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War is never moral

by beezlewax 2y ago

War is never moral

nirav72 2y ago
Wars and conflicts have been around long before we had defined morals.
- appendix-rock 2y ago
  That is both utterly thought-terminating and irrelevant.
  - nirav72 2y ago
    So is a reductive opinion such as “war is never moral” and completely ignoring thousands of years of human history.
psunavy03 2y ago
So the Ukrainians should not be defending themselves against a foreign invasion? Defending themselves against foreign aggressors who have committed documented atrocities against their population, and who are on record as intending to commit genocide against them when they win, is immoral?
hnhg 2y ago
Resisting occupation?
Spivak 2y ago
Not even the Catholic Church agrees with you and they're famously aggressively anti-war. From Pope Francis, “war is in itself a crime against humanity.” John Paul II, "No, never again war, which destroys the lives of innocent people, teaches how to kill, throws into upheaval even the lives of those who do the killing and leaves behind a trail of resentment and hatred." And yet church doctrine outlines the criteria for a just war. 1. The damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain. 2. All other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective. 3. There must be serious prospects of success. 4. The use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The US gets tripped up on 4. a lot.
- psunavy03 2y ago
  #3 and #4 are worth valuing, but also sometimes wickedly hard to measure. I mean, look at the interventions in places like Yugoslavia and Libya, where the goal was to stop disorder and/or genocide. Or the disaster that was the UN intervention in Rwanda. Clausewitz teaches that wars have a character all their own, unique to their time and circumstance, and that understanding the nature of the war you are engaged in is simultaneously vital and very, very difficult to do.

War is never moral

nirav72 2y ago

Wars and conflicts have been around long before we had defined morals.

appendix-rock 2y ago
That is both utterly thought-terminating and irrelevant.
- nirav72 2y ago
  So is a reductive opinion such as “war is never moral” and completely ignoring thousands of years of human history.

psunavy03 2y ago

So the Ukrainians should not be defending themselves against a foreign invasion? Defending themselves against foreign aggressors who have committed documented atrocities against their population, and who are on record as intending to commit genocide against them when they win, is immoral?

hnhg 2y ago

Resisting occupation?

Spivak 2y ago

Not even the Catholic Church agrees with you and they're famously aggressively anti-war. From Pope Francis, “war is in itself a crime against humanity.” John Paul II, "No, never again war, which destroys the lives of innocent people, teaches how to kill, throws into upheaval even the lives of those who do the killing and leaves behind a trail of resentment and hatred." And yet church doctrine outlines the criteria for a just war. 1. The damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain. 2. All other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective. 3. There must be serious prospects of success. 4. The use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The US gets tripped up on 4. a lot.

psunavy03 2y ago
#3 and #4 are worth valuing, but also sometimes wickedly hard to measure. I mean, look at the interventions in places like Yugoslavia and Libya, where the goal was to stop disorder and/or genocide. Or the disaster that was the UN intervention in Rwanda. Clausewitz teaches that wars have a character all their own, unique to their time and circumstance, and that understanding the nature of the war you are engaged in is simultaneously vital and very, very difficult to do.