CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY DAREN BOWYER JUST WAR DOCTRINE

But shortly afterwards he continues 124 : ‘… no state is to be admired, when the citizens
are trained for conquest with a view to empire. This is a most dangerous precedent; for
it implies that any citizen who can do so should seize power in the state to which he
himself belongs.’ Such a principle is ‘not statesmanlike or useful or right. For the good
is the same for states as for individuals.’ There is a clear contrast here, then, with the
distinction developed later by realists between the morality of states and the morality of
individuals. For Aristotle the behaviour of states, this seems to imply, sets a precedent
for the behaviour of its citizens: a good reason, then, for ethical consideration before
recourse to violence. He continues, more specifically:
Men should not be trained for war with the idea of enslaving those who deserve
no such fate. The purpose of such training should be (1) to prevent their own
enslavement; (2) to fit them for hegemony which will benefit those they intend
to lead, not for the exercise of universal despotism; and (3) to qualify them for
the mastery of those who deserve to be slaves.
Aristotle is offering, then an early justification of war on the grounds of self defence (to
prevent enslavement) but also a very early justification of a view that re-emerges as
liberal interventionism: ‘mastery over those who deserve to be slaves’!
Around 300 years later Cicero was to reinforce the view, in De Officiis that war was
only justified to establish peace, and to supplement that in De Res Republica with the
stipulations that war had only two just causes: repelling an invader (ie self defence) and
to redress an injury. 125
1.2.1 The Early Church and the Conversion of Rome
The spur for the development of the doctrine that was to form the basis of just war as
we understand it today was the conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity. The
total pacifism of the early Christians had led to the martyrdom of many who had refused
service in the Roman army, but a more significant challenge was presented by first the
conversion of the Emperor Constantine and then, in 380 AD, by Theodosius’s
declaration of Christianity as the state religion. How was Rome to reconcile its need to
defend – and extend – its borders, with the pacifist teaching of its new official religion?
It is St Ambrose (AD339-AD397) who is credited with the initial formulation of the
44