CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY DAREN BOWYER JUST WAR DOCTRINE

doctrine that resolved the dilemma, recognising that whist peace was to be preferred, the
reality of the imperfect world inhabited by man meant that there were just causes for
using violence. Ambrose addressed not only the question of jus ad bellum but also
offered an early formulation of jus in bello, urging restraint in the conduct of war and
also in the aftermath of victory. He even went so far as to excommunicate the Emperor
(Theodosius), pending public penance, following the massacre of 7000 Thessalonians in
retaliation for their rebellion that had led to the killing of officers of the Roman
garrison. 126
St Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, developed the doctrine, though not in a particularly
comprehensive or coherent manner. His argument rested on the premise that order was
a great good and a prerequisite for justice, so killing, if done from a position of due
authority and in order to maintain order, was consistent with Christian belief. True
peace could only be achieved in the City of God; the world of men was imperfect and so
war could be justified, though, echoing Aristotle and Cicero, its only purpose was to
obtain peace. 127 Augustine introduces the notion that it is the wickedness of the
adversary that determines the justness of the cause. Nevertheless, Paul Ramsey 128
argues that Augustine’s doctrine is better interpreted ‘justified war’ rather than ‘just
war’ because there is ‘a lively sense of man’s common wrongdoing and of the
judgement of God that overarches the justified war and not … …. a sense of or clarity
about the universal ethical standards that are to be applied.’ 129 Thus the commonly held
understanding that only one side can be fighting a just war is also rejected. Men are in
no position to judge and the world they inhabit is an imperfect one, so there may be
occasions on which they are justified in recourse to the use of force, but war, of itself, is
never more than a necessary evil; it is never actually ‘just’. This interpretation would
stem the criticism sometimes levelled at the doctrine that it lends a status of moral
respectability – even trumpeted righteousness – to war; in short it leads to moral
crusading. Ramsey continues:
At least at the outset, the just war theory did not rest upon the supposition that
men possess a general competence to discriminate with certainty between social
orders at large by means of clear, universal, principles of justice, so as to be able
to declare (without sin’s affecting one’s judgement of his own nation’s cause)
one side or social system to be just and the other’s unjust. This was not the
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