Are there any ethical rules for wars?

One might think that perhaps wars don’t really obey any rules. Since the expected behaviour in a war is that people shoot with the intention to kill each other, what rules could there be that they would be likely to obey?

But it turns out that we do distinguish between good (relatively speaking) and bad behaviour, even in war situations. Killing an armed enemy soldier in order to save one’s own life will not be as bad, morally speaking, as bombing a school full of children or a hospital. Killing a soldier in war might not generally be seen as equally bad as murdering someone at peacetime, but there are also behaviours that we would recognise as “war crimes,” that is, behaviour that even in the context of war should be considered a crime. So how do we know which behaviours are relatively better or worse in a war situation?

Killing a soldier in war might not generally be seen as equally bad as murdering someone at peacetime. 

One crucial question is: do we believe that wars are really totally different from everyday life, so that killing in a war obeys radically different rules than killing in peace? Or do we see a war just as one more kind of human behaviour (like, say, working or mating)? If this is the case, then we would try to argue that, in principle, the same kinds of moral rules should apply to wars that also apply to everyday life at peacetime.

The laws of war

The ethical problems of wars can be divided into three groups (see [1] for a good overview and more details):

1. Declaring and entering war. This is often called the jus ad bellum part of war ethics: the law towards war. Here, we would ask questions like:

   • What are good reasons to go to war?
   • Are there better and worse reasons?
   • Are some wars easier to justify than others?

2. The law during war (jus in bello) is about the behaviour of the warring parties while the war is taking place. Here, issues include:

   • Is it ever permissible to target civilians?
   • What if underage children take part in the war as armed soldiers? Should they have a special status and must the enemy avoid harming them?
   • Which kinds of infrastructure is it okay to target? (Weapons factories or hospitals?)
   • How to treat the wounded and the prisoners of war?

3. The rules after the war (jus post bellum) deal with questions like:

   • How to end a war?
   • How should the losing party be treated?
   • How to rebuild the warring countries and …

Read the full article which is published on Daily Philosophy (external link)