Avant-propos - Studia Moralia

THE WAR ON TERRORISM: A JUSTWAR? 55
tion of the JWD is not only a matter of justice, and the assessment
of proportionality is not to be made by a mere quantitative
calculation of numbers of losses. The just war tradition, within
the Catholic tradition, did not manifest any substantial development
after this period, until the Second Vatican Council, with its
requirement to “to undertake an evaluation of war with an
entirely new attitude.” 57 The process of re-evaluation is now taking
place.
As the secular version of the JWD divided from the Catholic
tradition, the theological-eschatological context was set aside in
favour of “reason.” The link with the ethic of charity, although
retained by Grotius, soon disappeared, 58 and with it any consideration
of the virtues of the subject, while the assessment of the
acceptable losses of non-combatants was calculated in purely
“objective” terms.
What would be the role and significance of the consideration
of the charity in ethical decisions regarding war and the
acceptable range of losses of non-combatants? Renick argues
that charity would require the protagonists to do more “… than
merely create a greater sum of good than evil. We must minimize
the evil done, and we must be willing to sacrifice to do so,
if we are meaningfully to call our actions moral.” 59 But one
might ask, what is the criterion by which the minimum ought to
be set? Would we want to say that, in a military action, only that
number of losses may be accepted, which is strictly necessary
for the success of this particular attack, and, overall, only that
number of losses is acceptable which is strictly necessary for victory?
But what does “necessary” mean? Does it mean what is
necessary for the fitting punishment of the aggressor? Or does it
mean what is required to re-establish peace, or to make the
world a better place? Or does it simply mean that which is strictly
necessary only to repel the aggression?
The argument put forward here will be that, for Catholics, at
least, and perhaps also for other Christians, the JWD has mean-
57 Gaudium et Spes # 80.
58 RENICK, “Charity Lost,” 455.
59 RENICK, “Charity Lost,” 460-461.