Ethics, Just War Theory, and Rights: Key Concepts for Moral Decision-Making

Jus ad Bellum

needs just cause to go to war, not every case is justified in starting it

Just in Bello

moral restraints in warfare once were in warfare

Descriptive Claims

explanations, can't answer "should" questions, don't rely on our senses to be proven (ex: it was raining outside today)

Normative Claims

justifications (ex : its wrong to torture kids)

Ethics/Morality (what question does it answer)

answers the question of "How should I live"?

Impartialism (considering consequences)

When making decisions, it considers you and people around you

-Your benefit matters, but so does everyone else's

Egoism (considering consequences)

Produce the best consequences for you

-Doesn't necessarily mean you have a high opinion of yourself, you just want the best for you.

Altruism (considering consequences)

Only considers others when making decisions

-Sacrifice yourself for the best consequences for others.

Hedonists

People who value pleasure that comes with decisions

-most utilitarianists agree with this bc pleasure and pain ultimate motivators

Permissible Actions (Rights Theorist)

supererogatory or saintly actions

-good but not demanded of us

Claim Right (Hohfeldian rights)

-imposes duties on others

Hohfeldian rights

liabilities the law says will occur if two people do/don't do something

Liberty/Negative Rights (Hohfeldian rights)

-Permission to do something

impose minimal duties on others like stay out of the way

(ex: prison takes those liberties away, like your liberty to go outside (out of the prison))

proportionality

the expected harm or damage of a war or military action should not be excessive in relation to the expected good or military advantage

Doctrine of Military necessity

military actions have to serve some sort of military goal

Classical Just War Theory

-moral equality of combatants

-proportionality matters, consequences matter and need to be taken into account

Revisionary Just War Theory

-Denies moral equality of combatants

(soldiers fighting without moral equality and do not have the same moral rights)

--proportionality matters, consequences matter and need to be taken into account

MAD

mutually assured destruction

threatening to exchange nukes to destroy everything

Doctrine of Double/Side Effect

explains when bad side effects are permitted, you are permitted to cause harm or evil through your actions in pursuit of a greater good if and only if you meet a bunch of conditions:

1- the act itself has to be permitted (depends on moral theory you hold)

2- the harm is foreseen but not intended

3- the harm cannot be the means by which the good is produced

4- the good needs to be proportionate to the harm that's produced

Virtue Ethics

focuses on the character of the moral agent rather than on rules or consequences

Doctrine of the Mean (Mean as in middle ground)

Virtue is a mean between two extremes of vice (vice is opposite of virtue)

Doctrine of Double effect

does not imply that one can justly target non-combatants in warfare so long as one intends their death as a means to a just end

Disarmament

as long as nuclear weapons exist, we exist in a state of existential risk, supports inevitability

The technological neutrality thesis

(neutral) view that tech is neither good nor bad, but the user to which people put it are

Techno-optimism

Technological and scientific progress is good

Techno-pessimist

technological and scientific progress is mostly bad