HOLMES
CHAPTER SIX
THE KILLING OF
INNOCENT
PERSONS IN
WARTIME
JUS IN BELLO raise moral
problems for all armed
conflict, even those with
‘just cause.’
The end cannot only be just;
the means to the end must be
just.
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“If the means necessary to waging war
cannot be justified, then war cannot be
justified and no war can be just.”
Most just war theorists impose limitations on
conduct in war.
Two restrictions (1) Whom you can kill and (2)
How you can kill them. The most serious
prohibition is the killing of innocent persons.
The strongest moral presumption is: Do not
harm innocent people.
Questions
 (1)
Who is responsible?
 (2) Who is innocent? What makes a party
innocent or guilty in the conflict?
The burden of proof is on the
person who would harm the
innocent.
 It
is presumptively wrong to kill the
innocent.
 War necessarily kills innocent people in
substantial numbers.
If war inevitably involves such killing, what
does this mean for the moral rightness of
war?
What is innocence?
A
standard view: Combatants are noninnocent/guilty; non-combatants are
defenseless and so innocent.
 Holmes: Moral guilt does not coincide with
legal guilty.
 The moral wrong of war depends on the
initiation of war or the conduct of war. So
a person could be guilty of other things,
but innocent witih respect to thewar.
Innocence/Guilt
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“If one person robs a bank, another keeps the
car running, a third provides the gun, and a
fourth knows of the robbery but does not stop
it, the first is clearly guilty and the others
culpable to various degrees… “(p. 185)
But with war, the morally guilty are the most
detached from the actual killing.
The soldiers usually have no say and are
detached from the enterprise. They may also
be young, and deceived by the government.
Are they responsible?
Another problem
 Both
sides may think they are in the right.
But only one side is in the right. The killing
of anyone who has done no wrong in the
war is the wrongful killing of an innocent
person. All the killing by the unjust parties is
unjust killing of innocent people—whether
they are soldiers, politicians or civilians.
 So combatant/non-combatant is not a
good distinction between innocent/noninnnocent.
Six categories of members ofa
nation
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(1) Initiators of wrongdoing/govt leaders
(2) Agents of wrongdoing (military
commanders and combat soldiers)
(3) Contributors to the war effort (munitions
workers…taxpayers…)
(4) Those who approve of the war without
contributing in any significant way
(5) Noncontributors/non-supporters (young
children, political resisters the mentally ill, etc.)
(6) Those who could contribute in the future
(children) (p. 187)
Moral innocence
 Obviously
children are morally innocent.
 But Holmes says even those contributing
to the war effort (growing, selling food,
etc?) can be morally innocent of the war.
 Modern war will inevitably kill innocent
people.
War inevitably kills innocent
people
 In
mid-20th century the civilian casualty
ratio was estimated by the Red Cross to
be 10:1. 10 civilians for every soldier.
 It is very difficult to determine rate of
civilian death because it is always
contested. Iraq Body Count estimates
109,000 but counts all who are killed by
violence.
Justifications for killing civilians
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Kaiser in WWI: “If I admit considerations of
humanity [the war] will be prolonged for
years…”] (p. 188)
US after Pearl Harbor decided to “execute
unrestricted air and submarine warfare
against Japan…including merchant ships…”
Killing innocent civilians is presumptively
wrong.
Modern war always kills innocent civilians so it
is presumptively wrong.
The Accidental Killing of
Innocents
 Collateral
damage: Attempts are usually
made by the double effect principle.
 One action can have many foreseeable
effects. But if the intent is directed to a
permissible effect the person performing
the action is not guilty of all effects.
The Double Effect
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So if the intention of a military attack is to
attack a military target and reasonable
attempts are made to protect civilians then
there is no guilt from the attack even if a
number of innocent civilians die.
Act must be good or at least indifferent, bad
effect must not be a means to the good and
the good effect must be proportionate to the
bad…If one intends the good, the action is
not then wrong.
Is this a good principle?
Anscombe’s argument
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“The distinction between…intended and
foreseen…is essential to Christian ethics…If I
am answerable for the foreseen
consequences or the refusal then the
prohibitions will break down. If someone
innocent will die unless I do a wicked thing
then I am his murderer in refusing; so al that is
left to me is to weigh up evils…[Theologian
steps in and says] No you are no murderer if
the mans death was neither your aim or your
chosen means…”
Ambiguity
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The claim that it is wrong to kill innocents contains
an ambiguity. Does it mean it is in fact right in the
world as it is or in any conceivable world? Is it
wrong in all conceivable circumstances?
That would be ridiculous.
What it means is that it is wrong to intentionally kill
innocents. But this doesn’t stop you from killing
innocents.
Paul Ramsey: “The deaths of noncombatants are
only to be indirectly done and should be
unintended...” even if there is certain knowledge
they will be killed.
Holmes’ objection 1 to the
Double-Effect
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The DDE is inconsistent. How can you have
two identical acts but one is good and one is
bad when there is nothing different about the
acts themselves just the intentions?
Pilot A drops a bomb that will kill everyone in
the area but only intends to kill the military
people. Pilot B drops a bomb that will kill
everyone in the area because he intends to
do that. They are the same act but one is OK
and the other is not. H says this is inconsistent.
Holmes Objection 2 to the
Double Effect
The principle seems to allow way too much
based on actors psychological state.
“…we can ‘direct’ or ‘aim’ intentions as we
please…” So “from a practical standpoint”
[the principle is vacuous [empty].” (p. 199)
Another defense of killing
innocents
 As
long as war does not kill innocent
civilians in large numbers it is not wrong.
 Accidental auto deaths do not make
highway construction wrong, for example.
 Is this a good argument?
Holmes’ Reply
 There
are some good inferences where a
property of a part can be ascribed to a
whole—if the car’s brakes are
untrustworthy the car is untrustworthy.
 Is this a good inference in the case of
war?
Is evaluation of action the
right method?
 Postivistic
realism.
 War is a whole set of acts and can’t be
evaluated by discrete acts.
 Tolstoy: Wars don’t even have causes in
the ordinary sense.
 Rapoport: Wars are cataclysmic
happenings like natural disasters?
 Is it a mistake to apply personal morality
to war?
Holmes’ Reply
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Consider Nuremberg: Individuals were held
responsible for the war.
Actions are the heart of war. Individuals
commit the action. The killing is foreseeable.
“…if one respects the prohibition against
killing innocent persons, he will not kill
innocent persons; and if not killing innocents
means not waging war, he will not wage
war.” (193)
But don’t we have to go to
war?
What happens in this situation: If we don’t kill some
innocent people, many more innocent people will
die?
 Holmes: One never has to kill innocent people.
However, sometimes the war is with a very brutal
opponent. What then?
The argument assumes (1) Killing is the same as
letting people die (at others’ hands) and (2) If you
don’t fight innocents will be killed.
Aren’t pacifists just concerned with their own moral
purity?

Who is responsible?
Holmes: Moral responsibility is not the same as
causal responsibility.
To be morally responsible though, you have to play
some role in the cause.
Kent State shootings: The guardsmen shot the
students. But were they responsible for protesting
and so creating the situation?
Holmes: There is no morally neutral account of the
facts. There are facts but the relevance of the fact is
always couched within moral judgments.
So you have to determine what is morally the case
first?
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Determining Responsibility is
difficult
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The issue is: If you are facing a violent and brutal
enemy and they will kill people are you responsible
for not killing some people when that might
prevent them from killing other people?
Unmediated consequences: E.g., you die
because you are shot by a firing squad
Mediated consequences: Those who pass
sentence on to commanding officer, members of
the firing squad who respond, etc.
All count—but we have trouble with the
unmediatedc consequences.
Thoreau: Just do what’s right
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Making all mediated consequences count is
a problem because then we are responsible
for everything that everyone else does.
Those who think that ‘if they should resist
[unjust laws] the remedy would be the worse
than the evil…”it is the fault of the
government itself that the remedy IS worse
than the evil. It makes it worse…”
Example of dilemma: Is it the PLOs fault if the
Israelis bomb areas with civilians because that
is where the PLO hides?
Contextual determination of
responsibility
 Holmes:
We can’t determine this in
advance. It is contextual. E.g., if bigots
hate interracial marriage, this doesn’t
make interracial marriage wrong. But if
someone gives a hate filled speech and it
causes a riot, they could be partially
responsible.
Killing of innocents
 “One
can’t assume that the deaths of
innocents at the hands of aggressors are
the consequence of the refusal of others
to kill innocents…” (208)
 Is allowing a person to die the same as
killing the person? What are the morally
relevant differences?
Killing and letting die
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We are always ‘letting’ people die? We could
change our lives to save the lives of the
starving at any time.
Murphy: We have “a greater obligation to
refrain from killing innocent person than we
do to save them…” Not everyone has a right
to have their death prevented at all costs. But
every innocent person has a right not to be
killed.
Holmes: If I kill innocent persons to save other
innocent person I am using THOSE innocent
persons as a means to an end.
What about the noninnocent?
 It’s
not necessarily OK to kill the
noninnocent either.
 What about utilitarian arguments? Are
they the only good reasons left for letting
the innocent live?