Uwe Steinhoff

This article examines the moral issues of guerrilla, and counter-guerrilla, warfare. Just war theorists who have studied the phenomenon tend to claim that the guerrilla tactic of wearing civilian clothes and hiding among the civilian population is rather difficult, if at all, to reconcile with the ius in bello principle of discrimination (the principle according to which combatants have to distinguish between combatants and non-combatants and may only target the former “directly”). I argue that this ever-repeated assessment is profoundly confused. I also argue, conversely, against the claim that this guerrilla tactic makes it somehow easier for the counter-insurgents to comply with the principle of discrimination, thereby easily allowing them to resort to tactics like area bombardment. Finally, I demonstrate that, contrary to common opinion, guerrilla war does not face greater difficulties in complying with ius ad bellum requirements than conventional or counter-insurgency war does.

Jürgen Habermas seeks to defend the Enlightenment and with it an "emphatical", "uncurtailed" conception of reason against the post-modern critique of reason on the one hand, and against so-called scientism (which would include critical rationalism and the greater part of analytical philosophy) on the other. His objection to the former is that it is self-contradictory and politically defeatist; his objection to the latter is that, thanks to a standard of rationality derived from the natural sciences or from Weber's concept of purposive rationality, it leaves normative questions to irrational decisions. Habermas wants to offer an alternative, trying to develop a theory of communicative action that can clarify the normative foundations of a critical theory of society as well as provide a fruitful theoretical framework for empirical social research. This study is a comprehensive and detailed analysis and sustained critique of Habermas' philosophical system since his pragmatist turn in the seventies. It clearly and precisely depicts Habermas' long chain of arguments leading from an analysis of speech acts to a discourse theory of law and the democratic constitutional state. Along the way the study examines, among other things, Habermas' theory of communicative action, transcendental and universal pragmatics and the argument from "performative contradictions", discourse ethics, the consensus theory of truth, Habermas' ideas on developmental psychology, communicative pathologies and social evolution, his theory of social order, the analysis of the tensions between system and lifeworld, his theory of modernity, and his theory of deliberative democracy. For all Habermas students this study will prove indispensable.

Stephen Kershnar’s main argument in Gratitude toward Veterans is that Americans should not be very grateful towards veterans. More precisely, he not only argues that veterans do not deserve the gratitude that many Americans offer them, but also that it is morally objectionable to be grateful towards them. His argument is applicable to war veterans generally, not only to those in the USA. Yet, it does have specific relevance to the United States given that, as Kershnar demonstrates, public gratitude towards veterans is particularly widespread and pronounced there, at least in comparison to many other Western democracies.Moreover, in arguing for his main thesis, Kershnar also provides sustained defenses of his additional claims that the military draft is morally wrong and that the obligation to obey military orders is weak. . ..

Since people have a right even to kill a culpable aggressor if, in the circumstances, this is a proportionate and necessary means of self–defense against an imminent or ongoing attack, and since most forms of torture are not as bad as killing, people must also have a right to torture a culpable aggressor if this, too, in the circumstances, is a proportionate and necessary means of self–defense against an imminent or ongoing attack.But can torture really ever be a form of self–defense? Yes, it can. For instance, a child kidnapper, by holding the child hostage in a wooden box, thereby depriving it of its freedom and torturing it,is an aggressor, whether in custody or not. He is, after all, torturing the child right now while he is in custody. Thus, torturing him to save the child would be a case of self-defensive torture

McGowan argues “that ordinary utterances routinely enact norms without the speaker having or exercising any special authority” and thereby not “merely cause” but “constitute” harm if harm results from adherence to the enacted norms. The discovery of this “previously overlooked mechanism,” she claims, provides a potential justification for “further speech regulation.” Her argument is unsuccessful. She merely redefines concepts like “harm constitution” and “norm enactment” and fails to explain why speech that “constitutes” harm is legally or morally problematic and thus an initially more plausible target for speech regulation than speech that “merely causes” harm. Even if she could explain that, however, her account would still be incapable of identifying cases where utterances “constitute harm.” This is so for two reasons. First, she provides neither analytical nor empirical criteria for deciding which so-called “s-norms” have been enacted by an “ordinary utterance.” Second, even if such criteria could be provided, there is no epistemically available means to distinguish whether harm has ensued due to adherence to the enacted s-norms or through other mechanisms. Given this lack of criteria and practical applicability, there is no way that this account could serve as a principled basis for speech regulation – it could only serve as a pretext for arbitrary censorship.

Thomas Pogge labels the idea that each person owes each other person equal respect and concern ‘ethical cosmopolitanism’ and correctly states that it is a ‘non‐starter’. He offers as an allegedly more convincing cosmopolitan alternative his ‘social justice cosmopolitanism’. I shall argue that this alternative fails for pretty much the same reasons that ‘ethical cosmopolitanism’ fails. In addition, I will show that Pogge's definition of cosmopolitanism is misleading, since it actually applies to ethical cosmopolitanism and not to social justice cosmopolitanism. This means that cosmopolitanism as defined by Pogge is wrong in the light of his own arguments and that Pogge is not even a cosmopolitan in the sense of his own definition. I will further show that he is also not a cosmopolitan if cosmopolitanism is defined as a philosophical position involving the claim that state borders have no fundamental moral significance.

This book provides a thorough critical overview of the current debate on the ethics of war, as well as a modern just war theory that can give practical action-guidance by recognizing and explaining the moral force of widely accepted law. Traditionalist, Walzerian, and "revisionist" approaches have dominated contemporary debates about the classical jus ad bellum and jus in bello requirements in just war theory. In this book, Uwe Steinhoff corrects widely spread misinterpretations of these competing views and spells out the implications for the ethics of war. His approach is unique in that it complements the usual analysis in terms of self-defense with an emphasis on the importance of other justifications that are often lumped together under the heading of "lesser evil." It also draws on criminal law and legal scholarship, which has been largely ignored by just war theorists. Ultimately, Steinhoff rejects arguments in favor of "moral fundamentalism"-- the view that the laws and customs of war must simply follow an immutable morality. In contrast, he argues that widely accepted laws and conventions of war are partly constitutive of the moral rules that apply in a conflict. The Ethics of War and the Force of Law will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in just war theory, applied ethics, political philosophy, political theory, philosophy of law, and criminal and military law.

There are different formulations of the doctrine of double effect (DDE), and sometimes philosophers propose “revisions” or alternatives, like the means principle, for instance. To demonstrate that such principles are needed in the first place, one would have to compare cases in which all else is equal and show that the difference in intuitions, if any, can only be explained by the one remaining difference and thus by the principle in question. This is not the methodology defenders of the DDE and of related principles use, however. I will discuss how they actually proceed, focusing on their preferred four pairs of examples. While these examples might have rhetorical force, they are nevertheless philosophically and methodologically useless (since they do not keep all else equal). As a corrective, I shall offer examples that do keep all else equal. These examples undermine the DDE and related principles. I then argue that while the Loop case and the “closeness” problem in the context of Jonathan Bennett’s Sophisticated Bomber example might once have been an embarrassment of sorts for defenders of the DDE, meanwhile their discussion serves as a convenient distraction from the many clear examples disproving the DDE and related principles. I conclude that there is simply no sufficient intuitive support for the DDE or related principles. Instead of looking for their “rationales,” they should be abandoned.

Wann ist ein Krieg gerecht? Wer ist "unschuldig", und wer ist unter welchen Umstanden ein legitimes Angriffsziel? Und was bedeutet das fur die Beurteilung von Terrorismus? Diese und andere hochaktuelle Fragen behandelt Uwe Steinhoff in seiner kritischen und provokativen Analyse auch im Ruckgriff auf aktuelle Beispiele wie den Nahostkonflikt und den "Krieg gegen den Terror". Der Leser erhalt einen profunden und prazisen Uberblick uber die philosophische Debatte als unentbehrliches Rustzeug fur die eigene Urteilsfindung. "In seiner gewahlten Rolle als philosophe provocateur prasentiert Steinhoff eine nachhaltige Position und untermauert sie mit enthusiastischen Kritiken konventioneller Ansichten und dem unerschrockenen Ausbuchstabieren der Logik der Alternativen. Insbesondere fur Philosophiestudenten wird dieses Buch eine nutzliche Provokation sein, und vieles von dem, was gesagt wird, verdient Zustimmung." "Dieses kraftvoll herausfordernde Buch wird zweifelsohne Kontroversen provozieren und die Debatte stimulieren."

This article provides a response to the contributors of this symposium. Notably, I respond to the following objections: that my list of just war criteria is too long on an “ideal” level and too short for practical purposes; that in particular my rejection of legitimate authority is misguided; that I am wrong in claiming that in just war theory the conditions of proportionality and necessity, which are separate in the self-defense justification, must be merged; that my “social practice view” – which denies the existence of an “immutable”, “deep” morality of war and holds instead that widely accepted conventions have moral force and are therefore partly constitutive of the morality of war – faces severe challenges and makes too much of standing to complain and considerations of reciprocity; and that my account of rights forfeiture is mistaken.