Who is to blame? : a discussion of responsibility and culpability in war, based on the texts of Ausutine, Francisco de Vitoria, and Michael Walzer

Abstract

The overall purpose of my thesis is to determine the moral responsibility of soldiers in war. My theoretical framework is that of the just war tradition, a major moral tradition that holds that war can be evaluated according to certain moral rules.

The concept of moral responsibility is discussed thoroughly. I argue that an agent can be regarded as a responsible person if he has a capacity for effective deliberation. A central question, then, is whether soldiers generally have such a capacity in war. Further, I claim that an agent can be held responsible for a particular injurious action if he acted freely and knowingly. Following Augustine, Francisco de Vitoria, and Michael Walzer, I conceive of war as a state in which moral choice is possible. Likewise, I argue that we tend to judge actions in war as more and less just. Hence, I argue that the conditions for holding someone responsible are applicable in war. Further, I claim that all soldiers, independently of rank, may have to make decisions in war. A major concern is to define and delimit their responsibility more closely. In this regard, I make a distinction between being morally responsible and being culpable. To be morally responsible does not necessarily imply that one is culpable, neither morally nor legally, for a particular harm. Thus, not all of our judgments of responsibility can be translated into judgments of legal responsibility.