Richard Wasserstrom, "On the Morality of War"

Does 'morality' apply to war at all?
        "Morality has no place in the assessment of war."  Is this a factual claim, a prescriptive one, or an analytical one?  If it is factual, it means that other considerations apply; if prescriptive, it might mean that war ought to be determined by something other than moral claims, such as by national interest; and if it is an analytical claim - if it is meaningless and cannot be verified, what would this imply?

    (If the claim is a prescriptive one, how will we account for the notion that national interest, like self interest or group interest, is a moral claim?)

If the claim is analytic, what would make it compelling to believe that it is analytic?
    1.  The notion that your own nation is acting immorally is personally threatening.  If you oppose war, you are subject to sanctions in your own country.  If you don't oppose it, then you acquiesce in immorality.  So, if you deny that morality has any place in war, your country can be engaged only in a war that may be unwise or not, but not an immoral one.
    2.  Differences between personal behavior and international behavior, or the behavior of states:
            There are no laws governing the behavior of states.  If there are no laws, there can be no justice or injustice (A Hobbesian view)
                    Yet, there seems to be a difference between justice -as following rules- and morality.  (But is there any difference?  Is morality in rules and principles, or is it something else?)
    3.  Perhaps we could say that we can't assess war morallyl because there is, by definition, no morality in war.
            Responses:  a) Not a necessary feature of war that it be a condition in which anything goes.  b)  Maybe waging war itself, as a practical matter, is one in which morally anything does, in fact, go.  So there's nothing to which to apply notions of morality.
                    A way to reply:  If the arguments for conduct IN war are convincing, they lead to argumetns AGAINST war that are even more compelling.
    4.  A way to show the analytic view is to consider the prescriptive one:
            Prescriptive - that the national interest ought to be the deciding factor, not morality
                    A.  Do we value of the lives of those in our own country more than the lives of those in others?  Should we?
                            The analogy to parents caring more for their children than those of others seems relevant here.
                                i.  But this doesn't automatically lead to the notion that any and all claims of one's own children ought to override all of one's other obligations.  Therea re still limits to what a mother may do for her child, or what a lawyer may do for a client.
                                ii.  Is national interest something knowable and immutable?  (Is it even necessary to consider this?  Why must it be a matter of knowing?  Can't it be apprehension of a shared project, and not some kind of rationalistic view of some truth that one could grasp?)
                                iii.  If national interest is the goal, how is the goal to be achieved?  Maybe we have reason to have a less agressive stand.
 

Assessing the Morality of War:
    -Can morality be meaningful in war?
                Even if not, there are degrees of awfulness in war, and they can be the subject of discussion.
    -What is the cause to justify war?
                a.  A forward looking criterion - what are the consequences of waging war?  consequentialist
                b.  A retributive, backward-looking criterion - has a country violated an agreement?
                c.  What about self-defense as a justification?
                        i.  Can we compare this to cases in which an individual engages in self-defense?  Even in cases like this, there are limitations.
                        ii.  Are countries like individual people? -- What of the notion in a contractarian system that the people ARE its government?
                        iii.  Can countries die like individuals do?  For individuals, there is law and there are institutions to which to appeal for assisance that put limits on claims to self-defense.
 

Considerations Concerning War and Innocents:
    What does 'innocent' mean?
            Non combatant.  Who counts as this?  What about civilians engaged in the manufacture of weapons?  What about the voting behavior of people in a democratic society?  How about those who are simply enthusiastic about, or support, a war?

    Can there be anyone who is innocent?  Children?

    Are the deaths of innocents immoral?  Aren't there cases in which the deaths of innocents could be justifiable - to save the lives of even more innocent people?  (Is this like the executive order to shoot down planes that are commandeered by terrorists and are headed for heavily populated areas?)

    What is the relationship between the morality of war and the morality of killing innocents, if any?