Just War Theory And The 12-Day War

I've looked at two commentators who've tried to apply just war theory to the 12-day war just finished, Bp Joseph Strickland (here) and the neo-Thomist philosopher Edward Feser (here and here). Both have since responded to the US bombing of Iran's nuclear sites and the cease fire. I think both have the same problem, Trump's strategy was simply not what they anticipated, and he achieved his ends before anyone could say much of anything.

In this YouTube, Bp Strickland acknowledges the bombing, but while he says it's a consequence of sin (isn't the Catholic Church as well?), he has little else to say beyond noting that Pope Leo XIV hasn't yet reversed any of Francis's policies or appointments. This strikes me as wanting just to change the subject and move on.

Edwared Feser goes on at greater length in a post, Preventive war and the U.S. attack on Iran. His original argument, like Strickland's, anticipated things that Trump didn't do. Last week, referring to a social media post from Trump, Feser said,

Taken at face value, this indicates that the U.S. will participate in an attack that will threaten the entire city of Tehran. And he has called for Iran’s “unconditional surrender.” Meanwhile, Israel is indicating that regime change is among the aims of its war with Iran.

There are two criteria of just war theory that the president is violating, at least if we take his words at face value. First, for a war to be just, it must be fought using only morally legitimate means. This includes a prohibition on intentionally targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure. To be sure, just war theory allows that there can be cases where harm to civilians and civilian infrastructure can be permissible, but only if (a) this is the foreseen but unintended byproduct of an attack on military targets, and (b) the harm caused to civilians and civilian infrastructure is not out of proportion to the good achieved by destroying those military targets.

But even last week, his complaint was that Israel was urging the evacuation of Tehran, not bombing it. He correctly noted that this would cause much trouble and confusion, which it did, as the highwwys out of the city were clogged for several days, but this was hardly a war crime, and there were not the mass deaths he anticipated. The US dropped something like 14 bunker-buster bombs on two isolated nuclear facilities that had previously been evacuated and fired submarine-launched missiles at a third; as far as anyone can tell, no humans died in any of those attacks.

At that point, Trump determined that he had achieved his goal, and he imposed a cease-fire, which after brief uncertainty has held. Every indication is that both the US and Israel did everything possible to keep civilian casualties to a bare minimum, and I challenge Prof Feser to show that either of the conditions he lists was violated. I might grant that Trump was impolite in calling for regime change and unconditional surrender, but he clearly did not impose either on Iran, and his representatives made clear that neither was an actual war aim.

By most measures, Trump basically left Feser without an argument, but here's the problem with this thing called "just war theory": it's a hypostatization.

Hypostatization, (reification in one of its many senses) or the fallacy of misplaced concreteness refers to an abstraction being “treated as if it were a concrete, real event, or physical entity.” Hypostatization has occurred when concepts, frameworks, and theories freeze into pictures of reality that cannot be shaken by reality.

"Just war theory" is an abstract concept that has developed over thousands of years, with many different expressions. What's fascinating is that just war theorists never seem to be able to codify a single expression of the theory -- might they not be satisfied with CCC 2309, for instance, which even says of itself, "These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the 'just war' doctrine"? It lists four main consideratons:

• the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
• all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
• there must be serious prospects of success;
• the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modem means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.

But as we've already seen, these aren't enough for either Bp Strickland or Prof Feser. Strickland mentions CCC 2309 only in passing before going on to cite Cardinal Ratzinger and Pope St John Paul, while Prof Feser repeatedly asserts that there are seven elements to just war theory, not just the four in CCC 2309 -- but so far, I haven't found anywhere he lists all seven. Here's the problem.

Going only by the four listed above, Trump and Bibi pass the test. The potential damage from Iran's nuclear program, not just against Israel, but against other Middle Eastern countries and even the US, is lasting, grave, and certain. Negotiations, either in the 2025 round or others over a 40-year period, have been fruitless. There are serious prospects of success. And the use of arms by the US and Israel in the 12-day war scrupulously avoided civilian casualties, to the point that in the US attack, there were no casualties, either civilian or military.

But the text itself mentions the need to consider "the power of modem means of destruction" in evaluating conditions -- which would in fact add weight to the need to stop Iran's nuclear program.

If I refer to "the US Constitution", I mean a particular document with particular words. If I refer to "just war doctrine" or "just war theory", I don't mean the same thing. I mean a vague set of notions that can mean whatever I want it to mean. I can cite CCC 2309, which is a particular document with particular words, but it's never enough, because I'm always trying to prove War X is unjust. So besides CCC 2309, Feser pulls a new rabbit out of his hat:

This brings us to an issue which I only touched on in my earlier essay but which is obviously no less important (indeed, even more important) than the two criteria I focused on: the justice of the cause for which the war is being fought, which is the first criterion of just war doctrine. The reason I did not say more about it is that the issue is more complex than meets the eye.

The justice of the cause is the first criterion of just war doctrine! And those dunderheads who wrote CCC 2309 completely left it out! But does Feser cite the particular statement of just war doctrine equivalent to the US Constitution's Article 1 that defines just cause in specific words? Of course not, there is no single authoritative document that unequivocally spells out what the criteria are, in order, using specific words. "Just war doctine" is actually an abstraction with certain imprecise elements on which there has never been complete agreement, yet Feser treats it as something authoritative and final. The CCC is in fact more authoritative than Feser's unspecified abstraction.

Prof Feser is a professor, and professors will be professors, something I learned doing hard time in graduate school, and I eventually recognized I wasn't called to be a professor. But it's worth considering that Prof Feser's PhD is in philosophy, a field that through much of the 20th century was dominated by Wittgenstein and supporters like O K Bouwsma, figures who stressed the need for carerful linguistic analysis and rigorous expression. I would not rate Prof Feser high on either of those traits, although I'm sure he wouldn't give me a very high grade in his classes at Pasadena City College, either. But I quit taking philosophy classes long ago.