Deontological Distinction in War
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2019
Abstract
Adil Ahmad Haque argues that before attacking, combatants must reasonably believe that the target is a combatant and the gains must be sufficiently great so as to be in compliance with the doing/allowing distinction. I reformulate the threshold as preponderance of the evidence, because (1) reliance on beliefs raises conceptual and pragmatic problems, and (2) this balance appropriately considers the values that should be traded off, while bracketing aggregation of persons. I further argue that including doing/allowing above the threshold is impermissible double-counting, and even if not, it is entitled to little weight when combatants owe each other associative duties.
Keywords
Law of war, moral philosophy, civilians, combatants, knowledge, belief, evidence
Publication Title
Ethics
Repository Citation
Ferzan, Kimberly Kessler, "Deontological Distinction in War" (2019). All Faculty Scholarship. 2722.
https://doi.org/10.1086/702974
Publication Citation
129 Ethics 603 (2019)