The Ethics of Conflict in Changing World

Abstract

In the study, conflict is understood mainly as the actions aimed at harming the opposing side, since only in this sense is war considered as an object of moral assessments and recommendations. The authors address the problem of the transformation of the role of the Theory of Just War (JWT), which is currently the dominant ethics of war and defines the essence of the difference between fair and unfair war. The study highlights the problems of using JWT, analyzes more detailly the problem of reconciling JWT with the changing realities of war. The authors consider and criticize N. Fotion’s solution, according to which two different modifications of JWT instead of one are used - JWT for regular and irregular wars. The most obvious alternative solutions were analyzed and the authors conclude that the least problematic solution is to reject the identification of morally justified wars with the fair ones and to assume the existence of morally justified wars that are not fair. This allows to interpret actions that do not meet moral requirements, but have some moral justification in special situations, as exceptions, not because in these cases they cease to be morally wrong or fair, but because the circumstances that make them morally justified are such that strict observance of the general rule creates too high a risk of even worse moral consequences. By this assumption another contradiction is resolved: aggression may remain a form of injustice, but in some cases it may have a moral justification. The solution proposed by the authors only sets a promising direction for solving the problem. At the same time, it is still important to minimize the risk of situations in which it will be necessary to choose between justice and the moral justification of war.

Keywords

• just war theory
• conditions of ius ad bellum
• conditions of ius in bello
• regular wars
• irregular wars
• moral justification