Avant-propos - Studia Moralia

THE WAR ON TERRORISM: A JUSTWAR? 57
stance and of their motivating power. Separated from the context
of virtue, within which they were formed, they do not have
within themselves the capacity to move people towards those
goals which give them meaning, namely the limitation of war,
the overcoming of violence and the fostering of peace. This is
not to say that those who follow the generally accepted war convention
do not possess virtue, or do not allow virtue to guide
their concrete decisions. The contrary is evident from experience.
61 The problem is that the necessary virtue ethic has been
omitted from the standard presentations of the J.W.D.: there is
no mention of charity, and justice is often treated as if it consisted
in purely objective rules. 62 Hence, if the JWD is to be presented
in its “traditional” form, by which is meant that form
which it assumed within the Catholic tradition, then it must
include an ethics of virtue.
It can be argued further, that without such an ethic of virtue,
attempts to assess proportionality cannot succeed. Consider the
following version of the JWD norms and their application to the
war against terrorism.
(In reference to)… the in bello field. There, the two Just War criteria
call for action that does not seek to work through the deaths of
non-combatants - the principle of discrimination; and that does
not foreseeably and avoidably entail such deaths, even collaterally,
on a scale disproportionate to the military effect properly sought -
the principle of proportionality. The initial strikes do indeed seem
to be so designed and their outcome so far appears to fit the aim. 63
Thus, the action was not planned to bring pressure to bear on
the government to surrender, or modify its policies, by directly
61 See the story of Frank Richards, WALZER, Just and Unjust Wars, 152.
62 For an otherwise excellent argument, which, however omits considerations
of virtue, and specifically of charity, see JOHN LANGAN, S.J. “From
Ends to Means: Devising a Response to Terrorism,” America (October 8,
2001), URL http://www.americapress.org/terror.htm.
63 MICHAEL QUINLAN, The Tablet, 23 October, 2001, 1451. This was written
at the start of the operation. As can be seen, the author leaves room for a
revision in view of later evidence.