The Evolution of Just War in Roman Catholic Social Ethics: The Case of Libya

According to The Catholic Herald, there were originally only three conditions laid down by Thomas Aquinas for a just war:

1) “The war must be started and controlled by the due authority of state or ruler – in other words, it can’t be a civil war or a rebellion. This rules out the war being waged by the Libyan rebels, but not the military intervention of the Nato [sic] forces, since that was indeed started by the due authority, not of one nation, but of the United Nations itself.” Here we see what might be called Aquinas’ implicit Burkean political conservatism with respect to established regimes over what in modern terms we call rights of the people to protest and self-governance. Even under Aquinas’ criterion of due authority of state or ruler, the Libyan rebel movement, as distinct from the preceding unarmed protesting, could be rendered as just provided that there is a rebel authority rather than fractured units fighting on their own. Even by this interpretation, the armed rebels may fall short, at least as they were in March of 2011.  Rather than proscribing civil war or rebellion, Aquinas’ criterion could simply be oriented to preventing the unintended additional harm caused by an army in disarray without a clear line of command. In terms of the Libyan rebels, the “unfairness” in a lack of clear command could be interpreted as “unfairness” to the international coalition, whose efforts could be in vain should the rebels refuse to bind themselves under one command. As for the international coalition itself, neither NATO nor the U.N. is a ruler having the due authority of state, for those international alliances or organizations do not enjoy governmental sovereignty. To the extent that the international coalition is based on partners whose militaries are not subject to a common line of authority, the mission may fall short of Aquinas’ criterion. This objection could perhaps be qualified to the extent that the partners meet regularly in common council, whose decisions are adhered to in practice. Other than the objections of the Arab League (and of Turkey in NATO to that alliance taking command), the international coalition may in its conduct have satisfied the criterion. In short, even though both the Libyan rebels and the international coalition could in practice satisfy Aquinas’ criterion here, their qualification is on shaky ground. In both cases, this shortcoming could be overcome by themselves.

2) “There must be a just cause. This wouldn’t include, say, a war for territory, but it would include the protection of a civil population, self-defense and the prevention of a worse evil. The UN resolution emphatically fulfills that condition.” Prime facie, this criterion seems pellucid. However, to the extent that cause can be interpreted in terms of motive rather than outcome, it becomes problematic to assess a given case because it is notoriously difficult, if not impossible, to get into another person’s head. For example, if the Obama administration’s motive, or cause, is to reduce the market’s fears of future disruptions in the oil supply—fears because Libya itself only produces 2% of the global supply—then in terms of motive the cause is not just. However, even here, a “worse evil” could be interpreted as some consumers becoming unable to afford even the gasoline needed to get to work (and the rising cost of food transported to their grocery stores). Perhaps preventing mass poverty (and perhaps starvation and homelessness) could count as counting in obfuscating “a worse evil.” Even so, the protection of Libyan civilians, especially if at the point when they had been unarmed protesters, would be a more immediate prevention of a worse evil because such protection follows directly from Qaddafi’s violent betrayal of his own people. Alternatively, moreover, if the decisive element is outcome or consequence, the fact that hundreds of thousands of Libyan civilians have been spared as a result of the allied bombings would satisfy the criterion. In my view, the criterion applies to both motive and consequence. In the Libyan case, the fact that it took the Obama administration a month to respond militarily—after the protesters had given way to armed rebels and the price of oil had spiked on world markets—can legitimately be used to assess motive from the standpoint of just war theory.  Were Obama’s primary motive the protection of Libyan civilians, he would have intervened when Qaddafi violently turned on the protesters. As Obama himself said, Qaddafi had lost the legitimacy to rule.

3) “The war must be for good, or against evil. Think what Gaddafi said when he thought his tanks were about to roll virtually unopposed into Benghazi: that he would go ‘from alley to alley, from house to house, from room to room’ and that he would show no mercy’. Thousands would have died. Without any doubt, the airstrikes have been against a very great evil indeed.” This criterion is closely related to the second—the criterion going from “just” to “good” (as opposed to evil). The shift here is from just war as under ethical auspices to a theological basis. The book of Job in Hebrew scripture attests to the vital difference between the two. Theoretically, God cannot be omnipotent if conditional on observing an ethical system. In other words, the “good” theologically cannot be held ransom for the “good” ethically. Divinity transcends mere human (i.e., finite) systems. Hence God is said to be wholly other even as it is immanent in the very existence of creation. In terms of the Libyan case, the question of motive and consequence is relevant here too. In terms of motive, is the protection of consumers to obviate an evil, or is it merely a matter of convenience and fairness (to the consumers being impacted by the speculators and fear in the market)? Regarding Qaddafi’s intended action, the sheer magnitude of it could point to it being evil even as a stated threat; it is certainly unethical. However, to treat such suffering itself as pointing to an evil action risks reducing theology to ethics (harm itself to the absence of God). In other words, evil cannot be merely unrequited and unjust suffering. Perhaps the question of evil goes to the intent of the agent of the deed involving treating himself as a god, with the suffering of others being an effect of the conflation of the creature with the Creator. As with the matter of motive more generally, the problem may be in judging another person to be evil. “Thou shalt not judge”. . . but the intensity of inflicting injury tends to speak for itself. Lest our finiteness as human beings render us impotent to prevent or stop evil, we adopt such surrogates as a matter of necessity. In terms of stopping Qaddafi from murdering on a large scale (though are more lives worth more than a few?), the reaction of most of the rest of the world can be read as a rejection of evil, for Qaddafi did seem to take on god-like aspirations in having such power over life and death.

According to The Catholic Herald, “The Church later added two more rules, though St Thomas usually gets the credit for them (and why not?). The first is that the conflict must be a last resort. In other words, every other option must be tried first. In this case they had been. Sanctions, diplomacy, phone calls from Tony Blair to his pal Muammar, freezing of assets, the lot. None of it had any effect. The UN military measures were not only a last resort, they were employed only at the last possible moment, just in the nick of time.” Significantly, “last resort” does not necessarily means “after due time.” The timing of the response, and thus the alternative options available, must surely be impacted by the nature of that which is to be prevented.  For example, if a ruler is violently turning on mass protests, waiting for the go-ahead from the Security Council may not be a justification for not acting immediately. The fact that the Council does not have governmental sovereignty (e.g. five permanent members have vetoes) means that the body is not equipped to act on short-notice. This fact mitigates the claim that a U.N. mandate is morally (or theologically) of value before an evil can be prevented or stopped in its tracks. If the purpose of the international coalition’s intervention in Libya was to protect civilians, a timely response was implied because of the nature of Qaddafi’s action against the protesters. Excessive delay could be interpreted as an implicit complicity in the evil if more immediate intervention was possible. In short, last resort does not necessarily imply delay.

The Catholic Herald describes the last criterion of Catholic just war theory as follows: “Lastly, the war must be fought proportionally. This means that more force than necessary must not be used, nor must the action kill more civilians than necessary. Enormous pains are being taken to fulfil this condition, too. The supposed “smart bombs” they talked about in the first Gulf war (which constantly missed their targets and killed large numbers of civilians) appear to have been in the last 20 years perfected in the most remarkable way, so that tanks can be taken out surgically even inside urban areas without damage to their surroundings (special missiles are used, with a considerably reduced explosive charge).” Here, the purpose of the international intervention is crucial. If the end is to remove Qaddafi because he has lost the right to rule by international consensus, then the no fly zone acts are not proportionate.  However, the actual agreed-upon objective of the coalition (as per the Security Council’s resolution) does not reach regime change. In terms of protecting civilians, that Qaddafi’s forces continued to beat and kill civilians after the imposition of the no fly zone strongly suggests that the coalition’s intervention was not proportional. Divisions within the coalition on this point could thus be interpreted as contrary to just war from the Catholic perspective.

In summary, even though my analysis of the Catholic Church’s just war criteria is generally consistent with the judgment expressed in The Catholic Herald article, my particular stress is on the extent of nuances and  how they qualify the judgment. Moreover, the nuances raise theoretical questions that transcend the matter of just war. Among such matters is that of the relationship between human judgment (and ethical systems) and the divine. Just war theory can be viewed as presumptuous to the extent that it presumes a judgment on matters that transcend the boundaries of human cognition and perception. Even so, as human beings living in human societies, we are as though instinctively drawn to stop what seems to us to be evil to us even if we cannot be sure of our judgments. As is the case more generally on matters where theology meets the ground, we are in the condition of “already, not yet.” Accordingly, a good supply of humility is called for even when we are convinced that we are fighting evil rather than perpetuating it.

On changing theological takes on greed in relation to money and business, see God's Gold, available at Amazon.

Source: http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2011/03/28/the-air-strikes-over-libya-undoubtedly-meet-st-thomas%e2%80%99s-conditions-for-a-just-war/

Pope Francis: Possessing Nuclear Weapons is Indefensible

Pope Francis said late in 2017 that the nuclear arms race had become irrational and immoral. The irrationality itself rendered even just the possession of nuclear weapons as immoral, according to the pope. Whereas past popes had recognized deterrence as a legitimator, both irrationality and the extent and “upgrading” of such weapons were factors in Pope Francis’s admittedly personal view.  Yet was his basis merely moral, or religious in nature?

The full essay is at "The Pope on Nuclear Weapons."

Pope Francis on Climate Change: The Mutually-Reinforcing Impacts of Power, Wealth, and Culture

Writing in 2015, Pope Francis addressed the problem of climate change and suggested what he, or the Vatican more broadly, considered to be necessary systemic changes on the road to recovery. In the encyclical, the patient may be human nature itself—specifically, its self-destructive propensity and trait of power-aggrandizement. In other words, we had lost control of our built-up (i.e., artificial) societal systems and structures, which could wind up strangling us in their protection of the status quo. In this essay, I discuss the Pope’s portrayal of the problem of climate change from the standpoints of culture, power, and wealth. I then address the feasibility of the Pope’s prescription.

“A very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climatic system,” the pope reported.[1] In recent decades this warming had been accompanied by a constant rise in the sea level and, it would appear, by an increase of extreme weather events, even if a scientifically determinable cause could not be assigned to each particular phenomenon. At the time, India, Pakistan, and parts of western North America were either in or soon to be in heat-waves.

In the encyclical, Pope Francis turns to what he viewed as more subtle causes of the climate change. “The problem is aggravated by a model of development based on the intensive use of fossil fuels, which is at the heart of the worldwide energy system. Another determining factor has been an increase in changed uses of the soil, principally deforestation for agricultural purposes.” These “man-made” contributors in turn set in motion natural contributors. “The melting in the polar ice caps and in high altitude plains can lead to the dangerous release of methane gas, while the decomposition of frozen organic material can further increase the emission of carbon dioxide. Things are made worse by the loss of tropical forests which would otherwise help to mitigate climate change. Carbon dioxide pollution increases the acidification of the oceans and compromises the marine food chain. If present trends continue, this century may well witness extraordinary climate change and an unprecedented destruction of ecosystems, with serious consequences for all of us.” Put another way, the CO2 already in the atmosphere—at approximately 400 ppm—had already triggered natural processes beyond the reach of human technology. The resulting climatic shift could easily outpace the ability of biological evolution to adapt. Given the historical role of the Creationism-Evolution false-dichotomy, the pope’s reference to evolution is striking.

Undergirding the role of fossil fuels, the pope highlights socio-economic and political obstacles. “Regrettably, many efforts to seek concrete solutions to the environmental crisis have proved ineffective, not only because of powerful opposition but also because of a more general lack of interest. Obstructionist attitudes, even on the part of believers, can range from denial of the problem to indifference, nonchalant resignation or blind confidence in technical solutions. We require a new and universal solidarity.”

The pope evinces very little patience for such attitudes. He was hardly alone. "We are not here today to debate whether or not climate change is real. We are not here to debate whether or not human activity is contributing to that. These questions have been settled by science," U. S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said a week after the Vatican’s release of the encyclical.[2] On the same day, the 2015 Lancet Commission on Health and Climate Change came out with its report.[3] More severe heat waves, longer allergy seasons, and decreased urban air-quality were already erasing gains made in public health, according to the report.[4] It's like a cigarette smoker with lung problems,” a Commission official said at the time. “Doctors can treat the disease, but the first thing that has to be done is to get the patient to stop smoking, or in this case get off coal in the next five years.”[5] In short, the world—or, more precisely, the species—no longer had the luxury of denial; in fact, radical change was urgently needed.

Formidable, well-entrenched forces nevertheless stood in the way. In fact, some were actually urging environmental deregulation. Accordingly, the pope charges ahead. “Many of those who possess more resources and economic or political power seem mostly to be concerned with masking the problems or concealing their symptoms, simply making efforts to reduce some of the negative impacts of climate change.” This is not enough. “Caring for ecosystems demands far-sightedness, since no one looking for quick and easy profit is truly interested in their preservation. But the cost of the damage caused by such selfish lack of concern is much greater than the economic benefits to be obtained.” In other words, an expedient, selfish mentality—doubtless rooted in human nature itself—has been a steady obstacle to caring for ecosystems such that the species made in God’s image might long endure.

Additionally, organizational and societal artifacts have been erected in line with the sordid mentality. Indeed, the pope claims that “many of these symptoms indicate that such effects will continue to worsen if we continue with current models of production and consumption.” Privileging “short-sighted approaches to the economy, commerce and production,” those models do not adequately absorb externalities—such as costs borne by the environment because firms can evade them. Whereas “the way natural ecosystems work is exemplary: plants synthesize nutrients which feed herbivores; these in turn become food for carnivores, which produce significant quantities of organic waste which give rise to new generations of plants. But our industrial system, at the end of its cycle of production and consumption, has not developed the capacity to absorb and reuse waste and by-products. We have not yet managed to adopt a circular model of production.” The circular system of inputs, manufacture, and use is not sufficiently closed. On the input end, natural resources are depleted. On the output end, waste piles up in the “throwaway culture,” whether in the oceans or in the air.

Unfortunately, culture and leadership can wind up reinforcing each other in favor of the status quo. “The problem is that we still lack the culture needed to confront this crisis. We lack leadership capable of striking out on new paths and meeting the needs of the present with concern for all and without prejudice towards coming generations.” We lack principled leaders with the guts to stand up to the corporate patrons whose disproportionate impact on democracies gives the vested interests in the status quo a veto on real change. The inherent conflict of interest is of course ignored. Additionally, people are too willing to enable the denial espoused in some of their respective leaders’ rhetoric. “As often occurs in periods of deep crisis which require bold decisions, we are tempted to think that what is happening is not entirely clear. Superficially, apart from a few obvious signs of pollution and deterioration, things do not look that serious, and the planet could continue as it is for some time. Such evasiveness serves as a licence to carrying on with our present lifestyles and models of production and consumption. This is the way human beings contrive to feed their self-destructive vices: trying not to see them, trying not to acknowledge them, delaying the important decisions and pretending that nothing will happen.” A cultural mentality ensconced in a throwaway society reinforces the leaders of denial.

Furthermore, the live-for-today mentality societally in an era of technological advancement proffers a blind faith in technology as savoir. “Following a period of irrational confidence in progress and human abilities,” Francis writes, “we find those who doggedly uphold the myth of progress and tell us that ecological problems will solve themselves simply with the application of new technology and without any need for ethical considerations or deep change.” The incrementalism itself may reflect the nature of the production model based on Frederick Taylor’s Principles of Scientific Management. The pope points to the tunnel-vision inherent in such an approach. “Technology, which, linked to business interests, is presented as the only way of solving these problems, in fact proves incapable of seeing the mysterious network of relations between things and so sometimes solves one problem only to create others.

Not even human pride in our sapiens brain can touch the intricate complexity in Creation as evinced in natural laws. “The climate is a common good, belonging to all and meant for all. At the global level, it is a complex system linked to many of the essential conditions for human life.” The precariousness of conditions consistent with human life is invisible next to the observed constancy through a “long life” and, moreover, the length of human history. “Many people will deny doing anything wrong,” the Pope maintains, “because distractions constantly dull our consciousness of just how limited and finite our world really is.” The subtle premise that tomorrow will be like today is so hardwired into the human psyche that we are vulnerable to environmental shocks.

Not unexpectedly, the pope assumes a distinctly religious perspective. Rather than selfishly padding our own nests in excess to what is natural (not to mention necessary) within a narrow perspective, “we are called to be instruments of God our Father, so that our planet might be what he desired when he created it and correspond with his plan for peace, beauty and fullness.” Seeing himself as such an instrument, the Pope goes beyond the problem itself to propose possible steps toward a solution.

Given the tyranny of the status quo and its formidable defenders, the pope argues that the “establishment of a legal framework which can set clear boundaries and ensure the protection of ecosystems has become indispensable.” The pope is proposing here that some governmental sovereignty be transferred to the global level because relying on nation-states to deal with the externalities (i.e., CO2 emissions) had only resulted in dismal results. In other words, the nation-state system itself (and the disproportionate influence therein of business interests) had become incompatible with the new problem, which is inherently global and thus potentially treated at that scale, politically speaking.

“It is remarkable,” the pope observes, “how weak international political responses have been. The failure of global summits on the environment makes it plain that our politics are subject to technology and finance. There are too many special interests, and economic interests easily end up trumping the common good and manipulating information so that their own plans will not be affected.” According to the pope, “economic powers continue to justify the current global system where priority tends to be given to speculation and the pursuit of financial gain, which fail to take the context into account, let alone the effects on human dignity and the natural environment.” In other words, plutocracy—wherein wealth rules—combined with the externalities-problem of the nation-state system rendered continued reliance on the extant system of geo-politics nothing short of a fool’s errand. In fact, the reliance could be classified as self-destructive from the species’ standpoint.

Jean-Jacque Rousseau, a seventeenth-century philosopher, wrote in his treatise, The Social Contract, “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” At least with respect to the tyranny of the industrial and political status quo, those chains are entirely of our own making. It is easy to point to theoretical freedom, and yet quite another to stand up to the paymasters in order to hem them in such that the maximizing species will not pierce the semi-permeable membrane of the Earth’s habitat for humanity. If a transfer of governmental sovereignty to a global entity is needed to stave off additional climate change, who’s to say that large multinational corporations won’t capture that power too? Moreover, how many government officials would willingly give up some power to a global organization that could hold them accountable? At the time, the U.S. would not even agree to be bound by the International Criminal Court. Also, neither China nor Russia—defenders of the notion of absolute sovereignty, or “internal affairs”—would likely consent to be bound by a global entity that could be dominated by the U.S. and the E.U. In short, if the Vatican’s assessment and prescription are correct, the species made in God’s image might turn out to be a flickering image on the mask of eternity.

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1. Pope Francis, “Encyclical Letter Laudato Si,” All quotes from the Pope in this essay are from this source.

2. Kate Sheppard, “Surgeon General Calls Climate Change a ‘Serious Immediate and Global Threat to Human Health’,” The Huffington Post, June 23, 2015.

3. The Lancet Commission on Health and Climate Change, “Health and Climate Change: Policy Responses to Protect Public Health,” The Lancet, June 23, 2015.

4. Sheppard, “Surgeon General.”

5. Seth Borenstein, “Panel of Doctors Give a Warming Earth a Physical and Say Kick the Coal Habit Immediately,” US News and World Report, June 22, 2015.