Vol. XXXVIII / 1 - Studia Moralia

198 M. B. RAMOSE
Permissibility: a question of morality or legality
The term “just”in the context of the just war theory means
licit or permissible. As such it has a direct bearing on the
question: under what conditions is war licit or permissible? The
idea of the permissibility of war may give rise to yet another
question, namely, permitted by whom? One answer is that war
may be just only if it conforms to the supposedly self-evident
and eternal natural law. But this seems to beg the question
because the idea of natural law is far from uncontestable. In the
final analysis natural law rests upon the intuitive conviction that
a particular state of affairs is intrinsically good and therefore
permissible. Neither intuition nor conviction permits of
argument in the strict sense. Despite their impermeability to
argument both tend to lay claim to objectivity and, by
implication, to universality as well. The basic problem here is
the universalizability of a particular intuition or conviction.
“God” is often posited as the solution to the problem of
universalizability. But “God”is pre-eminently a matter of belief
(faith), a metaphysical necessity beyond the sphere of scientific
probability. 3 Consequently, this proposed solution is not
particularly useful because it is irrelevant to knowledge in the
positivist sense. 4 The criterion of objectivity is implicit in the
quest for universalizability. Since even the former is by no
means an uncontested terrain particularly in the humanities and
the social sciences, 5 it follows that the appeal to natural law as
the ground for the permissibility of war is at best tenuous.
Another answer may be that war is just only if it conforms
to positive law. Positive law is inextricably interconnected to the
3
Gilson, E., God and Philosophy, Yale University Press: New Haven
1941, p. 141.
4
Ayer, A.J., Language, Truth and Logic, Penguin Books Ltd.:
Harmondsworth 1974, p. 12. For a criticism of the verification principle, see,
for example, Ryle, G., Collected Papers, 2, Hutchinson and Co. Ltd.: London
1971, p. 127. For an exposition of the falsification principle aimed partly at
refuting the verification principle, see, for example, Flew, A., and MacIntyre,
A., (ed.), New Essays in Philosophical Theology, S.C.M.: London 1963, p. 106.
5
Gould, Carol, C., and Wartofsky, M.W., (ed.) Women and Philosophy,
G.P. Putnam’s Sons: New York 1976, p. 45-53.