Summaries / Resúmenes - Studia Moralia

POPE JOHN PAUL II AND THE WAR IN IRAQ 327Thus, where an application of the “just war doctrine” functionsas an apologia for the war policies of a particular nation, a“hermeneutic of suspicion” is in order. The arguments in favourof war must be scrutinized with care.Apologists for War?Important differences emerged between the position takenby the Pope and that advocated by some supporters of the warin Iraq, such as George Weigel. 40 According to John Paul II, “waris always a defeat for humanity.” In Weigel’s view, war is anextension of politics by other means. If by “politics” we mean thePope’s vision of the promotion of a human community, united insolidarity, then war cannot be “an extension of politics.” ForWeigel, war may be a positive means for furthering just goals. Ihave already addressed the ethical, methodological implicationsof the Pope’s position. Weigel’s view now calls for consideration.Weigel does not, of course, accept the view that “war is hell,”that is, that it falls completely outside the bounds of ethics ofany kind. According to Weigel, war must be governed by reason,since it would otherwise be simply morally evil, that is inhuman.One who accepted the Pope’s position would agree. But the crucialquestion here is the meaning of reason, and how that reasonmay guide decisions about going to war and its conduct, accordingto genuine human goals. That is to say, how may reason integratewar into a broader human project aimed at peace.The answer provided by Weigel is that reason means moralreason as embodied in political reason, which is itself directed to“worthy goals.” Weigel’s account assumes a notion of “politics”that is much narrower than that of the Pope. Politics, for him(Weigel) concerns the ordering of a political community, a state,within itself, and the ordering of relationships of states betweenthemselves, by means of accords, according to “justice” and “the40George WEIGEL, “Moral Clarity in a Time of War,” The Second AnnualWilliam E. Simon Lecture; Weigel /staff/xq/ASP/staffID.14/qx/staf_viewdetail.htm.