7. Morality and Legality
Two issues relevant
to whether an individual, or indeed a country, should go to war
are whether it would be morally right to do so and whether the war
would be in accord with international law.
The Morality of War.
Though we condemn all killing in peacetime, those who kill enemies
in war are praised and rewarded. To understand how this can be,
it is necessary to consider briefly the nature of morality. Nobody
knows for certain how moral codes came to be, but what follows represents
a sketch of what I believe to be the case.
Early humans lived in small groups that competed with each other
for food, space, sexual partners and other resources. Both between
groups and within groups the resources available were inadequate
fully to satisfy people’s needs. As a result, the groups competed
against each other and the individuals within each group competed
against the other individuals in that group. But the groups in which
the individuals competed with each other less viciously and helped
each other more tended to be more successful in competition with
other groups. Thus within the groups the individuals had both to
compete with each other and to cooperate with each other, and the
balance was inevitably a delicate one. Individuals who were too
cooperative would be done down by selfishly assertive peers, while
groups composed of individuals who seldom cooperated would be out-competed
by groups in which individuals did help each other. Over time moral
rules were elaborated that resulted in the maintenance of a balance
between cooperation and competition amongst the members of each
group. But cooperation with out-group members would have been counter-productive,
and assertive competition against them could be unconstrained. In
other words, individuals must limit their assertiveness where other
members of their group are concerned but not to members of other
groups.
If this is anywhere near the truth (and there is considerably more
evidence for it than I have given here), it explains why we find
it easier to be kind to our friends and to people in our own group
than to strangers. Early human groups were small and everyone would
have known everyone else. But now that we live in much larger groups
we find it easier to be kind to those whom we know than to strangers,
and also rely on resemblance in physical characteristics or in behaviour
to differentiate between those in our own group and outsiders. Beyond
that, we use accepted customs, styles of dressing, flags and other
symbols to demonstrate our group membership. I have already noted
that it is probable that the strict dietary laws of the Hebrews
served to remind each individual of the distinctiveness of his own
group from others.
In wartime propaganda is used to exaggerate the difference between
friends and the enemy. The enemy is denigrated by labels such as
“Huns”, “Wops” or “Goons”, and portrayed as evil and dangerous,
thereby marking the difference between them and us, between those
whom one should kill and those whom one should not.
Readiness to distinguish between “us” and “them” is, of course,
a fundamental characteristic of our behaviour. It plays a part in
antipathy towards anyone who is different, from team games to racism.
Much of our morality is based on the distinction, and war is justified
because “they” are not “us”. But because, in large groups and complex
modern societies, “us” no longer refers simply to those who seem
familiar, the distinction has come to vary with the context. For
instance the French were seen as part of “us” in the World Wars
but as “them” if we are discussing the edibility of frog’s legs
or snails. And in wartime the differences between “us” and “them”
are reinforced by propaganda exaggerating differences, the enemy
being represented as evil and subhuman. It is terrible to think
that people one considered as friends can be turned into enemies
by propaganda, yet this is exactly what happened in the break-up
of JugoSlavia. The remedy must lie in exposing the superficiality
of the propaganda and recognising that all people everywhere are
members of the human race, and thus extending the boundaries of
“us” world wide. Interestingly, there have been times when it has
been seen as wrong even to kill in battle. At the beginning of the
last millenium the Church demanded penances for having killed and
even for having participated in a battle. After the Battle of Hastings
the Norman Council of Westminster imposed penances on those of William’s
soldiers who had killed an enemy, wounded an enemy or participated
in the battle. Even the archers who fought at long range and did
not know if they had hit anyone had to perform penance for three
successive Lents. Perhaps we should learn from the Normans.
Legal issues.
International law is concerned both with the initiation of war and
its conduct. The Charter of the United Nations stipulates that states
should settle international disputes by peaceful means and refrain
from the threat and use of force. Only the Security Council is allowed
to use force, and then only to maintain peace. Individual states
are allowed to defend themselves if attacked, but only until the
Security Council has taken measures necessary to restore peace.
Sadly, the international laws relating to the initiation of war
are not alwaysobserved. States have attacked other states without
the agreement of the United Nations. The US/UK invasion of Iraq
in 2003, and the UK’s declaration of war against Argentina, were
examples, and the aerial bombardment of Kosovo is still controversial.
Unfortunately the UN, designed for the post World War 2 world, needs
an up-dated charter with stronger powers. There is a strong case
for abolishing the power of veto on Security Council decisions held
by some major powers, and for the UN to have the means to enforce
its decisions. The problem is that, of course, those states that
have to power of veto will veto any attempt to remove it. At the
moment the UN is the best we have and must be respected.
Because war is abhorrent, laws have been drafted in attempts to
reduce its horror. For instance, Hindu law specified the hours of
the day at which an attack is permitted, prohibited attack on unarmed
civilians and on persons working in the fields, and so on. In 1139
the second Lateran Council ruled that the crossbow and siege engine
were too wicked to be used in warfare according to Christian teaching.
International agreements prohibiting the use of expanding bullets
have been in place since the nineteenth century, and over time have
been extended to cover the treatment of prisoners-of-war, the protection
of civilians, the use of disproportionate force, the use of chemical
and biological weapons, and so on. By the Nuremberg Principles,
an individual who commits a war crime or a crime against humanity,
even though under orders from a superior, is responsible and should
receive a fair trial.
An important study by the International Red Cross found consensus
amongst members of many countries in acknowledging International
Humanitarian Law, which concerns such issues as the treatment of
prisoners, the status of civilians, and so on, but not in their
application. Group pressure, esteem of comrades, the defence of
collective reputation and the desire to contribute to the success
of the group lessened individual responsibility within the collective
responsibility of the group. Individuals who had either perpetrated
or suffered from acts of violence were found to be more ready to
commit them themselves. Violations were excused by appeal to orders
received from superiors, and by comparable actions by the enemy.
Perpetrators often saw themselves, their group or their ancestors
as victims, allowing them to act reciprocally.
Of special importance is the legal position of nuclear weapons.
In Hiroshima, as I noted earlier, 140,000 died from the explosion
of a single bomb, most almost immediately but others over the following
days and months, (Modern nuclear weapons are many times more powerful.)
The great majority of those who died were civilians. The bomb caused
horrendous injuries, and many more died of radiation sickness years
after the bomb was dropped. As a result of millions of signatures
collected from all over the world, the General Assembly of the United
Nations referred the question of the legality of nuclear weapons
to the International Court of Justice. The Court was unanimous in
deciding that nuclear weapons offend so many principles of International
Law that they should be abolished. Unfortunately, however, a small
loophole was left in that the Judges, with the exception of Judge
Weeramantry, refused to express an opinion as to whether it was
allowable to use nuclear weapons in an extreme situation where the
survival of the state was at stake. Given the indiscriminate killing
and disproportionate damage caused by a nuclear weapon, this failure
on the part of the majority of the judges is highly regrettable:
it can be seen as a product of the division of the world into sovereign
states resulting in priority being given to the state over its inhabitants.
Although laws concerned with the conduct of war are generally universally
accepted, crimes may be committed without even the excuse that they
were perpetrated in the heat of conflict, as became apparent from
the use of torture in the Second Iraq War. This was sanctioned by
the relevant officials in the US administration, apparently on the
all-too-easy assumption that in war the end justifies the means.
It remains to be seen whether they will go unpunished.
