological doctrine which is to-day rejected by the reason and
conscience of a large section of the Church itself, that caused the
loss for centuries of the virtue of toleration, which in the ethical
systems of the classical world had been assigned a prominent place
among the virtues, and which, could it have found a place in the
standard of goodness of the Church, would have saved Christendom
the horrors of the Albigensian crusades, the pious cruelties of the
Inquisition, and the mutual persecutions of Catholics and Protestants
throughout the age of the Reformation.

Political The matter of dominant importance in the sphere of

morality:
Machiavellian
political morality during the Renaissance was the
ethics creation of a code of morals for princes. This was a
system formulated by the Italian philosopher
Machiavelli, who wrote under the secularizing influences of the
classical revival and of the paganized courts of the Italian princes of
705
his time. It was a code which the ruling class, for whom it was
designed, eagerly adopted, for the reason that it harmonized with
their desires, ambitions, and practices, and sanctioned as not only
morally permissible, but even as obligatory and meritorious, policies
and acts which, without such sanction, might have awakened in
some at least inconvenient and hampering scruples of conscience.
This princely ideal, notwithstanding that the conduct of the prince
who acted in accordance with it was generally condoned, was not
one which, like the ascetic or the knightly ideal, awakened moral
enthusiasm. It was a standard of conduct never approved by the
best conscience of Christendom. On the contrary, the work in which
Machiavelli embodied this ideal for princes was, on its first
appearance, fiercely assailed as grossly immoral, and ever since has
called forth the severest condemnation of moralists.
The fundamental principle of Machiavelli’s system is that the
moral code binding on the subject is not binding on the ruler; or
706
rather that ethics has nothing to do with politics. With the prince
the end justifies the means. He is at liberty to lie, defraud, steal, and
kill, in fine, to employ all and every form of deception, injustice,
cruelty, and unrighteousness in dealing with his enemies and with
other princes or states.
This moral standard set for princes by Machiavelli was the
dominant force in international affairs from the middle of the
sixteenth to the middle of the seventeenth century. During this period
it debased the public morals not only of Italy but of every other land
in Christendom. Its vicious principles were acted upon by every court
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of Europe. Even to-day Machiavellism, though condemned in
theory, is still too often followed in practice. It would not be an
exaggeration to say that The Prince has exercised a more baneful
influence over the political morals of Europe than any other book
ever written.
It is instructive to contrast the influence of Machiavellism with that
of Stoicism. Among the good effects of Roman Stoicism was its
ennobling influence upon the imperial government. It gave the
Roman Empire such a succession of high-minded and conscientious
rulers as scarce is shown by the history of any other state ancient or
modern. In contrast to the influence of this noble philosophy which
apotheosized duty and exalted in rulers the virtues of clemency,
truthfulness, magnanimity, and justice, Machiavellism filled, or
contributed to fill, the thrones of Christendom with rulers whose
moral sense was so blunted by its sinister doctrines that for
generations truth speaking, sincerity, regard for the obligations of
treaties, and respect for the rights of sister states were almost
unknown in the diplomacy and mutual dealings of the governments
of Europe. It is only after the lapse of more than three centuries that
Christendom is freeing itself from the evil influence of Machiavelli’s
teachings, and that there has been generated a new public
conscience which recognizes that states like individuals are subjects
of the moral law, and that the code which is binding on individuals is
binding likewise on governments and communities.

The ethical We have already mentioned the ideal of the courtier

value of the
ideal of the
as one of the ethical or semi-ethical products of the
courtier age of the Renaissance. This was a conception of
perfect manhood which was nurtured in the socially
brilliant and refined courts of the Italian princes of this period. It was
a fusion and modification of selected virtues and qualities of the
knight and of the scholar. The Christian theological virtues had no
necessary place in it.
It was the distinctive virtues of the knight, elevated and refined,
which formed the heart and core of the ideal. Like the ideal of
knighthood, the courtly ideal was an aristocratic one; the courtier, like
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the knight, must be “nobly born and of gentle race.” Martial
exploits were accounted to him as virtues; “his principal and true
709
profession ought to be that of arms.” As loyalty to his superior
was a supreme virtue in the knight, so was absolute loyalty to his
prince the pre-eminent virtue of the courtier. Not less prominent was
the place accorded in the ideal to the knightly virtues of courage and
710
courtesy.
But to these qualities and virtues of the knight the courtier must
needs add those of the scholar. The ordinary knight despised
learning and held the virtues of the scholar in contempt. But the ideal
of courtliness grew up in a land where humanistic studies had
become a ruling passion, and in an age when the highest ambition of
many an Italian prince was to be known as a patron of learning. It
was natural that, developing in the atmosphere of these courts, the
new standard of perfect manhood should give a prominent place to
the qualifications and virtues of the scholar.
This ideal of the courtier was never such a moral force in history
as that of the monk or of the knight, but there were in it ethical
elements of positive value to the moral life of the world. It was the
inspiration of many of the finest spirits of the sixteenth and
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seventeenth centuries. Of the noble-minded Sir Philip Sidney a
biographer says, “He conscientiously molded his life on the model of
the perfect courtier of Cortelliani.” Nor has the ideal ever ceased to
appeal to the imagination, or lost its power to soften and refine
manners and ennoble conduct. It inspires gentle consideration for
others of whatsoever estate, incites to unselfish service, and induces
absolute good faith and self-forgetting loyalty to friends and to the
cause espoused, all of which are moral qualities of high value, and
all of which have entered or are entering as permanent elements into
the growing world ideal of perfect manhood.

The ethics of In the medieval town was developed a moral ideal

industry: the
medieval towns
as distinct and individual as that of the monastery or of
the castle. Central in this type of goodness were the
the cradle of the
modern homely virtues of industry, carefulness in
business
conscience workmanship, punctuality, honesty, faithful observance
of engagements, and general fair dealing. To these lay
virtues were added all those which made up the Church ideal for the
ordinary life, for there had not yet been effected that divorce of
business from theology which had been effected in the case of
politics.
The development of this ideal of goodness was a matter of
immense importance for the moral life of the West, because, acted
upon by the practical ethical spirit of Protestantism and other
agencies, it was destined to supersede the ascetic and chivalric
ideals of life, which for more than a thousand years had been the
ruling moral forces in the life of Christendom, for neither of these
ideals of goodness could be more than a partial and passing form of
the moral life. The ascetic ideal, having for its distinctive qualities
such virtues as celibacy, poverty, solitary contemplation, vigils,
fastings, and mortifications of the body, could not possibly become
the standard for all men. It was confessedly a standard of perfection
for the few only.
As to the knightly ideal, this was too exclusively a martial one to
become the supreme rule of life and conduct for the multitude.
Furthermore, it was an aristocratic ideal, an ideal for the noble born
alone. This precluded the possibility of its becoming, as a distinct
type, a permanent force in civilization.
But the ethical type of the towns, embracing those native human
virtues which spring up everywhere out of the usual and universal
relationships of everyday life and occupations, was sure of a
permanent place among the ethical types of the classes and
professions of modern society. In the same sense that the medieval
towns (as the birthplace of the third estate) were the cradle of
modern democracy, were they the cradle of modern business
morality. Just as through the medieval monastery passes the direct
line of descent of the present-day social conscience of
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Christendom, just so through the medieval town passes the direct
line of descent of the present-day business conscience of the
Western world.

Disuse of trial The influence of the spirit generated in the

by wager of
battle
medieval towns is seen in that important reform, the
abolition of the judicial duel, which was one of the
713
most noteworthy matters in the moral history of the Middle Ages.
It was the military spirit of the German barbarians which, as we
have seen, was a chief agency in the introduction of the wager of
battle or trial by combat in the jurisprudence of the European
714
peoples. Besides the influence of the towns, a number of other
causes concurred in gradually effecting the abrogation of this
method of settling disputes, among which the most efficient were the
opposition of the Church, the revival of the Roman law in the
eleventh century, and the advance in general intelligence. Into every
one of these agencies there entered an ethical element, so that we
may regard this great reform, in its causes as well as in its effects, as
distinctively a moral reform. Thus the influence of the towns was
essentially ethical, for the rise of these communities, as we have just
seen, meant the superseding of the ethics of aristocracy and war by
the ethics of democracy and industry. Consequently the influence
exerted by the towns was largely that of a new ideal of character.
The opposition of the Church was motived chiefly by moral
feeling, the pontiffs and the bishops who opposed the practice doing
so on the ground that the ordeal by battle was “brutal, unchristian,
and unrighteous.”
The advocates of the civil law opposed the practice not only
because it interfered with the royal and imperial administration of
justice, but because it was a practice based on ignorance and
superstition and “incompatible with every notion of equity and
justice,” since brutal force was allowed to usurp the place of
testimony and reason. Thus the Roman law, as the embodiment of
right reason, was here as everywhere else a moral force making for
what is reasonable and just.
The influence of the general progress in enlightenment was also
profoundly ethical, since this movement resulted, as intellectual
advance always normally does, in a growing refinement of the moral
feelings, in progress in moral ideas, and in truer ethical judgments.
By the opening of the modern age trial by combat, acted on by
these various influences, had become obsolete or obsolescent in
715
most of the countries of Europe. Strangely enough, the
international duel or public war, resting on substantially the same
basis as the private judicial duel, has held its place as the instituted
and legalized method of settling controversies between nations down
to the present time, without, till just yesterday, being seriously
challenged by the awakening conscience of the world as equally
repugnant to the moral law and incompatible with every principle of
reason, humanity, and justice.