Larry May

War: Essays in Political Philosophy

Part I. Historical Background: 1. Jus ad bellum Gregory Reichberg 2. Jus in bello Nicholas Rengger Part II. Initiating War: 3. The principle of just cause Larry May 4. Aggression and punishment Jeff McMahan 5. Responding to humanitarian crises Cindy Holder 6. War and democracy James Bohman Part III. Waging War: 7. Proportionality and necessity Thomas Hurka 8. Collateral damage David Lefkowitz 9. Weapons of mass destruction Steven Lee 10. Justifying torture as an act of war Michael Davis 11. Terrorism: definition, defense, and women Marilyn Friedman Part IV. Ending War: 12. Reconciliation and wars aftermath Trudy Govier 13. Amnesties and international law Kit Wellman 14. War crimes: the law of hell David Luban 15. Revenge and demonization Nancy Sherman.

Limiting Leviathan : Hobbes on law and international affairs

Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Law, Morality, and Prudence 2. Social Contract 3. Equity and Justice 4. Concept of Law 5. Fidelity to Law 6. Sovereignty and Artificial Reason 7. Authorization, Joint Action, and Representation 8. Crimes and the International Order 9. Rules of War 10. The Attitude of Pacifism Concluding Thoughts Bibliography

International criminal law and philosophy

Introduction Larry May and Zach Hoskins Part I. Sovereignty and Universal Jurisdiction: 1. International crimes and universal jurisdiction Win-chiat Lee 2. State sovereignty as an obstacle to international criminal law Kristen Hessler 3. International criminal courts, the rule of law, and the prevention of harm: building justice in times of injustice Leslie Francis and John Francis Part II. Culture, Groups, and Corporations: 4. Criminalizing culture Helen Stacy 5. Identifying groups in genocide cases Larry May 6. Prosecuting corporations for international crimes: the role for domestic criminal law Joanna Kyriakakis Part III. Justice and International Criminal Prosecutions: 7. Post war environmental damage: a study in jus post bellum Douglas Lackey 8. On state self-defense and Guantanamo Bay Steve Viner 9. Politicizing human rights (using international law) Anat Biletzki Part IV. Punishment and Reconciliation: 10. The justification of punishment in the international context Deirdre Golash 11. Political reconciliation and international criminal trials Colleen Murphy.

Contingent Pacifism: Revisiting Just War Theory

In this, the first major philosophical study of contingent pacifism, Larry May offers a new account of pacifism from within the Just War tradition. Written in a non-technical style, the book features real-life examples from contemporary wars and applies a variety of approaches ranging from traditional pacifism and human rights to international law and conscientious objection. May considers a variety of thinkers and theories, including Hugo Grotius, Kant, Socrates, Seneca on restraint, Tertullian on moral purity, Erasmus’s arguments against just war, and Hobbes’s conception of public conscience. The guiding idea is that the possibility of a just war is conceded, but not at the current time or in the foreseeable future due to the nature of contemporary armed conflict and geopolitics – wars in the past are also unlikely to have been just wars. This volume will interest scholars and upper-level students of political philosophy, philosophy of law, and war studies.

Corporate property rights

Corporate property rights present an interesting challenge to the liberal conception of property rights, for it is unclear that the self-respect of individuals is promoted by the existence of a system of property rights for corporations. I argue that it is difficult even to identify who the individuals are who are the owners of large corporations, and why these individuals should be given the same claims, protections and immunities as other property rights holders since the liabilities of corporate property rights holders are not the same as of those, for instance, who own their own homes. In this paper I first try to understand who it is who owns the large corporation. Secondly, I show that the limited liability of these corporate property owners makes the justification of corporate property rights quite difficult, from the classical liberal perspective. I end with a few brief remarks on changes in legal policy which would be consistent with my arguments on the nature and justification of corporate property rights.

Hobbes on fidelity to law

I will attempt to explicate Hobbess conception of legal obligation by trying to understand what factors would lead people, on his view, to agree to obey a legal authority as well as to accept a legal system as deserving of respect. I am mainly concerned to understand Hobbess curious claims that those who have been legitimately condemned to death and those who have been legitimately commanded to serve in combat situations may nonetheless justifiably disobey the law. Such claims seem to undermine fidelity to law, at least as that concept was understood by Plato in The Crito. As a result it might appear that Hobbes provides too simplistic a view of legal obligation. On the contrary, I will argue that Hobbes supports quite a plausible and subtle view of legal obligation which has several advantages over various other views of legal obligation.

Hobbes on Equity and Justice

Most contemporary readers of Hobbes’s works are shocked by his reduction of justice to mere legality. If we want to know if we have acted justly we need merely ask, ‘have we obeyed the law’? This is shocking because it implies (and Hobbes elsewhere states explicitly) that there can be no unjust laws. If such a statement were made today we would be inclined to view the person making the statement as an absolute legal positivist, namely, someone who believed that morality did not overlap with legality. I shall argue that Hobbes is not such an absolute legal positivist because he had a much narrower conception of justice than we have, but also a wide notion of equity or fairness which did provide for a moral basis of criticizing the law, and is perhaps closer to our notion of justice than what Hobbes called justice.

The Principle of Just Cause

In the Just War tradition, a distinction is drawn between the justification of initiating and waging war, jus ad bellum , and the justification of tactics during war, jus in bello . The main jus ad bellum normative principle is called “just cause.” Traditionally, just cause referred to a wrong that a State had committed, which initially legitimated war as a response. The two main just causes were unprovoked attacks on either ones own State or another State. In the past, just causes could involve either the prevention of those attacks or the punishment of them. Today, punishment is a highly contentious just cause, whereas prevention of attack on ones own or another State is still considered to be the most important of the just causes to go to war. Just cause only addresses a prima facie case to go to war, where there are other conditions that also need to be satisfied, principally proportionality, in order for the war to be just. The principle of just cause is also at the core of what constitutes an aggressive war in contemporary international law. Traditionally, jus ad bellum principles were employed to determine whether a State was justified in its use of force. In the trials at Nuremberg, jus ad bellum principles were employed to determine whether individuals should be prosecuted for initiating aggressive war, and more recently, the International Criminal Court is considering the prosecution of aggression as well.

Hobbes Against the Jurists: Sovereignty and Artificial Reason

This paper discusses sovereignty and examines in detail Hobbes’s debates with the two leading legal theorists of his day, Coke and Hale, both Lord Chief Justices of the King’s Bench. I argue that Hobbes came to change his mind somewhat about the desirability of divided sovereignty by the time, near the end of his life, that he wrote the Dialogue. But I also argue that Hobbes should have developed more than a very thin conception of the rule of law. Hobbes should have been more open to the ideas that the jurists of his day were developing, especially the idea that the judiciary should have independent status.

Hobbes, law, and public conscience

This paper brings forth the importance of public conscience in Hobbes’s account of politics and law. It connects this idea to the famous Martens Clause that played and continues to play a crucial role in international legal debates. The Martens Clause, part of the preliminary materials of the Hague Conventions, posits that humanity’s ‘public conscience’ should play a role in international legal norms concerning warfare when treaties or conventions do not provide guidance. The paper argues that Hobbes also appeals to public conscience in his construction of the relationship between law and politics. Rather than the private conscience that might challenge the sovereign, the public conscience is that which reflects moral principles such as equity which the paper argues is more important than justice in interpreting the law. The paper thus elucidates an important component of Hobbes’s theory and makes clear its relevance for international affairs.