Traditional Just War Theory

The traditional just war theory deals with two principles, jus ad bellum and jus in bello. These two principles are differentiated between each other in the way they deal with when justice is applied. In jus ad bellum, justice is questioned in when to go to war. It deals with the justice in resorting to war and whether the war is rightly initiated. Jus in bello encompasses the conduct of war and whether the way a war is fought is just. A philosophical belief is that these two principles are logically independent. That an unjust war can be fought justly. This brings up the theory of the moral equality of combatants in which soldiers on both sides are treated as moral equals as long as they are fighting justly, regardless of whether the war they

In his essay critiquing this theory, he reveals one flaw when he states that the traditional just war theory claims that a series of individually permissible acts can be collectively impermissible (McMahan 1). This is because “what is permissible for a combatant to do in war is unaffected by whether his war is just or unjust” (1). So he states that because the individual actions of the soldiers can be permissible, how can the war be impermissible if it is made up all of these individually permissible

If a soldier is fighting for their country, then he needs to stand for what he is fighting for. The soldier fighting an unjust war is not the same as the soldier fighting a just war. The soldier fighting the unjust war is supporting an unjust cause and should not be treated as equal to the soldier supporting a just cause. Even if both soldiers are fighting in a just manner, it does not take away from the fact of what they are fighting for. One cannot say that because a soldier is fighting justly, he has to be treated equally even though the war he is fighting is unjust. This soldier is supporting this war’s injustice by fighting, and he has the ability to prevent this injustice from happening by not fighting. If one were to treat the soldier fighting for an unjust war morally equal to the soldier fighting a just war, then you are legitimizing the reason that each soldier is fighting for. Unless the soldier is forced by the government to fight in the war, the soldier is responsible for the justice of the war, because he is fighting a cause that he stands up for. If he did not stand up for the reason of the war, then he should not be fighting in the first