Avant-propos - Studia Moralia

THE WAR ON TERRORISM: A JUSTWAR? 45
tion will, of course, entail modifications and adaptations as the
subsequent adherents to the tradition seek to live out the defining
form of the good life in their own historical circumstance.
Recalling the past may confirm the coherence of the present
notions of the good life with those of the past, or it may reveal
that some values have been forgotten and need to be recovered,
or may manifest elements in the previous stages that offer genuine
alternatives which can exercise a critique of the present; or
again, it may show that some positions, which have been accepted
from the past, were based on faulty arguments and need to be
revised. Being committed to a tradition thus includes both an
acceptance of and a critical engagement with that tradition. I
must accept the position which has been reached so far in the
process of argument, because it has behind it the tradition to
which I myself am committed and on which I depend for my
own arguments. But I may criticize that position, for example,
on the grounds that it is not fully coherent with the goods proposed
by the tradition itself. Tradition, for those who are committed
to it, sets the burden of proof in cases of dispute, so it is
those who challenge the tradition who must prove their case. In
this way the inner logic of tradition explains why certain
requirements, such as the criteria of the JWD, have “prima facie”
validity. 21 Commitment to the tradition implies faith in its transcendent
source, God. Faith in God, who created human reason,
sustains faith in that reason, while this subsumes a human faith
in that same reason, engendered by reason’s proven capacity to
discover and explain the basic elements of a good life.
The “tradition of reason” embodied in the JWD has been
elaborated within the Catholic tradition, “in the light of faith.”
How faith and reason combined in this process can best be
shown not by abstract formulae constructed a-priori, but by an
examination of how they collaborated in the historical process
by which the doctrine was formulated. An outline of this I will
now seek to provide. Since a full account of the tradition, is not
21 Cf. JAMES F. CHILDRESS, “Just War Criteria,” in Thomas A. Shannon, ed.,
War or Peace ? (Maryknoll, NY.: Orbis, 1980) 41. The basis for accepting
“prima facie” remains unaccounted for by this author. Hence, the suggestion
of tradition in this article.