A realist response to walzer's just and unjust wars

Abstract

Michael Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars is one of those rare books that more than deserves the glowing praise on the back of the paperback edition. 2 Because his thoughtful analysis is so thorough, readable, and well-grounded in numerous historical examples, it provides a broad basis for understanding the relationship between war and justice. Despite these strengths, however,Walzer's book has an important shortcoming: It does not satisfactorily address the lack of connection between his rights-based scheme of moral actions and actual conduct in the real world. One reason for this lack is the limited role that shared values play in constraining discourse and conduct in a modern nation. Another problem is that leaders believe they have a moral role-responsibility to protect the nation from the risk of catastrophic harm and often feel obligated thereby to engage in what they see as " justified" denials of rights. After a war, moral theory is sufficiently manipulable that it provides minimal guidance for assigning " responsibility." Moreover, a nation that has won a war is motivated to avoid imposing responsibility because of gratitude to leaders who satisfied their role-responsibility of protecting the nation, even if their success involved an unjust denial of rights. Given these problems, it is important to build on the strengths of Walzer's work by combining it with a more realistic approach that not only acknowledges the importance of rights and morality but also emphasizes prudential arguments and legal and political frameworks. © 2007 Springer.