War without Agreement: Thinking through Okeja's Jus ad Bellum Theory

ABSTRACT

In a recent article in this journal, Uchena Okeja, inspired by sources in African philosophy and military ethics, argued that war by agreement is the only morally justified war. The present piece is a response to Okeja's contention that agreement is both necessary and sufficient for waging war. Contrasting with Okeja, I contend that agreement is neither necessary nor sufficient for initiating a war. Regarding necessity, I contend that there may be overriding values at risk in a conflict and protecting these values may require engaging in war without agreement. Further, I contend that in cases of self-defense, it is not necessary to have consensus for defending oneself from an attacker. With respect to sufficiency, I uphold that Okeja's perspective fails because his model does not provide just cause, conditions for meaningful consent, or the tools with which to avoid exclusion, elitism, and manipulation in deliberative settings. I conclude that Okeja's arguments are indeed valuable and provide inspirational ideas for how to avoid war, but overall, they do not hold up as a full-fledged theory.

KEYWORDS:

• African philosophy
• consensus
• non-ideal theory
• African military ethics
• deliberation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research has been funded by Hunan University's Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, fund number 531118010426 [本文受湖南大学“中央高校基本科研业务费”专项资金资助(531118010426)].

Notes on contributors

Luís Cordeiro-Rodrigues

Luís Cordeiro-Rodrigues is a Full Professor at the Department of Philosophy, Yuelu Academy, Hunan University, China. He has published over 70 papers on applied ethics topics, such as just war theory, public health ethics, and bioethics.