History, ethics, and war: on the moral equality of combatants

Abstract

This article takes as its starting point the contention that thinking ethically about war requires thinking historically about ethics. Such a contention, we suggest, requires us to have a clear sense of what thinking historically entails. Yet this can assume very different forms. Taking the question of the moral equality of combatants as a focal point for analysis, we examine three ways of engaging history in the task of thinking ethically about war. The first approach, which is standard in contemporary ethics of war scholarship, brackets history and naturalizes present ways of thinking. We then turn to the second approach, tradition, which asserts that a more fruitful way to think about the ethics of war involves engaging the deep tradition of thought within which just war theory crystalised and developed over time. Here, we reveal the ambiguity that surrounds the relation between the doctrine of the moral equality of combatants and the historical development of the just war tradition. Finally, we profile what a genealogical approach to the ethics of war might look like. Here, we break new ground by inviting ethics-of-war scholars to consider what might be achieved by adopting a critical rather than conservative approach. We conclude by exhorting scholars of International Political Theory to be mindful of what precisely they are doing when engaging with history.