Killing in War: A Reply to Walzer
Killing in War: A Reply to Walzer
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战争中的杀戮：对沃尔泽的答复
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发表时间：
2006
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通讯作者：
J. Mcmahan
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作者：
J. Mcmahan
迈克尔·沃尔泽认为，我们对个人责任和义务的共同信念在战争行为中变得基本上无关紧要。在战争条件下，一切都改变了。政治现实主义者声称战争消除了道德;沃尔泽声称战争使道德集体化。我相信战争的条件根本没有改变任何东西;它们只是使确定相关事实变得更加困难。这并不是说，指导或应当指导战争活动的原则和法则，与指导个人之间关系的原则和法则是完全相同的。正如国内法不能简单地重申个人道德的原则，因为法律的宣布和实施具有在制定法律时必须考虑的效果，战争的原则、公约和法律也不能简单地重申个人或国际道德的原则。战争规则必须适应我们认识上的局限性，并在制定时考虑到它们的宣布可能影响人们行为的方式。但是，在其他方面，它们应尽可能反映指导战争以外行为的同样的正义和责任原则。沃尔泽对这种个人主义的战争方式提出了各种挑战。例如，他认为，这种立场实际上只是集体主义的一个秘密版本。当我声称，在海湾战争期间，由义务兵组成的伊拉克部队应该受到与共和国卫队不同的待遇时，沃尔泽争辩说，我因此接受了个人道德认同的抹去，尽管只是在师的层面上，而传统观点接受了在整个军队的不那么武断的层面上道德认同的集体化。但是，我不接受任何层面的集体化。没有一个伊拉克士兵的道德地位或责任是由他在共和国卫队的成员身份或他是一名应征入伍者来决定的。我的立场所要求的不同待遇是基于必须根据合理的推定采取行动。就像我可以合理地假设那个拿枪指着我的方向并大声威胁的人是一个潜在的杀人犯，即使他实际上是一个演员，他如此专注于排练他作为杀人犯的角色，以至于他没有注意到我的存在，所以海湾战争中的美国士兵有权假设共和国卫队的任何成员都是在为错误的侵略辩护，即使他实际上是被他的家人强迫加入卫队的，并且私下里决定从美国士兵的头上开枪，所以根本不构成威胁。在这些情况下，当一个合理的假设被证明是错误的时，我们应该说什么？我认为，如果我杀死了我有理由相信是杀人犯的行为人，那么接受对正当性的客观解释并因此得出结论说我的行为是错误的，尽管也许有充分的开脱理由。我们还应该得出结论，如果一个公正的战斗人员使用武力对付不公正的战斗人员，这将是相称的，如果他们Philosophia（2006）34：47-51 DOI 10.1007/s11406-006-9009-9
Michael Walzer suggests that our common beliefs about individual responsibility and liability become largely irrelevant in the conduct of war. In conditions of war, everything is changed. Political realists have claimed that war eliminates morality; Walzer claims that war collectivizes it. I believe that conditions of war change nothing at all; they simply make it more difficult to ascertain relevant facts. This is not to say that the principles and laws that do or should govern the activity of war are identical to those governing relations among individuals. Just as domestic law cannot simply restate the principles of individual morality, because the declaration and enforcement of laws have effects that must be taken into account in the formulation of the law, so too the principles, conventions, and laws of war cannot simply restate the principles of individual or international morality. The rules of war have to accommodate our epistemic limitations and to be formulated with a regard for the ways in which their announcement is likely to affect people’s behavior. But they should otherwise reflect as closely as possible the same principles of justice and liability that govern conduct outside of war. Walzer offers various challenges to the elements of this individualist approach to war. He suggests, for example, that this position is really only a closet version of collectivism. When I claim that, during the Gulf War, Iraqi units composed of conscripts ought to have been treated differently from the Republican Guard, Walzer contends that I am thereby accepting the erasure of individual moral identity, though only at the divisional level, whereas the traditional view accepts the collectivization of moral identity at the less arbitrary level of the military as a whole. I do not, however, accept collectivization at any level. No Iraqi soldier’s moral status or liability was determined by his membership in the Republican Guard or by his being a conscript. The difference in treatment required by my position is instead grounded in the necessity of acting on the basis of reasonable presumptions. Just as I may reasonably presume that the person pointing a gun in my direction and shouting threats is a potential murderer, even if he is in fact an actor so deeply absorbed in rehearsing his role as a murderer that he has failed to notice my presence, so an American soldier in the Gulf War was entitled to presume that any member of the Republican Guard was culpably defending a wrongful aggression, even if he had in fact been coerced to join the Guard by his family and was privately resolved to fire over the heads of American soldiers, and so posed no threat at all. What should we say when, as in these cases, a reasonable presumption turns out to be mistaken? I think it is reasonable to accept an objective account of justification and therefore to conclude that I act wrongly, though perhaps with a fully exculpating excuse, if I kill the actor whom I reasonably believe to be a murderer. We should also conclude that if a just combatant uses force against unjust combatants that would be proportionate if they Philosophia (2006) 34:47–51 DOI 10.1007/s11406-006-9009-9