Daniel Statman

This paper explores the view that, beyond particular wrongs committed by Zionism, the Zionist project was itself inherently wrong. I argue that the most plausible basis for this claim is the contention that Zionism disrespected the territorial rights of the local Arab population. By examining leading contemporary theories of territorial rights – specifically those of Miller Moore and Stilz – I demonstrate that none provide a strong foundation for this view. At the onset of Zionist immigration, the Arabs of Palestine did not meet the criteria required to possess territorial rights under these theoretical frameworks.

One of the first philosophers to discuss the topic of standing to blame was Jerry Cohen in his oft-cited paper ‘Casting the First Stone: Who Can and Who Can’t Condemn the Terrorists?’. Cohen takes as his point of departure the condemnation made by Israel against Palestinian terror during the Intifada. In Cohen’s view, this condemnation was out of place. Thus, his paper not only offers a philosophical analysis of the right to condemn, but is itself an exercise in condemnation. My paper tries to show that this condemnation on Cohen’s part was ungrounded and motivated by anger, hence (a) he had no standing to voice it and (b) its condemnees were justified in disregarding it. I base this conclusion on an explanation I offer to show why, when condemning somebody for phi-ing is not motivated by a genuine commitment to the values that underlie the opposition to phi-ing, the blaming is standingless and the blamees have good reasons to ignore it.

There is wide agreement that although ad bellum proportionality (ABP) does not constitute a legal constraint on waging war, it constitutes a moral one, implying that a state ought to refrain from waging an otherwise justified war if it estimates that the war will be disproportionate. Against this view, I argue that the same considerations that tell against regarding ABP as a legal rule tell also against regarding it as a moral one; (a) as a matter of fact, such a rule would be ignored and (b) if it is not ignored, it would significantly undermine deterrence. In addition, there seem to be insurmountable epistemic difficulties in establishing ex ante whether a war will be disproportionate or not. I conclude by arguing that this understanding of ABP is best captured within a contractarian view of the ethics of war. It is mutually beneficial for all international players to agree on a rule that exempts them from the requirement to make sure that the (defensive) wars they wage are ad bellum proportionate.

Teachers are often troubled by the difficulty of enhancing their pupils’ self‐esteem, particularly in the case of students who are especially weak and whose low self‐assessment is justified. Dewhurst suggested (JME, 20(1), pp. 3‐11) that these students can be helped by bringing them to accept themselves, since self‐acceptance is compatible with realistic low self‐assessment. Dewhurst's thesis is criticised and it is suggested that self‐acceptance is inseparable from an improvement in one's self‐assessment. Thus, the improvement of self‐assessment is a necessary condition for enhancing self‐esteem. If cases exist where this reformation of self‐image is unattainable, that is, cases where the self‐assessment of the student cannot be improved, it is doubtful whether there is anything we can do about it.

Christopher New recently argued for the seemingly paradoxical idea that there is no moral reason not to punish someone before she commits her crime (‘prepunishment’), provided that we can be sure that she will, in fact, commit the crime in the future. I argue that the air of paradox dissolves if we understand the possibility of prepunishment as relying on an anti‐moral‐luck position. However, New does not draw the full conclusions from such a position, which would allow prepunishment even prior to the formation of a wrongful intention, on the basis of the idea that bad character is enough to entail blameworthiness. I conclude by examining a legal system which seems to use the idea of prepunishment, i.e. the Talmudic idea that we might punish a child who has not yet sinned in order to save him from sinning in the future.

According to Jeff McMahan, Israel had a right to defend itself against Hamas’s aggression, but the Palestinians too had a right to fight against Israel to undo the injustice of its occupation of Palestinian territories. Thus, both sides had a just cause for war. However, both sides failed to satisfy other ad bellum conditions, with Hamas failing only the necessity condition and Israel failing both the necessity and proportionality conditions. McMahan concludes that Israel’s war against Hamas was unjust, unlike Ukraine’s war against Russia, which he views as ‘paradigmatically just.’ I reject his view, arguing that: (a) The strategic goals of Hamas are the annihilation of Israel, the murder of many of its civilians, and the expulsion of others – goals that are manifestly immoral – thus it had no just cause for war. (b) Even on McMahan’s premises, it is absurd to imply a symmetry in the unjustness of Israel and Hamas. (c) McMahan’s understanding of ad bellum necessity and proportionality is untenable. (d) Israel did, in fact, satisfy the necessity condition. (e) If Ukraine’s war is proportionate, as McMahan assumes, then all the more so is Israel’s war in Gaza.

The paper offers a systematic analysis of the relation between discrimination and justice, a surprisingly neglected topic. It examines the relation between discrimination and various types of injustice—corrective, retributive, distributive and relational—and concludes that while discrimination often leads to various sorts of injustice this is not always the case. If some act or policy is an instance of discrimination, it is not necessarily unjust, and if some act or policy is an instance of injustice, it is not necessarily discriminatory. So injustice isn’t what makes wrongful discrimination wrong.

The recent development of unmanned technology—drones and robots of various types—is transforming the nature of warfare. Instead of fighting against other human beings, combatants will soon be fighting against machines. At present, these machines are operated by human beings, but they are becoming increasingly autonomous. Some people believe that, from a moral point of view, this development is worrisome, especially insofar as fully autonomous offensive systems (‘killer robots’) are concerned. I claim that the arguments that support this belief are pretty weak. Compared with the grand battles of the past, with their shockingly high toll of casualties, drone-centered campaigns seem much more humane. They also enable a better fit between moral responsibility and vulnerability to defensive action. Drones and robots may well be recorded in the annals of warfare as offering real promise for moral progress.

Sometimes victims cannot defend themselves against the threat posed to them, but they can nevertheless harm or even kill their aggressors. Since they cannot defend themselves, it is unclear how such harming can be justified under the title of self-defense. According to the “Honor Solution,” by violently resisting their aggressors, victims do (partially) defend themselves because they protect their honor. Blake Hereth recently argued that this solution is incompatible with the feminist commitment that sexual assault victims ought not to be shamed or dishonored. The purpose of my paper is to reject Hereth's criticism and defend the Honor Solution.

The last decade or so has witnessed a wave of empirical studies purporting to show that men’s sexual focus on the female body leads to increased hostility and aggression against women. According to what I call “The Objectification Hypothesis”, the explanation for this phenomenon has to do with the fact that, in such circumstances, men “objectify” women, that is, regard them as mere objects or as means only. The paper rejects this hypothesis and offers an alternative explanation for the connection between men’s sexual gaze and their aggression against women. This explanation makes no reference to the notions of seeing-other-as-object or of treating-as-means-only. Instead, it locates the dynamic at hand within the theoretical framework of misogyny along the lines developed by Kate Manne.

"מעמדה של הדת במדינה תופס מקום מרכזי בשיח הציבורי והפוליטי, בארץ ובעולם. ייחודו של ספר זה בתפיסה השיטתית והמקיפה שלו באשר למקום הדת בישראל. מצד אחד, הספר דוחה את ההנחה הרווחת שלפיה הליברליזם מחייב את הפרדת הדת והמדינה. מצד אחר, הספר מציע פרשנות מצמצמת והגנות המיוחדות המוענקות לדתיים, המעוגנות בזכות לחופש דת ובחשיבות ההגנה על רגשות דתיים. נושאים מעוררי מחלוקת ורגישים כגון גיוס בחורי ישיבות, מימון ממשלתי לחינוך הדתי ונישואים וגירושים ברבנות נדונים בספר במבט מפוכח, משפטי ופילוסופי, המספק כלים לחשיבה צלולה ולדיון פורה". -- מעטפת אחורית.

In response to our critics, we explain why in spite of the ad bellum breach involved in the first use of force the war agreement is still binding; why the moral symmetry to which War by Agreement subscribes benefits all parties, weak and strong; why contractarianism leaves room the for moral option of not acting within one's rights and refusing to take part in a seemingly unjust war; why contractarianism is superior to rights-consequentialism as a theory of just war; and why contractarianism does not rule out reforms in international law and institutions.

A recent empirical study has argued that experts in the ethics or the law of war cannot reach reasonable convergence on dilemmas regarding the number of civilian casualties who may be killed as a side effect of attacks on legitimate military targets. This article explores the philosophical implications of that study. We argue that the wide disagreement between experts on what in bello proportionality means in practice casts serious doubt on their ability to provide practical real-life guidance. We then suggest viewing in bello proportionality through the prism of virtue ethics.

The paper offers a theory of cruelty that includes the following claims: First, cruelty is best understood as a disposition to take delight in the very infliction of suffering on others. Thus understood, cruelty is the same phenomenon as that studied and operationalized by psychologists in the last decade or so under the heading of everyday sadism. Second, for people to be cruel, they need not have proper understanding of the moral standing of their victims. Third, ascriptions of cruelty do not depend on judgments regarding the moral wrongness of the assumed cruel act. Fourth, since cruelty is primarily a property of agents rather than of actions, and since actions are not always a reliable indication of cruelty, identifying cruelty is a more challenging task than usually thought.

The topic of standing to blame has recently received a lot of attention. Until now, however, it has focused mainly on the blamer's perspective, investigating what it means to say of blamers that they lose standing to blame and why it is that they lose this standing under specified conditions. The present paper focuses on the perspective of the blamees and tries to explain why they are allowed to disregard standingless, more specifically hypocritical, blame. According to the solution proposed by the paper, while hypocritical blamers present themselves as caring about justice or about the moral or material good of the blamees—and they themselves half‐believe this presentation—their real motivation in blaming is less respectable. It is this problematic motivation that explains why blamees are permitted to disregard hypocritical blame. Ill‐motivated blame is often unreliable, and readiness to even consider it often involves a compromise on the self‐respect of the blamees.

The purpose of this article is to discuss whether a person can be discriminated against by means of an action intended to benefit him or her. The discussion is triggered by a recent court decision according to which women may be entitled to compensation for a policy that made them better off in some respect because of its assumed effect on the perpetuation of harmful stereotypes about women. I reject this view, arguing that such effects are neither necessary nor sufficient for an act to be discriminatory. If people stand to directly benefit from some act, they cannot claim discrimination on the basis of such benefit.

Pascal’s wager faces serious criticisms and is generally considered unconvincing. We argue that it can make a comeback powered by an unlikely ally: postmodernism. If one denies the existence of objective facts (e.g. about God or His relation to the world), then various non-theological considerations should come to the fore when considering the rationality of religious commitment and the choice of education for one’s children. In fact, we shall argue that, if one genuinely cares about one’s children, then – in many Western countries – one cannot consistently be both secular and post-modernist.

One motivation for adopting a justice-based view of the right to self-defense is that it seems to solve the puzzle of how a victim may kill her attacker even when doing so is not predicted to protect her from the threat imposed upon her. The paper shows (a) that this view leads to unacceptable results and (b) that its solution to cases of futile self-defense is unsatisfactory. This failure makes the interest-based theory of self-defense look more attractive, both in the context of futile self-defense and in general. To understand how a victim might use force in this context, one need only point to some interest of hers that is threatened, and the best candidate for such interest in cases of futile self-defense is her honor.

Modern orthodoxy often perceives itself and is perceived by others as a movement which grants more importance to moral considerations in its interpretation of halakha and in its general worldview than does the ultra-orthodox movement. Accordingly, modern orthodox rabbis are often referred to as more “moderate” than their ultra-orthodox counterparts, a term which seems to imply that they are more open to moral arguments and more likely to adopt, or to develop, moral interpretations of halakha. A study of some central figures like Walter Wurzburger, Eliezer Berkovits and Joseph B. Soloveitchick, however, indicates that the modern orthodox approach to morality is much more ambivalent. The purpose of this paper is to discuss this ambivalence and to speculate on its source.

_Religion and Morality_ seeks to answer two fundamental questions regarding the relation between religion and morality. The first is the puzzle posed by Socrates, the so-called '_Euthyphro_ dilemma', which asks: is morality valuable by virtue of its intrinsic importance and worth, or is morality valuable because, and only because, God approves it and commands us to follow its dictates? The second question is raised by Kierkegaard in _Fear and Trembling_. He asks: Is a conflict between religion and morality possible? Does God ever demand that we neglect our moral commitments? The discussion on these questions is divided into three parts. In the first two parts, we discuss the idea that morality depends on religion. The authors distinguish two types of dependence: strong dependence, according to which the very existence, or validity, of moral obligations depends on God's command, and weak dependence, according to which though morality itself is independent of God, God (or belief in God) is necessary to enable human beings to know their moral duties and to carry them out. The authors reject the strong dependence thesis, as well as most versions of the weak dependence. The third part of the book discusses different versions of the view that religion might conflict with morality. The authors reject this view, and show that very few religious thinkers would follow it all the way through to its ultimate consequences. The book has implications for the philosophy of religion, in its emphasis on the centrality of the moral element in religion, and for moral philosophy, in its highlighting, among other things, of the nature of moral judgments.