The Moral Target: Aiming at Right Conduct in War and Other Conflicts

275 Pages·2012·1.77 MB·English

by  F.M. Kamm

The Moral Target
OXFORD ETHICS SERIES
SERIES EDITOR:
Derek Parfi t, All Souls College, Oxford
THE LIMITS OF MORALITY
Shelly Kagan
PERFECTIONISM
Th omas Hurka
INEQUALITY
Larry S. Temkin
MORALITY, MORTALITY, VOLUME I
Death and Whom to Save from It
F. M. Kamm
MORALITY, MORTALITY, VOLUME II
Rights, Duties, and Status
F. M. Kamm
SUFFERING AND MORAL RESPONSIBILITY
Jamie Mayerfi eld
MORAL DEMANDS IN NONIDEAL THEORY
Liam B. Murphy
THE ETHICS OF KILLING
Problems at the Margins of Life
Jeff McMahan
INTRICATE ETHICS
Rights, Responsibilities, and Permissible Harm
F. M. Kamm
RETHINKING THE GOOD
Moral Ideals and the Nature of Practical Reasoning
Larry S. Temkin
THE MORAL TARGET
Aiming at Right Conduct in War and Other Confl icts
F. M. Kamm
The Moral Target
AIMING AT RIGHT CONDUCT IN WAR
AND OTHER CONFLICTS
F. M. Kamm

1
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
I t furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research,
s cholarship, and education by publishing worldwide.
Oxford New York
Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi
Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi
New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto
With offi ces in
Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece
Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore
South Korea Switzerland Th ailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam
Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries.
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016
© Oxford University Press 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without
the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly
permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate
reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the
scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press,
at the address above.
You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose
this same condition on any acquirer.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kamm, F. M. (Frances Myrna)
Th e moral target : aiming at right conduct in war and other confl icts / F.M. Kamm.
p. cm. — (Oxford ethics series)
ISBN 978-0-19-989752-0
1. War—Moral and ethical aspects. 2. Just war doctrine.
3. Military ethics. I. Title.
U22.K286 2012
172(cid:99).42—dc23 2011038688
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
In memory of my mother Mala, my father Solomon, and my aunt Sela,
who helped each other through the Holocaust and thereaft er.
This page intentionally left blank
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction xi
1. Making War and Its Continuation Unjust 3
2. Justifi cations for Killing Noncombatants in War 24
3. Failures of Just War Theory 36
4. The Morality of Killing in War: Some Traditional
and Nontraditional Views 8 1
5. Collaboration with the Enemy: Harming Some to Save Others from
the Nazis 113
6. Moral Improvisation and New Obligations 134
7. Jus Post Bellum , Proportionality, and Compensation 149
8. Terrorism and Several Moral Distinctions 167
9. Self-Defense, Resistance, and Suicide: The Taliban Women 217
10. Nuclear Deterrence and Reliance on Harm 228
Index 251
This page intentionally left blank
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Acknowledgments for help given to me on the essays in this book are, for the most
part, found in the essays themselves. For help in bringing them together in this
book, I am grateful to Jenn Valois and Margaret Collins for typing sections, to
Margaret Collins for proofreading and respectful editing, and to Lynne Meyer Gay
for excellent puzzle solving. I thank Ruth Klein for permission to use on the cover
an image of a postcard (whose writer requests from an American relative an affi -
davit to be able to leave a Nazi-controlled ghetto in Poland and go to the United
States). I greatly appreciate the patience and professionalism of the staff at Oxford
University Press and the care with which Micha Glaeser constructed the index. I
am grateful to Maria Twarog, Agnes Mosejczuk, and Hubert Mosejczuk for their
help in numerous ways that made possible my work on this book. Finally, I am
most grateful to Derek Parfi t, who welcomed me once again into the wonderful
Oxford Ethics Series, which he edits.
ix