Department/School

Philosophy

Date

2005

Document Type

Article

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0031-8094.2005.00415.x

Abstract

Recently a number of liberal political theorists, including Rawls and Walzer, have argued for a ‘supreme emergency exemption’ from the traditional just war principle of discrimination which absolutely prohibits direct attacks against innocent civilians, claiming that a political community threatened with destruction may deliberately target innocents in order to save itself. I argue that this ‘supreme emergency exemption’ implies that individuals too may kill innocents in supreme emergencies. This is a significant theoretical cost. While it will not constitute a decisive refutation of all arguments for a supreme emergency exemption, my hope is that many will see this cost of endorsing the exemption as unacceptable.

Volume

55

Issue

221

Published in

The Philosophical Quarterly

Citation/Other Information

Toner, Christopher H. "Just War and the Supreme Emergency Exemption." The Philosophical Quarterly 55, no. 221 (2005): 545-61. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0031-8094.2005.00415.x

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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