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ABSTRACT
This article is an examination of killing in war in its moral and normative dimension – with attention given to how killing affects the acting agent. The author argues against the commonplace belief – often tacitly held if not consciously asserted – among academics, the general public, and even – if surprisingly – military professionals, that killing, including in a justified war, is always morally wrong – even when legally sanctioned and necessary to avert a greater moral wrong. This critique of the “killing is wrong but in war it is necessary” trope is motivated in part by the large numbers of psychiatric battle casualties (specifically moral injury) suffered during operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and which have attended military activity throughout history. The article approaches the issue through the field of Christian ethical reflection on just war. In building a moral framework for killing in combat, the article explores a typology of homicide, intention, double effect, love, and whether the attitudinal expectations of just warriors in the Christian tradition is realistic in combat. With this moral framework for killing in hand, this article concludes by drawing a critical distinction between moral injury and moral bruising.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 This definition emerges from two sources, first, Jonathan Shay’s Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character (Shay Citation1995) and, building on Shay, Brett T. Litz et al.'s “Moral Injury and Moral Repair in War Veterans: A Preliminary Model and Intervention Strategy” (Litz et al. Citation2009, see esp. p. 697). In his own writing on moral injury, US Army Chaplain (COL) Timothy Mallard (Citation2016) proposes distinguishing moral injury from what he coins “spiritual injury.” The latter he intends to describe the psychic trauma that emerges from suffering – rather than doing or believing to have done – a norm-violating harm. For instance, military personnel who have suffered sexual assault are sometimes “diagnosed” with a moral injury. Thus, Mallard’s emphasis in cases like these is on avoiding any suggestion that the victim has done anything wrong.
2 See, for example (Maguen et al. Citation2012, 918; Purcell et al. Citation2016).
3 To my mind, Reinhold Niebuhr’s understanding of killing is, because of his theological convictions regarding Christian love, essentially indistinguishable from the pacifist view. The only significant difference is that Niebuhr does not stop at pacifism. Rather, he accepts that in history contrary values such as justice sometime compete against love and at times overrule it – even if love, itself, seasons or qualifies justice. On those occasions one might be morally obligated to kill but the killing nevertheless remains morally evil. In my view, then, Niebuhr renders the very act of warfighting morally injurious. The most immediate introduction to Niebuhr's thought on this can be found in Niebuhr (Citation1987). For a sustained critique of Niebuhr on this point, see LiVecche (Citation2021).
4 One review for this article asserted this is a bad analogy, pointing out that while – clearly – not all sex is rape, all coerced sex is. However, making exceptions for particular cases of euthanasia, we can assume that all acts of killing are done without the consent of the one killed. In view of consent, then, to say that all killing is murder is “not silly” in the same way as saying all sex is rape. Fair enough. But the need for qualification is partly my point. Constitutive circumstances matter, they determine whether a sexual act is marital love, adultery, or rape just as they determine whether an act of killing is justifiable homicide or murder. Moreover, I preserve the analogy for two additional reasons. First, it is not precisely right to say that – in this case – warfighters do not consent to be killed. It is commonplace to say warfighters might either or both “waive” the right not to harmed or, by threatening unjust harm themselves, “forfeit” the right not to be harmed. Both are arguably a kind of consent. Moreover, even consent, here, is not solely determinative. Some kinds of warriors – the unjust kind – may deserve to die. So, questions of (even relative) guilt and innocence apply. Secondly, the intention of the acting agent is of primary importance as well. For instance, to unintentionally kill an innocent bystander is not the same thing as to intentionally kill him. Actions – most often – cannot be accurately judged absent a rather thick grasp of the context.
5 See, for example: Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II–II, Q. 64; and Augustine, Questiones in Heptateuchem, VI, 10; Contra Faustum, XXII, 74; De Libero Arbitrio, I, 4–5. See also Ramsey (Citation1971), on abortion, and Biggar 2014; on war.
6 See Kudo (Citation2011, Citation2013), and Kudo’s testimony in Jelinek (Citation2013).
7 See, for example, Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II, Q. 40, art. 1, ad. 2 and Q. 64, art. 2, and Augustine, De Libero Arbitrio, I, 5–6.
8 Williams (Citation1981, 43) uses the example of a lorry driver who, through no fault of his own, kills a child. Through this example, Williams explores agent-regret “even at deeply accidental or non-voluntary levels of agency.” Endorsing such regret, Bernard writes, “we feel sorry for the driver, but that sentiment co-exists with, indeed presupposes, that there is something special about his relation to this happening, something which cannot merely be eliminated by the consideration that it was not his fault.”
9 I have used this example in talking about evil for years. However, I have always used the scenario to illustrate the difference between tragedy (the surgeon’s act) and evil (the sadist’s act). It was not until In Defence of War (Biggar Citation2013) and ensuing email correspondence with Nigel Biggar regarding the nature of evil that I have come to accept the idea of non-moral evil.
10 Of course, not everybody endorses this line of reasoning. Elizabeth Anscombe famously did not. See, for example, her “War and Murder” (Anscombe Citation1961). Anscombe insists, “It is nonsense to pretend that you do not intend the means you take to your chosen end.” However, Anscombe elsewhere seems to affirm Biggar’s taxonomy. Biggar appeals to Anscombe through Kaczor (Citation2002, 63): “The fundamental sign of intention, says Anscombe, is desire. We cannot be said to intend those effects of our action which, however closely connected with the desired effects, we do not desire.”
11 See Michael Walzer’s reformulation of the doctrine of double effect (Walzer Citation1977, 155–156). Walzer asserts that more is required than simply not intending the unfortunate collateral effect. It is required to take active measures to minimize or avoid such harm. Walzer writes, “The intention of the actor is good, that is, he aims narrowly at the acceptable effect; the evil effect is not one of his ends, nor is it a means to his ends, and, aware of the evil involved, he seeks to minimize it, accepting costs to himself” (emphasis added). Regarding international law, attention should be given to Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions (Citation1977), article 57(1) which reads: “In the conduct of military operations, constant care shall be taken to spare the civilian population, civilians and civilian objects” and to article 57(2)(a)(ii): “those who plan or decide upon an attack shall take all feasible precautions in the choice of means and methods of attack with a view to avoiding, and in any event to minimizing, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects” (emphasis added). I am grateful to my reviewer who stressed the importance of these two citations.
12 Further grounding for Biggar’s argument can be found, among other places, in McCormick and Ramsey Citation1978, esp. chapters 1, 3, and 5.
13 Augustine, Contra Faustum, XXII, Chap. 74. in Reichberg et al. Citation2006, 73.
14 Augustine, “Letter 189, To Boniface.” in Reichberg et al. Citation2006, 79.
15 Augustine, “Letter 138 (to Marcellinus).” in Reichberg et al. Citation2006, 73.
16 I explore this distinction in LiVecche (Citation2021).
17 See also John of Salisbury (Citation1990, 31).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Marc LiVecche
Marc LiVecche is the McDonald Distinguished Scholar of War, Ethics, and Public Life at Providence: A Journal of Christianity & American Foreign Policy; and a non-resident Research Fellow at the U.S. Naval War College. He is the author of The Good Kill: Just War & Moral Injury (Oxford University Press, 2021), and co-editor with Eric Patterson of Responsibility and Restraint: James Turner Johnson and the Just War Tradition (Stone Tower Press, 2020), and of Military Necessity and Just War Statecraft: The Principle of National Security Stewardship (Routledge, 2024).