Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Monday, November 9, 2009
Superb Note on the Fall of the Wall
The Fall of One Wall
Peter Wehner
It is an anniversary that should rank among the greatest we recognize: the fall of the Berlin Wall and, with it, the end of Soviet Communism and a successful conclusion to the Cold War. And yet it passes with very little attention, as almost an afterthought. It is an astonishing oversight on our part.
There are many things to take away from the meaning of what unfolded at the Berlin Wall two decades ago — one of which is that the West has many more inherent strengths many of us often forget. As a reference point, think back to the early-to-mid 1980s. One of the influential books of that time was How Democracies Perish by the distinguished French philosopher and journalist Jean-Francois Revel. The first sentence of Mr. Revel's book reads this way: "Perhaps in history democracy will have been an accident, a brief parenthesis which comes to a close before our very eyes." The aim of the book, Revel wrote, "is to describe in detail the implacable democracy-killing machine this world of ours has become. There may be some satisfaction in understanding how it works, even if we are powerless to stop it."
What is even more noteworthy is the theory underpinning Mr. Revel's conclusion. Structural weaknesses enervate democracies. Democratic societies, we were told, are inwardly oriented and self-hating. It was said that we were in denial about the threats we faced and the nature of totalitarian regimes. And there was the failure of Western nerve and courage. Faced with a ruthless, determined, patient enemy, democracies -- including the United States -- were acquiescing in their own defeat. Mr. Revel's bottom line was this: "Communism is a better machine for world conquest than democracy, and this is what will decide the final outcome of their struggle."
Six years after Revel's influential book was published, Soviet Communism was dead and democracy has rarely been more dominant. What are we to make of this?
Perhaps the first thing to recognize is that it has long been said that America and the West face an inherent disadvantage when compared to the discipline, efficiency, and brutality of totalitarian regimes. Freedom leads to softness, decadence and the loss of moral courage. We had become too comfortable and cosseted to endure hardships and the burdens of war. But here is what Winston Churchill said in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, in response to those claims:
Silly people -- and there were many, not only in enemy countries -- might discount the force of the United States. Some said they were soft, others that they would never be united. They would fool around at a distance. They would never come to grips. They would never stand blood-letting. Their democracy and system of recurrent elections would paralyze their war effort. They would be just a vague blur on the horizon to friend and foe. Now we should see the weakness of this numerous but remote, wealthy and talkative people. But I had studied the American Civil War, fought out to the last desperate inch. American blood flowed in my veins. I thought of a remark which Edward Grey had made to me more than thirty years before -- that the United States is like 'a gigantic boiler. Once the fire is lighted under it there is no limit to the power it can generate.'
It turns out that in the contest between freedom and totalitarianism, freedom does pretty well. Whittaker Chambers, without even knowing it, joined the winning side. There are a number of explanations for this, including the fact that Western democracies are usually technologically superior to, and richer than, their enemies. And democratic regimes are inherently self-correcting; fascist ones are not. But what is striking to me is less that leading Western thinkers (and non-Western thinkers; see Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's 1978 commencement address at Harvard University) did not recognize that Communism's intrinsic failures would lead to its demise. What is worth noting, rather, is that many defenders of democracy did not fully appreciate the inherent strengths of human liberty.
There are certain human realities that have led to the rise of the democratic idea. Because liberty conforms to human nature, it often leads to human excellence and human flourishing. Freedom leads to advancements not merely in science, art, and literature; it also encourages acts of compassion and valor, and deepens the bonds of loyalty to one's country and affection for one's countrymen. The joyless conformity of totalitarianism eats away at the human spirit; the iron discipline and fanaticism of closed societies masks a hollowness at the core.
This does not mean we are at the end of history, or that democracies are without flaws, or that the success of democratic self-government is foreordained. Liberty can slip into license. Progress that has been made can be lost -- and it is worth remembering that democracies remain a rarity in history.
It's also important to bear in mind that the idea of freedom is alone insufficient; it needs to be backed up by the sword and the shield. "It is a piece of idle sentimentality that truth, merely as truth, has any inherent power denied to error of prevailing against the dungeon and the stake," John Stuart Mill, a great champion of liberty, wrote a century and a half ago. The same point holds true for freedom in its struggle against oppression. It is certainly not inevitable that freedom prevail; it requires will and courage -- and sometimes it requires force of arms.
With those caveats in place, though, there is something about the nature of human beings and our relationship to freedom that is vital and can help us better understand what occurred 20 years ago.
For all the challenges we face, we live in a relatively hopeful time in human history. And it is instructive to look back only a few decades ago, when it was thought by the intellectual class and even among some of our political leaders that the West was in decline and Spenglerian pessimism was in order. A few admirable and prescient leaders -- including John Kennedy, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and, above all, Ronald Reagan -- would have none of it. They understood that, in Kennedy’s words:
it is clear that the forces of diversity are at work inside the Communist camp, despite all the iron disciplines of regimentation and all the iron dogmatisms of ideology. Marx is proven wrong once again: for it is the closed Communist societies, not the free and open societies which carry within themselves the seeds of internal disintegration. The disarray of the Communist empire has been heightened by two other formidable forces. One is the historical force of nationalism -- and the yearning of all men to be free. The other is the gross inefficiency of their economies. For a closed society is not open to ideas of progress--and a police state finds that it cannot command the grain to grow.
Twenty years ago the Wall came tumbling down. A sadistic, soul-killing police state came to an end. And the United States -- in confronting Soviet Communism, in supporting the forces of liberty across the globe, and in refusing to grow weary in doing good -- added another remarkable and estimable chapter to its record of achievement. That, I think, is in large part the meaning of this anniversary.
Peter Wehner
It is an anniversary that should rank among the greatest we recognize: the fall of the Berlin Wall and, with it, the end of Soviet Communism and a successful conclusion to the Cold War. And yet it passes with very little attention, as almost an afterthought. It is an astonishing oversight on our part.
There are many things to take away from the meaning of what unfolded at the Berlin Wall two decades ago — one of which is that the West has many more inherent strengths many of us often forget. As a reference point, think back to the early-to-mid 1980s. One of the influential books of that time was How Democracies Perish by the distinguished French philosopher and journalist Jean-Francois Revel. The first sentence of Mr. Revel's book reads this way: "Perhaps in history democracy will have been an accident, a brief parenthesis which comes to a close before our very eyes." The aim of the book, Revel wrote, "is to describe in detail the implacable democracy-killing machine this world of ours has become. There may be some satisfaction in understanding how it works, even if we are powerless to stop it."
What is even more noteworthy is the theory underpinning Mr. Revel's conclusion. Structural weaknesses enervate democracies. Democratic societies, we were told, are inwardly oriented and self-hating. It was said that we were in denial about the threats we faced and the nature of totalitarian regimes. And there was the failure of Western nerve and courage. Faced with a ruthless, determined, patient enemy, democracies -- including the United States -- were acquiescing in their own defeat. Mr. Revel's bottom line was this: "Communism is a better machine for world conquest than democracy, and this is what will decide the final outcome of their struggle."
Six years after Revel's influential book was published, Soviet Communism was dead and democracy has rarely been more dominant. What are we to make of this?
Perhaps the first thing to recognize is that it has long been said that America and the West face an inherent disadvantage when compared to the discipline, efficiency, and brutality of totalitarian regimes. Freedom leads to softness, decadence and the loss of moral courage. We had become too comfortable and cosseted to endure hardships and the burdens of war. But here is what Winston Churchill said in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, in response to those claims:
Silly people -- and there were many, not only in enemy countries -- might discount the force of the United States. Some said they were soft, others that they would never be united. They would fool around at a distance. They would never come to grips. They would never stand blood-letting. Their democracy and system of recurrent elections would paralyze their war effort. They would be just a vague blur on the horizon to friend and foe. Now we should see the weakness of this numerous but remote, wealthy and talkative people. But I had studied the American Civil War, fought out to the last desperate inch. American blood flowed in my veins. I thought of a remark which Edward Grey had made to me more than thirty years before -- that the United States is like 'a gigantic boiler. Once the fire is lighted under it there is no limit to the power it can generate.'
It turns out that in the contest between freedom and totalitarianism, freedom does pretty well. Whittaker Chambers, without even knowing it, joined the winning side. There are a number of explanations for this, including the fact that Western democracies are usually technologically superior to, and richer than, their enemies. And democratic regimes are inherently self-correcting; fascist ones are not. But what is striking to me is less that leading Western thinkers (and non-Western thinkers; see Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's 1978 commencement address at Harvard University) did not recognize that Communism's intrinsic failures would lead to its demise. What is worth noting, rather, is that many defenders of democracy did not fully appreciate the inherent strengths of human liberty.
There are certain human realities that have led to the rise of the democratic idea. Because liberty conforms to human nature, it often leads to human excellence and human flourishing. Freedom leads to advancements not merely in science, art, and literature; it also encourages acts of compassion and valor, and deepens the bonds of loyalty to one's country and affection for one's countrymen. The joyless conformity of totalitarianism eats away at the human spirit; the iron discipline and fanaticism of closed societies masks a hollowness at the core.
This does not mean we are at the end of history, or that democracies are without flaws, or that the success of democratic self-government is foreordained. Liberty can slip into license. Progress that has been made can be lost -- and it is worth remembering that democracies remain a rarity in history.
It's also important to bear in mind that the idea of freedom is alone insufficient; it needs to be backed up by the sword and the shield. "It is a piece of idle sentimentality that truth, merely as truth, has any inherent power denied to error of prevailing against the dungeon and the stake," John Stuart Mill, a great champion of liberty, wrote a century and a half ago. The same point holds true for freedom in its struggle against oppression. It is certainly not inevitable that freedom prevail; it requires will and courage -- and sometimes it requires force of arms.
With those caveats in place, though, there is something about the nature of human beings and our relationship to freedom that is vital and can help us better understand what occurred 20 years ago.
For all the challenges we face, we live in a relatively hopeful time in human history. And it is instructive to look back only a few decades ago, when it was thought by the intellectual class and even among some of our political leaders that the West was in decline and Spenglerian pessimism was in order. A few admirable and prescient leaders -- including John Kennedy, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and, above all, Ronald Reagan -- would have none of it. They understood that, in Kennedy’s words:
it is clear that the forces of diversity are at work inside the Communist camp, despite all the iron disciplines of regimentation and all the iron dogmatisms of ideology. Marx is proven wrong once again: for it is the closed Communist societies, not the free and open societies which carry within themselves the seeds of internal disintegration. The disarray of the Communist empire has been heightened by two other formidable forces. One is the historical force of nationalism -- and the yearning of all men to be free. The other is the gross inefficiency of their economies. For a closed society is not open to ideas of progress--and a police state finds that it cannot command the grain to grow.
Twenty years ago the Wall came tumbling down. A sadistic, soul-killing police state came to an end. And the United States -- in confronting Soviet Communism, in supporting the forces of liberty across the globe, and in refusing to grow weary in doing good -- added another remarkable and estimable chapter to its record of achievement. That, I think, is in large part the meaning of this anniversary.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Criminal Law Made Easy Part 3
Pages in category "Elements of crime"
The following 14 pages are in this category, out of 14 total. This list may not reflect recent changes (learn more).
A
Actus reus
C
Causation (law)
Concurrence
Criminal negligence
E
Element (criminal law)
I
Ignorantia juris non excusat
Intent
Intention (criminal law)
M
Mens rea
O
Omission (criminal law)
R
Reasonable person
Recklessness (law)
S
Strict liability (criminal)
V
Vicarious liability (criminal)
The following 14 pages are in this category, out of 14 total. This list may not reflect recent changes (learn more).
A
Actus reus
C
Causation (law)
Concurrence
Criminal negligence
E
Element (criminal law)
I
Ignorantia juris non excusat
Intent
Intention (criminal law)
M
Mens rea
O
Omission (criminal law)
R
Reasonable person
Recklessness (law)
S
Strict liability (criminal)
V
Vicarious liability (criminal)
Criminal Law Made Easy Part 2
Actus reus: the prohibited act.
For example, in Canada's Criminal Code, at s. 322, the actus reus of theft is defined as follows:
"Every one commits theft who fraudulently and without colour of right takes, or fraudulently and without colour of right converts to his use or to the use of another person, anything, whether animate or inanimate, with intent
(a) to deprive, temporarily or absolutely, the owner of it, or a person who has a special property or interest in it, of the thing or of his property or interest in it;
(b) to pledge it or deposit it as security;
(c) to part with it under a condition with respect to its return that the person who parts with it may be unable to perform; or
(d) to deal with it in such a manner that it cannot be restored in the condition in which it was at the time it was taken or converted."
Usually, but not always, the actus reus is defined as an act but an omission can constitute one as well, such as at s. 215, failing "to provide necessaries of life for a child under the age of sixteen years".
During the normal course of a criminal trial, a prosecutor proves actus reus and mens rea beyond a reasonable doubt and barring a successful defence, conviction follows.
The term was judicially considered in R v Théroux 1993 2 SCR 5 where Justice McLachlin, in reference to the actus reus of fraud:
"The offence has two elements: dishonest act and deprivation. The dishonest act is established by proof of deceit, falsehood or 'other fraudulent means'. The the element of deprivation is established by proof of detriment, prejudice, or risk of prejudice to the economic interests of the victim, caused by the dishonest act."
For example, in Canada's Criminal Code, at s. 322, the actus reus of theft is defined as follows:
"Every one commits theft who fraudulently and without colour of right takes, or fraudulently and without colour of right converts to his use or to the use of another person, anything, whether animate or inanimate, with intent
(a) to deprive, temporarily or absolutely, the owner of it, or a person who has a special property or interest in it, of the thing or of his property or interest in it;
(b) to pledge it or deposit it as security;
(c) to part with it under a condition with respect to its return that the person who parts with it may be unable to perform; or
(d) to deal with it in such a manner that it cannot be restored in the condition in which it was at the time it was taken or converted."
Usually, but not always, the actus reus is defined as an act but an omission can constitute one as well, such as at s. 215, failing "to provide necessaries of life for a child under the age of sixteen years".
During the normal course of a criminal trial, a prosecutor proves actus reus and mens rea beyond a reasonable doubt and barring a successful defence, conviction follows.
The term was judicially considered in R v Théroux 1993 2 SCR 5 where Justice McLachlin, in reference to the actus reus of fraud:
"The offence has two elements: dishonest act and deprivation. The dishonest act is established by proof of deceit, falsehood or 'other fraudulent means'. The the element of deprivation is established by proof of detriment, prejudice, or risk of prejudice to the economic interests of the victim, caused by the dishonest act."
Criminal Law Made Easy Part 1
Mens rea: Latin for "guilty mind"; guilty knowledge or intention to commit a prohibited act.
Also: "a particular state of mind such as the intent to cause, or some foresight of, the results of the act or the state of affairs." (R v Daviault 1994 3 SCR 63 at para. 74)
Many serious crimes require the proof of mens rea before a person can be convicted.
In other words, the prosecution must prove not only that the accused committed the offence (actus reus) but that he (or she) did it knowing that it was prohibited; that their act (or omission) was done with an intent to commit the crime.
A maxim rich in tradition and well known to law students is actus non facit reum, nisi mens sit rea or "a person cannot be convicted and punished in a proceeding of a criminal nature unless it can be shown that he had a guilty mind".
Not all offences require proof of mens rea such as many statutory or regulatory offences.
Also: "a particular state of mind such as the intent to cause, or some foresight of, the results of the act or the state of affairs." (R v Daviault 1994 3 SCR 63 at para. 74)
Many serious crimes require the proof of mens rea before a person can be convicted.
In other words, the prosecution must prove not only that the accused committed the offence (actus reus) but that he (or she) did it knowing that it was prohibited; that their act (or omission) was done with an intent to commit the crime.
A maxim rich in tradition and well known to law students is actus non facit reum, nisi mens sit rea or "a person cannot be convicted and punished in a proceeding of a criminal nature unless it can be shown that he had a guilty mind".
Not all offences require proof of mens rea such as many statutory or regulatory offences.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Basman on Walzer, Margalit, Yadlin and Kasher
I read Walzer's essay--http://www.carlisle.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/09spring/walzer.pdf—and I liked it very much.
It’s illuminating to compare and contrast this essay with his essay co-authored with Avishai Margalit--http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22664. I think the essays can be read together and complement each other, the former, as I say, illuminating the latter.
In the latter essay the issue is:
"What priority should be given to the duty to minimize casualties among the combatants of the state when they are engaged in combat...against terror?"
in the context of terrorists who embed themselves amongst civilians.
They cite the argument of Asa Kasher and Amos Yadlin that:
"Where the state does not have effective control of the vicinity, it does not have to shoulder responsibility for the fact that persons who are involved in terror operate in the vicinity of persons who are not."
Margalit and Walzer restate the argument after jettisoning any distinctions between terrorists and combatants (by assimilating both to the stipulation that the war is just) thusly:
"Kasher and Yadlin are simply assuming that the war against the enemy is a just war. Their claim, crudely put, is that in such a war the safety of 'our' soldiers takes precedence over the safety of 'their' civilians."
They attack this reframed claim on a number of grounds. Here are some of them:
1. It elides differences between combatants and non combatants—crucial to just war theory;
2. It erodes therefore the limits set by just war theory even in the context of a just war on the distinction between a just war and its just or unjust conduct;
3. Doing so is the imitation of terrorism even when terrorists are the enemy;
4. Hamas and Hezbollah are accountable when they make civilians the primary targets of their attack—and also when they deliberately use civilians as human shields. But neither of these crimes allows their enemies to give up their own obligation to avoid or minimize civilian injuries and deaths.
5. An understandable but morally misguided sentiment creeps into the Kasher-Yadlin paper when they write: "A combatant is a citizen in uniform"—so as to convince us that we should not ask our soldiers to take risks to save the lives of noncombatants on the other side.
6. Israel is morally required to behave towards non combatants in all those cases the way it would behave in the when—according to an example they construct— its citizens are held by Hezbollah in a “mixed vicinity”. Which is to say, as they say: “Whatever Israel deems acceptable as ‘collateral damage’ when its own captured citizens are at risk—that should be the moral limit in the other cases too.”
7. “Israel’s soldiers must, by contrast with its enemies, intend not to kill civilians, and that active intention can be made manifest only through the risks the soldiers themselves accept in order to reduce the risks to civilians.”
Walzer and Margalit quote Yadlin and Kasher as saying, “…that ‘jeopardizing combatants rather than bystanders during a military act against a terrorist would mean shouldering responsibility for the mixed nature of the vicinity for *no reason* at all.’” Their rejoinder to this argument is that “no reason” obviates the moral and legal requirement carefully to attempt to minimize civilian casualties in the circumstances, a point stressed emphatically by Walzer in his essay on “Proportionality and Responsibility”. It’s been a while since I considered the translated essay by Yadlin and Kasher, but if memory serves me correctly, Margalit and Walzer are overstating the others’ argument. For surely this is hyperbole:
“If there is "no reason" for responsibility of this sort, if the lives of "our" soldiers really take priority over "their" civilians, then why couldn't the soldiers use those civilians as shields? Since they have not created the "mixed vicinity," why can't they in turn take advantage of it? We don't see how Kasher and Yadlin can avoid providing justification for a practice that Israel officially condemns and that we believe they believe is despicable: the use of noncombatants as human shields for combatants.”
I’d suggest, contrary to Margalit and Walzer, that Yadlin’s and Kasher’s argument is in fact consistent with the claim in Walzer’s proportionality essay that the stricture in just war theory against killing civilians cannot morph into a functional equivalent to pacifism. It is inconceivable that Kasher and Yadlin are arguing for the unmeasured killing of civilians in order to save the lives of Israeli soldiers.
Rather they are addressing, I’d argue, the inevitable fact of civilian death in “mixed vicinities” controlled by the terrorists and arguing for a functional limit on Israeli soldiers’ deaths in such vicinities even if that means increased collateral damage. A clear example of this would be aerial bombardment as against boots on the ground in certain situations and under certain conditions.
My contention, is on this reading of Yadlin and Kasher, is that they are consistent with in principle with the Walzer of the proportionality essay. (A corollary of this is that if Walzer is consistent in both of his essays, then they are all ad idem in principle throughout.) In a nutshell, Yadlin and Kasher are exploring the requirements and contours of the carefulness and responsibility that Walzer argues for in his own essay—to repeat, the necessary weighing of the extent to which Israeli soldiers must sacrifice their lives to protect civilians in mixed vicinities that they do not control.
For as Walzer writes in his own essay:
“It is a central principle of just war theory that the self-defense of a people or a country cannot be made morally impossible, and so the more successful Hezbollah and Hamas are in hiding among civilians, the less useful the proportionality argument is—or,to be more precise, the less limiting it is.”
It’s illuminating to compare and contrast this essay with his essay co-authored with Avishai Margalit--http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22664. I think the essays can be read together and complement each other, the former, as I say, illuminating the latter.
In the latter essay the issue is:
"What priority should be given to the duty to minimize casualties among the combatants of the state when they are engaged in combat...against terror?"
in the context of terrorists who embed themselves amongst civilians.
They cite the argument of Asa Kasher and Amos Yadlin that:
"Where the state does not have effective control of the vicinity, it does not have to shoulder responsibility for the fact that persons who are involved in terror operate in the vicinity of persons who are not."
Margalit and Walzer restate the argument after jettisoning any distinctions between terrorists and combatants (by assimilating both to the stipulation that the war is just) thusly:
"Kasher and Yadlin are simply assuming that the war against the enemy is a just war. Their claim, crudely put, is that in such a war the safety of 'our' soldiers takes precedence over the safety of 'their' civilians."
They attack this reframed claim on a number of grounds. Here are some of them:
1. It elides differences between combatants and non combatants—crucial to just war theory;
2. It erodes therefore the limits set by just war theory even in the context of a just war on the distinction between a just war and its just or unjust conduct;
3. Doing so is the imitation of terrorism even when terrorists are the enemy;
4. Hamas and Hezbollah are accountable when they make civilians the primary targets of their attack—and also when they deliberately use civilians as human shields. But neither of these crimes allows their enemies to give up their own obligation to avoid or minimize civilian injuries and deaths.
5. An understandable but morally misguided sentiment creeps into the Kasher-Yadlin paper when they write: "A combatant is a citizen in uniform"—so as to convince us that we should not ask our soldiers to take risks to save the lives of noncombatants on the other side.
6. Israel is morally required to behave towards non combatants in all those cases the way it would behave in the when—according to an example they construct— its citizens are held by Hezbollah in a “mixed vicinity”. Which is to say, as they say: “Whatever Israel deems acceptable as ‘collateral damage’ when its own captured citizens are at risk—that should be the moral limit in the other cases too.”
7. “Israel’s soldiers must, by contrast with its enemies, intend not to kill civilians, and that active intention can be made manifest only through the risks the soldiers themselves accept in order to reduce the risks to civilians.”
Walzer and Margalit quote Yadlin and Kasher as saying, “…that ‘jeopardizing combatants rather than bystanders during a military act against a terrorist would mean shouldering responsibility for the mixed nature of the vicinity for *no reason* at all.’” Their rejoinder to this argument is that “no reason” obviates the moral and legal requirement carefully to attempt to minimize civilian casualties in the circumstances, a point stressed emphatically by Walzer in his essay on “Proportionality and Responsibility”. It’s been a while since I considered the translated essay by Yadlin and Kasher, but if memory serves me correctly, Margalit and Walzer are overstating the others’ argument. For surely this is hyperbole:
“If there is "no reason" for responsibility of this sort, if the lives of "our" soldiers really take priority over "their" civilians, then why couldn't the soldiers use those civilians as shields? Since they have not created the "mixed vicinity," why can't they in turn take advantage of it? We don't see how Kasher and Yadlin can avoid providing justification for a practice that Israel officially condemns and that we believe they believe is despicable: the use of noncombatants as human shields for combatants.”
I’d suggest, contrary to Margalit and Walzer, that Yadlin’s and Kasher’s argument is in fact consistent with the claim in Walzer’s proportionality essay that the stricture in just war theory against killing civilians cannot morph into a functional equivalent to pacifism. It is inconceivable that Kasher and Yadlin are arguing for the unmeasured killing of civilians in order to save the lives of Israeli soldiers.
Rather they are addressing, I’d argue, the inevitable fact of civilian death in “mixed vicinities” controlled by the terrorists and arguing for a functional limit on Israeli soldiers’ deaths in such vicinities even if that means increased collateral damage. A clear example of this would be aerial bombardment as against boots on the ground in certain situations and under certain conditions.
My contention, is on this reading of Yadlin and Kasher, is that they are consistent with in principle with the Walzer of the proportionality essay. (A corollary of this is that if Walzer is consistent in both of his essays, then they are all ad idem in principle throughout.) In a nutshell, Yadlin and Kasher are exploring the requirements and contours of the carefulness and responsibility that Walzer argues for in his own essay—to repeat, the necessary weighing of the extent to which Israeli soldiers must sacrifice their lives to protect civilians in mixed vicinities that they do not control.
For as Walzer writes in his own essay:
“It is a central principle of just war theory that the self-defense of a people or a country cannot be made morally impossible, and so the more successful Hezbollah and Hamas are in hiding among civilians, the less useful the proportionality argument is—or,to be more precise, the less limiting it is.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)