Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument With Historical Illustrations

In ancient China, warriors adhered to a feudal code, according to which it was wrong to strike a wounded soldier or an unformed battalion. Referring to this code as “asinine ethics” (225), Chairman Mao emphasized the importance of winning the war and believed rules could be broken to ensure that outcome. Critiquing Mao’s position, Walzer comments that there is nothing asinine “about the lives of men and women” (228). A resolution of the conflict between a just war and just fighting must recognize the importance of both winning and fighting well.

Walzer rejects the popular idea of a sliding morality scale, in which those on the side of justice have more leeway to commit immoral acts. In the sliding scale’s extreme form, soldiers with a just cause could be allowed to do anything, no matter how depraved. On the other hand, Walzer acknowledges that hardline moral absolutism, with strict rules for just means of fighting, is not the solution either. He proposes an alternative doctrine that stops just shy of absolutism, advising “do justice unless the heavens are (really) about to fall” (230). It is a recipe for rule-breaking in moments of extreme necessity and does not permit a gradual erosion of the