t-manve-l I ¿Jpiìair) 
TWe B f h t c ^ U i / J a c — 

Pamphlet Ko. 9 

The Ethics of War 
Reverend Cyprian Emanuel, O.F.M. 

and 
The Committee on Ethics 

i ® 

D E F I N I T I O N OF W A S 
CONFLICTING OPINIONS 

T H E E I G H T OF WAE 
D E F E N S I V E WAE ALONE J U S T I F I A B L E 

T H E CONDITIONS OF A J U S T D E F E N S I V E W A E 
ARMISTICES, CAPITULATIONS, AND T E E A T I E S OF PEACE 

DISABMAMENT 

A Report of the Ethics Committee 
P B I C E 10 CENTS 

T H E C A T H O L I C A S S O C I A T I O N F O R 
I N T E R N A T I O N A L P E A C E 

1312 Massachusetts Avenue, N . W . 
W a s h i n g t o n , D . C. 

1932 



r p H A N K S f o r t h e issuance of t h i s R e p o r t 
a r e due t o t h e F a c u l t y a n d t h e S t u d e n t s 

of T r i n i t y College, W a s h i n g t o n , D . C., in 
r e s p o n s e t o t h e H o l y F a t h e r ' s r e c e n t a p -
peal, " M a y t h e y all unite in t h e p e a c e of 
Christ in a f u l l c o n c o r d of t h o u g h t s a n d 
emotions, of desires a n d p r a y e r s , of deeds 
a n d w o r d s — t h e s p o k e n w o r d , t h e w r i t t e n 
w o r d , t h e p r i n t e d w o r d — a n d t h e n a n a t m o s -
p h e r e of genuine peace, w a r m i n g a n d benefi-
cent, will envelop all t h e w o r l d . " 

k . ,.. .. •• - .. .. .;• - .. » • <•--•» •• ••!> 

O e e c » d 



THIS is a Report of the Committee on Ethics of the Catholic Association for International 
Peace and is being issued as a Study from this 
Committee. I t was presented and discussed at the 
regular annual meeting of the organization. T h e 
Committee cooperated in the final form of the Re-
port and it was presented to the Executive Com-
mittee which ordered it published. As the process 
indicates, this Report, being the report only of a 
committee, is not a statement from the whole Asso-
ciation. 

E T H I C S COMMITTEE 
Chairman 

R E V . J O H N A . R Y A N , D . D . 

R E V . J . C . B A R T L E Y , O . S . A . 
R E V . C H A R L E S P . B R U E H L 
R T . R E V . A L C U I N D E U T S C H , O . S . B . 
R E V . J O S E P H P . D O N O V A N , C . M . 
R E V . C Y P R I A N E M A N T J E L , O . F . M . 
R E V . GREGORY F E I G E 
R E V . A D O L P H D . F R E N A Y , O . P . 
R E V . L E O C . G A I N O R , O . P . 
R T . R E V . M S G R . M I C H A E L J . G R U P A 
R E V . W I L L I A M S . K R E S S , M . M . 
R E V . L I N U S A . L I L L Y , S . J . 
R E V . D O N A L D A . M A C L E A N 

R T . R E V . M S G R . T . H . M C L A U G H L I N 
R E V . C H A R L E S H . M C K E N N A , O . P . 
F R A N C I S E . M C M A H O N 
R E V . M . F . X . M I L L A R , S . J . 
R E V . C H A R L E S C . M I L T N E R , C . S . C . 
R E V . A . J . M U E N C H 
K A T H L E E N M U R P H Y 
L O U I S J . P O T T S 
R E V . J O H N K . R Y A N 
R E V . F U L T O N J . S H E E N 
R E V . H . I G N A T I U S S M I T H , O . P . 
R E V . F . E . TOURSCHF.R, O . S . A . 

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T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S 

PAGE 
I 

D E F I N I T I O N OF WAR _ S 
I I 

C O N F L I C T I N G OPINIONS 7 
I I I 

T H E R I G H T O F WAR . - ' J , " - 10 
IV 

D E F E N S I V E WAR ALONE JUSTIFIABLE— 11 
V 

T H E CONDITIONS O F A J U S T D E F E N S I V E WAR ... 21 
1. UNDERTAKEN IN VINDICATION OF A STRICT RIGHT 22 
2. PROPORTIONATE EVIL 28 
3. LAST RESORT ' 30 
4. REASONABLE HOPE OF VICTORY 31 
5. INITIATED BY PUBLIC AUTHORITY 32 
6. RIGHT INTENTION , _ 32 
7. RIGHTLY CONDUCTED— 33 

a. Observance of International Agreements 33 
b. No Malicious and Slanderous Propaganda. 37 
c. Excessive Violence to Combatants Unjustifiable 38 
d. Violence to Non-Combatants Unjustifiable 42 
e. Prisoners of War 44 
f . Air Raids and Sinking of Merchant Vessels 45 
g. Reprisals 3 46 

VI 
ARMISTICES, CAPITULATIONS A N D T R E A T I E S 

O F PEACE 47 

VII 
DISARMAMENT ' ; | 48 



FOREWORD 
War is an appalling evil. Every thinking man will readily 

admit it. But until quite recently the majority of men appar-
ently considered it a necessary evil to be borne with patience 
and resignation as something that cannot be averted; or, at 
least, they seem to have looked upon it as a matter of fact, 
merely as an historical event coming to pass with greater or 
less periodic regularity, as an occurrence that comes and goes 
as do, for example, pleasure and suffering. For thinking men, 
however, war is a problem. I t demands an investigation into 
its meaning, its metaphysical origin, the possibility or im-
possibility of its prevention, and its lawfulness or unlawfulness. 

If traced to its ultimate source, war is found to be an 
aberration of two instincts, both auxiliary to the instinct of 
self-preservation, with which the Creator has equipped human 
nature. The first of them is the instinct (and also the right) 
to reach out beyond oneself in order to wrest a livelihood from 
the material world. So long as it is held within proper limits, 
it is necessary for man's very existence and hence, also good. 
But when misguided by greed and avarice, it loses the requisite 
prospective, becomes extravagant and trespasses upon the like 
instinct and right of others. I t takes or attempts to take what 
belongs to another. Discord, animosity and litigation are the 
immediate and inevitable results. 

The second instinct that is an issue here is the instinct 
(and, again, also the right) to guard one's rights against in-
fringement. Again, so long as it is exercised with proper re-
striction, it is genuinely necessary for man's well-being, and 
hence, also good. But when misdirected by selfishness and 
covetousness it strikes out in defense of excessive demands and 
imaginary rights, it, too, necessarily leads to discord and quar-
rels. When these deordinations and aberrations find expres-
sion among individuals only, we have private quarrels and 
altercations. But when they assume more extensive propor-
tions and touch national rights and prerogatives, we have war. 

That the treacherous instincts under discussion here can 
be held within requisite check and control by men, both indi-
vidually and collectively, must be admitted by all who believe 

3 



4 Foreword 
that men are masters of their own actions and accountable to 
their Creator for them whether they perform them as private 
individuals or as members of groups, called states. In particu-
lar as regards the latter, it is merely a matter of bringing to 
light the factors that induce men to break through the limits 
of restraint and of setting up counterfactors, sufficiently influ-
ential, that make for restraint and peace. 

Never before in the annals of history have such generous 
and sincere efforts been made on so universal a scale to effect 
lasting peace by discovering and counteracting the forces that 
make for war. But while men are studying the economic, the 
industrial, the political, the racial, and the cultural and educa-
tional causes of war with a view to establishing its uselessness 
and wastefulness, their efforts will be of little avail and perma-
nent peace will continue to be a taunting will-o'-the-wisp until 
by religious considerations they come to realize also the sinful-
ness of war, and at the same time reenforce their attack on 
the demon war at all its points with the tremendous forces for 
good that lie latent in religion. 

Lasting peace is unthinkable until men have learned the 
real and practical bearing of the oft-cited, and we might add 
the oft-abused and misapplied, truth of "the Fatherhood of 
God and the brotherhood of man." One of the primary effects 
of the proper realization of this truth will necessarily be the 
consciousness that as God is the Creator and Father of all, so, 
too, will He exact a rigid account of the actions of all men 
that are inimical to the brotherhood of man, whether these 
actions be those of an individual directed against an individual 
or of a nation directed against a nation. 



THE ETHICS OF WAR 
i 

D E F I N I T I O N O F W A R 

WAR in its juridical sénse is a contest carried on by force of arms or other instruments of death or injury between 
two or more independent and sovereign states, or communi-
ties having in this regard the right of states, under the au-
thority of their respective governments even though these lat-
ter be only provisional. In conditions where competent gov-
ernmental control and organization have not yet evolved, indi-
viduals, being strictly independent, may in a very wide sense 
of thè term, be said to go to war against one another. Among 
primitive peoples war assumes the form* of a contest between 
families, clans, or tribes. But among so-called civilized nations 
a state does not go to war with individuals or families nor 
with peoples as opposed to goverhments, nor with governments 
as opposed to peoples. It goes to war with a whole state, in-
dependent and sovereign like itself. The private persons who 
make up the belligerent nations may be said to be enemies 
by accident only, i. e., they are not so as men nor as citizens, 
but only as combatants. 

In the above definition mention is made of "communities 
having . . . the right of states" and of "provisional" govern-
ments. These reservations become necessary if we wish to take 
cognizance of armed contention between different parts of the 
same sovereign state, e. g., our War of Revolution and our 
Civil War. A mere insurrection, rebellion, or even the armed 
repression of organized outlawry, is not war. Before the armed 
forces can lay rightful claim to the rights and privileges of 
belligerents, it would seem at least that they must represent 
a considerable portion of a country's population and that the 
government under which they act and to which they are re-
sponsible, must be so organized as to be in a position to meet 
the duties necessarily incumbent upon belligerents, viz., to 
maintain law and order within the regions subjected to their 
control and to conduct war on a large scale by land and sea. 

5 



6 The Ethics of War 
Given this requisite minimum, we can speak of war; in its 
absence, the uprising must be considered a rebellion and noth-
ing more. 

There has been developing within recent years a doctrine 
of insurgency which is used to characterize a condition mid-
way between belligerency and mere unauthorized and lawless 
violence, e. g., the periodic revolutionary outbreaks in cer-
tain Latin-American States. Those who struggle for political 
ends and respect the laws of war can scarcely be branded as 
mere outlaws or pirates. Hence, the need of granting to insur-
gency a recognition which, while not relieving the parent state 
of responsibility for the acts of the insurgents, puts the con-
test upon a more regular basis and brings into operation the 
neutrality laws of recognizing states. 

Since war is a contest, it follows that mere preparation for 
future hostility and aggression does not constitute war. Nor is 
mere commercial aggression or hostility " a contest carried on 
by force of arms." • 

Technically speaking, there is a difference between a state 
of belligerency and war. The former term is employed to 
designate a juridical condition of the contending parties, where-
as the latter more properly applies to the series of hostile 
acts of force exercised in the contention. According to this 
distinction the World War came to a close with the signing 
of the Armistice on November 11, 1918, but the state of bel-
ligerency continued until the signing of the Peace Treaty of 
Versailles on June 28, 1919. 

Wars are just or unjust according as the conditions for 
justification are present or not. Wars are also punitive (vin-
dictive), defensive, or offensive (aggressive). A war is said 
to be punitive, or vindictive, when it is carried on by the state 
for the sole purpose of inflicting punishment for evil done 
against itself or, in some determined cases, against others. 
Some writers use the term defensive to denote war on the 
the side of the state against which war is first declared or 
first entered upon, while they use offensive, or aggressive, to 
designate war on the side of the state that first declares war 
or first proceeds to wage it. This characterization, however, 
loses sight of an important element which must be taken into 
consideration in every discussion of the morality of war. 

I t is evident that in a just war the declaration of war 
always presupposes some previous hostile or unjust act on the 



7 The Ethics of War 
part of the state against which war is declared and, therefore, 
a war even on the part of the state that first declares it, may 
be defensive, i. e., a defense against those acts of hostility 
and injustice that preceded and brought it about and still con-
tinue in their effects. I t is, therefore, more accurate and bet-
ter suited to our purpose to apply the term defensive to a 
war undertaken in defense of the people or in defense of, or 
for the recovery of, the territory or property of the state; the 
term offensive or aggressive applies to a war initiated without 
just and sufficient cause or merely to injure or destroy a state, 
or for purposes of enrichment or aggrandizement at the ex-
pense of another state. 

We sometimes speak of a war of retaliation. But retalia-
tion is either a punitive act or a defensive act undertaken to 
recover what one has lost in territory or property or its equiva-
lent. 

I I 
C O N F L I C T I N G O P I N I O N S 

According to the "conscientious objector" and the extreme 
pacifist, war in all its phases is intrinsically immoral and, 
hence, the employment of force among nations cannot at any 
time or under any circumstances be justified. 

At the opposite pole of thought stands the theory that the 
state, being an end in itself (State Absolutism), can do no 
wrong, that it is in no way responsible or accountable to a 
Higher Being for its acts either of peace or of war. A nat-
ural offspring of this doctrine is the view that the right to 
declare and to carry on war comes simply from the fact of war 
itself. I t is not considered necessary to attempt to justify it 
by the ordinary maxims of morality. I t is its own justification. 

This latter philosophy finds extreme, but logical expression 
in the case of the nationalist, the imperialist, and the mili-
tarist, who, to attain their respective purposes, do not hesi-
tate to put into practice, if- they do not openly hold and de-
fend, a political philosophy similar to or even identical with 
that of the German professor, Heinrich von Treitschke (b. 
Dresden, 1834). In his work, Die Potitik, Treitschke pro-
pounds and defends the doctrine that war is not merely a 
remedy against possible evil or justifiable only in rare and 



8 The Ethics of War 
extreme contingencies, but that it is as necessary as is the 
state itself. He declares that without it, in fact, "there would 
be no states," that "it is only in war that a people becomes-in 
very deed a people," that war is so integrally part and parcel 
of human relations that " t o expel war from the universe would 
be to mutilate human nature." 

Then, too, there are those who, apparently taking offense 
at the philosophy of Treitschke with its harsh and bold term-
inology, seek to cast it in a milder and more acceptable mold. 
In the article " W a r " of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, we read 
that "fighting appears to be part of the order or disorder of 
nature"; on the one hand, war is the natural outcome of civi-
lization and, on the other, it is necessary for its maintenance 
and expansion; the ideal of perpetual peace falls little short of 
a tantalizing phantom. I t "seems to be that war is the out-
come of the growth of societies which can never be uniform, 
but varies with varying conditions of climate, land, race, re-
ligion, and tradition. . . . The establishment of a world-state 
would no doubt be the end of international wars, but they 
would reappear as civil wars." 

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) taught that war of men 
among themselves (bellum omnium cbntra omnes) is the nat-
ural state and that peace is only the suppression of nature by 
an artificial and free contract. War, then, according to him, 
is merely the reassertion of temporarily suppressed nature. 
When we hear that these extreme views are not expounded 
or practised to-day, we need but recall that it was as late as 
1891 that Bismarck said: "War is a law of nature. It is the 
struggle for existence in a general form and until men become 
angels, it will not cease."1 And quite in conformity with the 
general trend of this philosophy, the financier and the mer-

1 Franziskus Stratmann, O.P., The Church and War (Kenedy, 1928), 
SO. A most recent expression of this philosophy is had in the follow-
ing statement of Gen. J . G. Harbord, former A. E. F. Chief of Staff, 
made in the course of an address before the American Legion of New 
York State: "A large number of honest but misguided people believe 
it possible to bring about that permanent peace which has been the 
dream of all ages, but which the Prince of Peace Himself failed to 
achieve 2,000 years ago. There is in war itself something beyond mere 
logic and above cold reason. There is something in war-made values 
above social comfort, above ease, and even above religion. It is the 
mysterious power war gives to life of rising above mere life . . ." 
Quoted in Time, September 14, 1931. 



9 The Ethics of War 
cantilist of to-day, as in ages past, seem to make no scruple 
of creating and deliberately maintaining and aggravating a 
complexus of conditions in the financial and commercial world 
that, in the ordinary course of human events, inevitably leads 
to war. 

Not entirely divergent in principle from these views is the 
theory that was rather prevalent prior to the World War, viz., 
that war, in the words of Fr. Stratmann, "is the blood-and-
iron cure for weakness and idleness." Hegel (1770-1831) con-
tends that war brings home to us, as nothing else can, the 
salutary lessons of the vanity of earthly things and trans-
lates into action what hitherto had been only edifying talk. 
Moltke wrote in a letter to Bluntchli, December 11, 1880: 
"everlasting peace is only a dream, not even a beautiful dream, 
and war is an element in God's government of the world. It 
develops in man the noblest virtues—courage and self-denial, 
love of duty and self-sacrifice. Without war the world would 
sink into materialism."2 

Finally, there is "the materialistic concept of history" 
which teaches that the human race is caught in the grip of 
inexorable forces as uniform and fatalistic as are the laws of 
the physical world. The elements and factors that lead to 
war, and even war itself, are, in consequence, as free from 
ethical control as is, for example, the law of gravitation. They 
are lifted entirely out of the sphere where moral right and 
moral wrong are relevant and controlling factors. Individuals, 
states, and society at large must then be absolved of all moral 
responsibility of war in its every phase—its causes, its declara-
tion and progress, and its effects. 

In refutation of the preceding opinions and philosophies we 
need but bear in mind: (1) that the extreme assumption that 
all employment of force among nations is intrinsically im-
moral, finds no support either in revelation or in the natural 
law; (2) that the state, no less than the individual, is de-
pendent upon, and subject and accountable to, the Creator 
and Supreme Lawgiver of the universe; (3) that man is vested 
with all the dignity and sacredness that the concept of human 
personality involves and has not been created for the pleasure 
or utility or aggrandizement of any other human being or 
group of human beings; (4) that, if we were to admit that war 

2 C f . Stratmann, op. cit., 52, S3. 



10 The Ethics of War 
is necessary for the state in the sense that " t o expel it . . . 
would be to mutilate human nature," we might just as cor-
rectly contend that disunion, enmity and violence are neces-
sary among the individual citizens of the state, that to repress 
them is to mutilate human nature, and that it is the duty of 
the government to foment civil discord in a state threatened 
with too much peace; (5) that it is not necessary for men to 
graduate from the school of war in order to learn the hard 
lessons of honor and stern duty and self-sacrifice; (6) that the 
economic laws and world movements that are wont to ter-
minate in war are not to be regarded with a reverence amount-
ing almost to pathetic superstition, nor to be viewed as blind, 
omnipotent forces over which men can exercise no dominion, 
but that they are merely the sum-total of more or less con-
stant and uniform, free actions of men along certain definite 
lines over which men have control; and, finally (7) that men, 
whether rulers or subjects or whether taken individually or 
collectively, are masters of their own actions and, in conse-
quence, are morally responsible for them before the bar of 
justice, both divine and human. Only with these truths 
clearly and distinctly in mind can we speak of the ethics of 
war. 

I l l 
T H E R I G H T O F W A R 

The right of war is the natural right of a sovereign state 
to wage armed conflict against another. I t is an instance of 
the general moral power of coercion. Every perfect right, i. e., 
every right which involves in others a strict obligation of 
reverence, respect, and deference to itself, in order to be effi-
cacious and consequently real and not nugatory, carries with 
it, as a last appeal, the subsidiary, natural right of employing 
physical force to exact its just claims. This means the right 
to defend itself against infringement, to recover the subject-
matter of the right unjustly withheld or to exact its equiva-
lent, and to inflict material damage and injury in the exer-
cise of this coercion whenever, as is most generally the case, 
coercion cannot be exercised effectively without such damage 
and injury. 

We may view the state either as a moral person or as a 



11 The Ethics of War 
natural institution having its natural end and endowed with 
the means necessary for the attainment of that end. Under 
both aspects it has corporate rights of its own which are per-
fect. I t has also the duty of defending its citizens' rights in 
case of menace or violation from within and from without, 
not only against foreign individuals but also against foreign 
states. I t has, in consequence, also the right of coercion in 
safeguarding its own and its citizens' rights in these cases. In 
any other supposition its corporate rights would be illusory 
and its duty towards its citizens impossible of fulfillment, 
while the individual rights of citizens would be at the mercy 
of the outside world. The pressure of such coercion may obvi-
ously be applied in certain circumstances without going to the 
extreme of complete international conflict; but when the latter 
arises, we have war pure and simple, even as the first applica-
tion of force is initial warfare. 

T h e state's right of war is, as is already quite evident, a 
natural right. The state receives it directly from the natural 
law. In giving to the state its essential purpose together with 
the involved rights and duties, the natural law at the same 
time vests the state with the subsidiary right of physical 
coercion without which "purpose," "rights," and "duties" 
would be mere names. 

International law, it is true, may and actually does deter-
mine the limitations and extensions of the right of war by 
contract (either implicit in accepted custom or explicit in 
formal compact) among the nations which are party to inter-
national legal obligation. By mutual agreement nations may 
surrender in common a part of the full right and so qualify 
it, or they may even tolerate a limited abuse of it. But such 
agreement does not constitute or confer one particle of the 
original right itself, nor can it taken aught of it away except 
by the consent of the nations so deprived. The original de-
termination of the right of war comes directly from the nat-
ural law alone. 

IV 
D E F E N S I V E W A R A L O N E J U S T I F I A B L E 

Though the right of war is a necessary and, consequently, 
a natural right of the state, still it is far from being' absolute 
and unrestricted. As stated before, wars may be punitive, 



12 The Ethics of War 
defensive, or offensive. No state at any time can licitly claim 
the right to wage offensive warfare as we have defined and 
are using the term, viz., " a war initiated without just and 
sufficient cause." 

Stratmann, 3 when speaking of wars of aggression, makes 
the statement that "theoretically this kind of war can also be 
justified" and cites the traditional teaching of the Church 
since the time of St. Augustine (354-430) and the authority of 
St. Thomas, of Francisco de Vitoria, O.P., and of Francis 
Suarez, S.J. (1548-1617), to bear him out in his contention. 
It is evident from the context, however, that he understands 
"wars of aggression," not in the sense in which We are using 
the term, i.e., as synonymous with offensive warfare, but in 
the sense of purely punitive wars. 

Of the two remaining kinds of war, viz., punitive and de-
fensive, the latter alone can evidently be justified on moral 
grounds. This appears to be quite clear from the arguments 
that follow.4 First, when one man attempts to steal from 
another, the latter has the natural right to protect his prop-
erty with physical force if necessary, and, failing in this, he 
again has the natural right to resort to physical force, if 
necessary, to recover it. If, however, he is able to regain'his 
goods without violence, he acts wrongly in having recourse 
to it. He can, therefore, proceed against the aggressor defen-
sively, either to protect what is his or to recover it, but when 
this goal has been attained, his right ceases. He cannot pro-
ceed punitively against his equal. 

What is here right for the individual is right for the state. 
If one state threatens to attack, actually attacks, or cap-
tures the territory of another, the latter has the right to pro-
tect its territory or to recover it respectively. If war is neces-
sary for this, presupposing the verification of the other requi-
site conditions, war may lawfully be undertaken; if, however, 
war is not necessary, then war and, in general, all violence aré 
illicit. From this it would appear that war cannot be under-
taken as a purely punitive measure, but only in defense, i. e., 
either to protect the rights, territory or property of the state 
or to recover them. Were punitive warfare legitimate, it could 

s C f . Stratmann, op. cit., 56, 57. 
_- / C f . Michael Cronin, D.D., The Science of Ethics (Benziger, 1917), 
I I , 6 6 5 , 6 6 6 . 



13 The Ethics of War 
be undertaken even after full compensation and reparation 
had been rendered by the delinquent state. 

Secondly, if it were permissible to wage war for the pur-
poses of punishment merely, it would a t times be allowed, 
not only to incapacitate the enemy combatants for further 
fighting, but also to put the wounded and the prisoners of war 
to death, to attack unfortified cities, to assail non-combatants, 
and to perpetrate similar acts of war which are commonly 
condemned as unlawful. If a nation is deserving of punish-
ment and a neighbor nation has the right to inflict condign 
punishment, there appears to be no valid reason to restrict the 
chastisement to fortified places and to combatants when un-
fortified cities and non-combatants may well have been the 
real offenders or, at least, equally guilty. Moreover, since the 
state has the power of inflicting the death penalty in punish-
ment for certain crimes, why should not the punishing state 
here have the power of inflicting the supreme penalty upon 
the wounded and the prisoners of war? Why should its pun-
ishing power be restricted to the point merely of rendering the 
actual combatants incapable of further fighting? 

It will be objected obviously that it is the state as the 
state, and not the individual private citizens, that disturbs the 
moral equilibrium by offenses against divine and human law; 
and, hence, that it is the state as represented by its fighting 
forces that must directly suffer the penalty. 

The objection loses its force when we bear in mind that 
in legitimate warfare the attack is aimed at the repulsion of 
unjust aggression; hence, of necessity it must be limited to 
those who in one way or another are actually party to the 
aggression. But it seems that to be just the administration 
of punishment to a guilty state must be administered to the 
entire state, not merely to those citizens, who as soldiers hap-
pen to be sent to the front in an effort to ward off the pun-
ishment, even though the entire state does, as a matter of 
fact, suffer ultimately and indirectly. 

I t appears, then, that the only right of war is the right 
to render the enemy combatants incapable of further action, 
i. e., to repel aggression; that its right, therefore, is either to 
protect or to recover, i.e., to defend itself. As soon as no fur-
ther question of defense can arise, no further aggression, either 
as offensive warfare or as punitive, can be lawfully undertaken. 

Finally, war is an armed conflict "between two or more 



14 The Ethics of War 
independent and sovereign states," and therefore, between free 
and equal states. But where there are freedom and equality, 
it is difficult to see how there can be question of the one's 
enjoying and exercising authority and jurisdiction over the 
other. Punishment, however, is inflicted only by superior upon 
subordinate, by ruler upon subject, by one wielding authority 
upon one subservient to that authority. 

On the contrary, Cajetan (Cardinal Thomas de Vio, 1469-
1534), in spite of the acknowledged sovereignty and equality 
of contending states, asserts that as the state has the right to 
punish its own subjects so, too, it has the right to subject 
to punishment foreigners who have sinned against the state, 
because every state must safeguard its own well-being. If the 
state, he continues, had not the right to punish foreign princes 
and peoples, it would be imperfect and incomplete.5 

Cajetan's position stands or falls with our view of the con-
nection between the state's right of punishing foreigners and 
the state's well-being. If the state is really an imperfect and 
incomplete social entity incapable of conserving itself and 
attaining its purpose in the absence of this right, then, with-
out doubt, the state is fully vested with the right, in keeping 
with the general principle of the natural law that he, who has 
the right to the end, has also the right to the means requisite 
for the attainment of that end. If, on the other hand, such a 
right is not necessary, then, of course, the state can lay no 
legitimate claim to it—certainly not on the basis of Cajetan's 
argument. 

The necessity of this is difficult to see. If the enemy 
capitulates, ceases its aggression, and declares its readiness to 
restore seized property and territory in full or its equivalent 
and to give adequate assurance of security for the future— 
and all these points fall within the scope of defensive warfare 
—the state's well-being can scarcely demand that the state 
now proceed to inflict punishment. One may cite as a possible 
objection the instance of a State that is a constant menace 
and source of trouble to its neighbor state. Such a state, one 
might say, must experience the horrors of war in order to 
conceive proper regard and respect for the rights of its neigh-
bor, or even it must be absorbed in the neighbor state before 
the security of the latter can be adequately assured. Even so, 

s C f . Summa S. Thomae, Comm. il. II., Ilae, qu. 40. 



15 The Ethics of War 
a war carried on under these circumstances would be defensive, 
not punitive. I t would be merely a matter of taking necessary 
protective measures and of exacting reasonable assurance of 
future security. 

Vitoria, on the authority of St. Augustine, St. Thomas 
and all the Masters, teaches that "aggressive warfare must 
have as its object the punishment of unjust dealing." Again 
he says: " T h e prince has no more authority over foreigners 
than over his own subjects, but he can use the sword equally 
against both to punish all unjust deeds." 8 

If Vitoria and the authorites referred to by him mean 
defensive wars, as we are using the term, when they speak of 
punishment, there is no difficulty. But if they are speaking of 
punitive wars in the rigid sense of the word, either they must 
base their doctrine, as Cajetan does, on the necessity of such 
wars to the well-being of the state, and we argue against them 
as we did against Cajetan, or they must maintain that nations 
have been entrusted with the dispensation and administration 
of divine justice as towards one another. 

This latter supposition, however, brings us face to face 
with practically unsurmountable difficulties. I t is no easy 
task, even under circumstances the most favorable, to deter-
mine the degree of human guilt to which justice, if it is to be 
justice, must ever be proportionate. How then can the guilt 
of a state be determined in any adequate manner amid the 
turmoil and confusion of minds invariably occasioned by inter-
national entanglements? Even Stratmann, who insists upon 
the punitive function of war, is forced to acknowledge that 
"what would be practically impossible is the application of 
punitive justice, the idea being that only one of the fighting 
parties should bear the punishment resulting from the war and 
should submit quietly like a boy being punished by his 
father." 7 Can we reasonably presuppose that any nation, even 
in an instance where its guilt has been established with suffi-
cient clearness and fair accuracy, would thus passively and 
humbly submit to chastisement administered by one of its 
peers among the nations? Still it would be obliged in justice to 
do so. Evidently a practically impossible demand! And taking 
human nature as it is, we might even call it a preposterous 

6 C f . Stratmann, op. cit., 59, 60. 
* Ibid., 56. 



16 The Ethics of War 
and absurd demand. Naturally the nation would bend its every 
effort to ward off the punishment to the sacrifice of the lives 
of many of its citizens. One might say that this very sacri-
fice of human lives is part of the nation's punishment. Be 
that as it may, what about the lives of the punishing people 
that must inevitably be sacrificed in inflicting punishment? 

When to this loss of human lives, we add the financial 
cost and other tremendous burdens of modern warfare, the 
impossibility of determining when sufficient punishment has 
been administered, the extremes and excesses to which the 
fighting forces will go when the dogs of war have once been 
unleashed, and the hatred that is sure to rankle for years to 
come in the hearts of both parties concerned, we must ac-
knowledge, it seems, that it is the restoration of the violated 
moral order at too great a cost. The resulting evils, to say the 
least, outweigh the good accomplished. The attempt to admin-
ister justice at the expense of the horrors and cruelties and 
excesses of modern warfare, and that, too, at a time when 
the degree of guilt has not been adequately determined, seems 
itself to be a far greater violation of the moral order than to 
permit crime to go unpunished for the time being. 

We might argue also along slightly different lines. The ad-
ministration of justice in some of its phases has quite evidently 
been entrusted to human authorities, but in many others it 
is unmistakably God's sole prerogative. To this latter class 
does it not seem far wiser and far more beneficial to inter-
national well-being to add the instance of inflicting punishment 
upon a nation, since it is a matter fraught with such danger 
of abuse, at least until such time as it can be clearly estab-
lished that it is incumbent upon a nation as a strict duty? 
And, again, all administration of human justice is necessarily 
faulty, either defective or excessive; hence, in all instances 
there is some portion of human guilt left to be weighed and 
properly balanced in the scales of God's justice. Now when 
in a particular instance there is good reason to fear that, after 
man's attempt to administer justice, there will be more to 
leave to God's justice than before, it seems only reasonable 
that man, in the first place, should look upon the entire mat-
ter as belonging to the domain of divine justice. Such an 
instance certainly seems to be that of the moral guilt of one 
nation towards another. Moreover, there are many ways of 
punishing and atoning for crime, and it can very readily happen 



17 The Ethics of War 
that God has already exacted the full penalty of a nation's 
crime in His own way and that the nation, on its part, has 
offered full atonement before its neighbor nation has taken 
even the first step to inflict punishment. 

Suarez differs from the authorities already quoted merely 
in this that he is inclined to derive the state's right of punitive 
war, not from the natural law, since it is not necessary, he 
says, in the nature of things that this right reside with the 
aggrieved state (though it should be somewhere on earth), 
but from international law in the sense that civilized nations 
have tacitly agreed to adopt the individual state method in 
preference to the establishment of a supernational tribunal 
with adequate police powers. 

The existence of any such agreement seems to be a mere 
assumption. But even presupposing its existence, it would 
fail to establish or confer a valid moral right in this instance 
unless, to say the very least, the adopted method of adminis-
tering punishment be fairly just and reasonably adequate. If, 
however, in practice the method prove to be a source of great 
evil and abuse and of flagrant injustice, as in fact it apparently 
has proved in the past, it can find no justification in interna-
tional law. Reverend Charles Macksey, S.J., who is other-
wise a defender of the state's right of punitive warfare, very 
correctly admits that "international law views the punitive 
right of war with suspicion," because, he adds, "it is open to 
wide abuse." 8 

T h e point is frequently urged that the right of punitive 
war must be had somewhere on earth and, since there exists 
no supernational tribunal, it must be enjoyed by the individ-
ual states. The antecedent enunciates what seems to be an-
other unproved assumption. We can, it seems, validly argue 
to the contrary that, if the administration of such a right 
very generally, not to say always, practically entails gross 
abuses and injustices that far outweigh the blessings of a re-
stored moral order, or, in other words, if the abuse is the 
general rule and the proper use is at most the extremely rare 
exception, it is more in keeping with the general mode of in-
terpreting the natural law to deny its existence. 

The contention that the right of punitive war must exist 
somewhere on earth, i. e., either with the individual states or 

8 C f . Catholic Encyclopedia, Art.: "War." 



18 The Ethics of War 
with an international or supernational tribunal, is further 
weakened, not to say rendered positively untenable, by analogy 
with the state's right of inflicting punishment even upon its 
own citizens. According to Victor Cathrein, S.J., who in the 
various editions arid versions of his Philosophia Moralis is par-
ticularly emphatic on this point, and other ethicians and mor-
alists as well, the state is by no means the divinely consti-
tuted custodian of the moral order with general and unre-
stricted punitive powers in relation to its own citizens. In 
the first place, while it is true that all just punishment by its 
very nature serves to restore the violated moral order in some 
way, still the reparation of the disturbed moral order as exist-
ing between men and God is entirely beyond the scope and 
pale of the state's jurisdiction. And, secondly, the restoration 
of the violated individual moral order, i. e., of man towards 
himself, so long as it is strictly individual and does not either 
directly or indirectly touch the public weal at any point, is 
likewise removed from the scope of civil jurisdiction. 

There remains but the moral order as existing between the 
citizens and the state. Over this and over this alone, to the 
absolute exclusion of the two previous ones, can the state lay 
any just claim to jurisdiction. And even within this limited 
sphere the state's punitive power is not general and unre-
stricted. On the contrary, it is rigidly conditioned on the com-
mon good. The state can punish the criminal only because, 
and in so far as, it is necessary for the general welfare of 
its citizens. Both the existence and the extent of its punitive 
right are determined by this consideration alone. I t is true, 
as mentioned above, that all just punishment serves naturally 
to restore the moral order, but in meting out punishment to its 
guilty citizens the state must ever have in mind, not the de-
gree of the criminal's guilt before God, but the emendation of 
the criminal and the deterring of others from the commission of 
like crimes. And in the same proportion in which it loses 
sight of this determining norm in establishing, aggravating, 
mitigating, or abrogating penalties, threatened or inflicted, it 
fails according to the nature of the case either 'by excesses or 
neglect. 

The state then derives its punitive power not from the 
supposition that it is the custodian of the moral order and the 
minister of divine justice towards its subjects, but solely from 
the fact that punitive power is a necessary adjunct of bene-



19 The Ethics of War 
ficial and effective civil authority. Without it the state would 
not be adequately equipped by nature to protect its own and 
its citizens' rights against the criminal onslaughts of its re-
fractory subjects. This latter consideration leads us naturally 
to the further conclusion that the only punitive power enjoyed 
by the state is in reality, not strictly punitive at all, but 
merely a phase of its right of self-defense. I t is a right vested 
with the state in virtue of which the state is empowered by 
nature to protect itself and its subjects from criminal assaults 
and to take necessary measures of future security. 

In view of the natural and necessary restriction placed upon 
the punitive function of the state in dealing with its own sub-
jects, it seems but a logical step to conclude that the punitive 
powers of nations among themselves, as well as of international 
and supernational tribunals, are hemmed in and restricted by 
the identical determining and limiting norm—the common wel-
fare. We are justified, then, it seems, in asserting that neither 
nations nor tribunals established and recognized by nations are, 
or in the ordinary course of God's providence can be, the di-
vinely constituted custodians of the international moral order 
and, hence, that they cannot licitly wage punitive warfare for 
the sole purpose of satisfying God's justice. They may do so 
only in so far as the common welfare of nations can demand it, 
i. e., as previously expressed, only in so far as it might be nec-
essary in order to compel an offending nation to capitulate, to 
cease its aggression, and to declare its readiness to restore 
seized property and territory or its equivalent, and to give ade-
quate assurance of security for the future. And this brings us 
again to a type of warfare which upon closer analysis is found 
to be not strictly punitive at all, but defensive. 

It would almost seem from the efforts that have been made 
in the past to justify punitive warfare that the inflicting of 
punishment by one nation upon another is a pleasant task 
which nations are only too quick to perform if they can but 
find reasons to justify themselves in undertaking it. Does this 
n o t suggest the possibility that there might be lurking here 
under the guise of the guardianship of the moral order the de-
sire, even though it be unconscious, of giving vent to the human 
urge for revenge? 

The inflicting of punishment is an unpleasant burden even 
under the most justifiable conditions, and instead of emphasiz-
ing it as a right, especially when there are concomitant evils 



20 The Ethics of War 
and difficulties, would it not be more in accord with truth and 
reality to view it rather as a duty? And, instead of searching 
for reasons to justify the enjoyment of the right and privilege 
of punishing, should one not rather limit the discussion to the 
conditions that go to make it one's bounden duty to have re-
course to it? In other words, it should not be a question: 
When have I the right to inflict punishment? but: When have 
I the duty to do so? Were this point of view alone rigidly ad-
hered to and properly stressed in international relations, even 
though one were to reject all other considerations as uncon-
vincing, the ranks of the advocates and defenders of punitive 
warfare would be considerably depleted. 

Probably, after all has been said pro and con, we should be 
choosing the better part if we cast our lot with those whom 
Max Scheler has in mind when he says: "Many consider un-
tenable the Thomistic conception of a punitive war." 9 And 
it seems perfectly safe to say that such a choice, far from run-
ning counter to, harmonizes perfectly with the ideas set forth 
by Benedict XV in his various appeals for international peace 
and in his pleas that it rest even more firmly on the basis of 
charity and good-will among nations than upon the demands 
of rigid justice. 

More than once, perhaps, in the perusal of these pages the 
question has suggested itself: What is the practical value of 

aDer Genius des Krieges und der Deutsche Krieg. It is to be noted 
that, if we except Cathrein (Philosophia Moralis) and Cronin {The 
Science of Ethics), practically all modern ethicians and moralists up-
hold the lawfulness of punitive warfare. Slater (A Manual of Moral 
Theology, Benziger, 1908, I, 319) goes so far as to include it in "the 
certain teaching of Catholic theology." But since the arguments ad-
duced in the preceding pages are applicable to these, as well as to those 
against whom they are directly aimed, further details are unnecessary 
here. 

The wars of the Old Testament can be adduced neither in support 
of nor in repudiation of punitive warfare, or, for that matter, of mod-
ern warfare in any of its phases. Some of them are to be judged 
strictly according to the demands of morality as set forth in these 
pages, and in that light they are to be declared either just or unjust 
as the circumstances of the individual case warrant. For, we must re-
member, not all that is narrated in Sacred Scripture is given, either 
directly or indirectly, the stamp of approval by the inspired writer. 
In other instances, however, wars were conducted at the express com-
mand of God, the Sovereign Arbiter of life and death. The Israelites 
were but the executioners of His supernatural sentence. The penalty 
was within God's right to assign and within the Israelites' divinely com-
municated right to execute. 



21 The Ethics of War 
distinguishing between defensive, offensive, and punitive war-
fare and of insisting that, at most, defensive warfare alone is 
justifiable since nations are not guided by such niceties of 
thought in their declarations of war? Whatever be the atti-
tude of nations in this regard, the distinction is valid and the 
insistence must be made on ethical and moral grounds. And, 
in particular, the distinction between defensive and offensive 
war must be stressed with ever-increasing emphasis in view of 
the fact that defensive warfare is becoming more than the mere 
repulsion of unjust aggression. In consequence of modern 
methods of war it is, in fact, becoming as much a slaughter of 
human beings as is offensive warfare. And if those who are di-
rectly responsible for the fate of nations are prone to close their 
eyes to these considerations, it is time to preclude from their 
immediate jurisdiction the momentous question of war and to 
appeal either to the tribunal of popular opinion by the refer-
endum or to the League of Nations where less selfish interests 
and more sober judgment prevail. 1 0 

V 
T H E C O N D I T I O N S O F A J U S T D E F E N S I V E W A R 

From what we have thus far said it can be readily gleaned 
that war is not intrinsically evil, except in the sense that in 
every war, even the most necessary and licit, there is injustice 
(objective and material, if not subjective and formal) at least 
on one side. Offensive warfare must always be classified as in-
trinsically wrong and it seems impossible ever to justify a pure-
ly punitive war. As for defensive warfare, it is becoming in-
creasingly difficult, if not actually impossible, to justify it as 
waged between two large states in modern times, especially be-
cause of the question of proportionate evil and of the ease with 
which impartial arbitration can be had in all cases. Neverthe-
less, it does at times find its justification in the natural law. 
Just as it is intrinsically wrong f o r ' a n individual to slay an 
innocent person, but not evil to slay in necessary self-defense, 
so, too, the slaying of one nation by another without proper 
justification is intrinsically evil, but to undertake war in self-

1 0 A minority of the Ethics Committee do not agree with the posi-
tion defended in the foregoing paragraphs on punitive war. 



22 The Ethics of War 
defense under the requisite conditions becomes the state's pre-
rogative and at times even the state's duty. The very first and 
most essential condition of a just war, then, is that it be defen-
sive. But there are other conditions that demand fulfillment. 

1. UNDERTAKEN IN VINDICATION OF A 
STRICT RIGHT 

A state may go to war only to protect or to recover (to-
gether with reasonable assurance of security for the future) 
that to which it has a strict right, i. e., that to which it can lay 
lawful claim on the basis of rigid justice, not on the basis of 
charity nor of any other virtue. 1 1 I t must be more than an 
intranational right, L e., more than a right of private individ-
uals among themselves, or of citizens towards their govern-
ment, or of the government towards its citizens. I t must be a 
national right, i. e., a right that affects the nation as a na-
tion and not merely the private and selfish interests of groups 
or individuals. It must at the same time be an international 
right, i. e., a national right that can rightfully claim to be rec-
ognized as such before the tribunal of international justice, 
not merely an imaginary right which an injured nation in its 
blind self-interest might be prone to adjudge genuine. 

A distinction that seems to be only too frequently over-
looked and neglected in practice by nations among themselves, 
but which must, nevertheless, be made and insisted upon, is 
that war may be waged lawfully only for points of the common 
good, but that not all that makes for the common good is of a 
nature to justify war for its attainment. Over and beyond 
making for the common good, it must be a point to which the 
nation has a strict right. Thus, for example, because of the 
absence of such a right, a war is not morally justified which 
aims at expanding national territory, at seizing even the sur-
plus and undeveloped territory of another, or at compelling a 
backward nation to develop its natural resources for its own 
and for other nations' prosperity, no matter how desirable, 
beneficial, or necessary these various points may be for a de-
veloping state. For the same reason it is illicit to wage wai 

1 1 We are by no means here excluding the right of a nation in dis-
tress to call upon its neighbor nation for needed assistance and the 
latter's obligation of charity to respond. 



23 The Ethics of War 
for the purpose of enhancing national power and prestige, or of 
promoting an international "balance of power." 

Much less may a just cause be found in the mere need of 
exercising a standing, martial force, of escaping revolutionary 
trouble at home, or of assuring the safety of the loans and in-
vestments of a country's financial aristocracy. Utterly inade-
quate, too, are such indefinite formulae as "the good of the 
community," "necessity," "public peace," "the freedom of the 
seas," "the preservation of culture," "the making of the world 
safe for democracy," and similar general terms which readily 
can be, and frequently have been, distorted into pretexts for 
unnecessary wars. 1 2 Likewise, to continue a war longer than is 
necessary for the protection or recovery of strict rights is quite 
as immoral as to begin it without sufficient cause. 

Before a state is justified in undertaking war, its rights 
must either have been actually violated or stand in certain and 
imminent danger of violation. A hypothetical, merely prob-
able, or distantly future menace, such as might be implied in 
the growth of armaments of other nations, is not a sufficiently 
justifying cause. 

Moreover, the legitimate defense of rights implies that the 
aggrieved state is not simultaneously violating the rights of the 
state against which it is contemplating war. Otherwise, the 
two nations would at once be the victims and perpetrators of 
mutual injustice. Only that state which is less guilty might 
possibly have a right to begin war in these circumstances. 
Consequently, not even theoretically, would the more guilty 
state be justified either in taking the offense or in repelling the 
attack of the less guilty, so long as the latter merely sought 
the vindication of its rights and was willing to refrain from 
unjust conduct. And, practically speaking, even the less guilty 
would be prohibited from beginning hostilities until it had 

1 2 National honor, though ordinarily included among rights suffi-
ciently weighty to justify war if violated, is a much abused term. It 
is intangible and to a great extent purely subjective. Hence, it is an 
illusory element with which to deal. In the past it has frequently 
played the masked role of a handy pretext for war at the bidding of 
scheming politicians. It is difficult to see how its violation, without the 
concurrence of other circumstances, can justify war. War is as utterly 
inadequate to vindicate national honor as is a duel to vindicate personal 
honor. Both serve to determine physical strength and dexterity in the 
use of arms, but neither has ever decided who was in the right and who 
in the wrong. 



24 The Ethics of War 
definitely and manifestly ceased to commit lesser, but real, acts 
of international injustice. Failure to do so would clearly dis-
close the absence of "the right intention," with which we shall 
deal later. 

At the same time the violation of international rights must 
appear to the aggrieved state as morally certain. No degree of 
probability, not even a great preponderance of probability, is 
sufficient. Such seems to have been the clear teaching of St. 
Augustine, St. Thomas and all Catholic teachers and theolo-
gians until the beginning of the seventeenth century. 1 3 As 
Dominicus Bannez, O.P. (1528-1604), expresses it, "the state 
that wishes to declare war must not entertain a single doubt, 
the justifying reasons must be clearer than day. A declaration 
of war is equivalent to a sentence of death; to pronounce the 
latter with a doubtful conscience is murder." Vasquez, S.J. 
(1551-1604), is equally emphatic in asserting the same prin-
ciple. . 

But with Suarez we find the first relaxation of the old strict 
war morality. He was the first prominent theologian to hold 
that in certain instances a ruler may go to war knowing that 
a great deal of right is on the opposite side but considering 
that, on the whole, there is more on his side. 1 4 In technical 
moral terminology Suarez introduced into war-making the 
principle of probabiliorism. This weakening of the traditional 
teaching of the Schools gave rise to a storm of protest. No one 
was more vehement, however, than his contemporary, fellow 
countryman, and fellow Jesuit, Vasquez. T h e latter bluntly re-
pudiates the new doctrine, characterizing it as untenable, capa-
ble of great harm to Christianity and implying a reversion to 
barbarism. 1 5 He declares unyieldingly that no degree of proba-
bility would suffice to justify the initiation of "the greatest evil 
in Christian society." 

So great was the authority of Suarez, however, that his view 
came to be adopted by a considerable number of theologians in 
the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries with the 
result that excuses for war were made more and more easily, 
e. g., to maintain the balance of power or to prevent the exten-
sion of a neighboring state. But not all the theologians of 

1 3 C f . Stratmann, op. tit., 61, 62. 
" C f . De Bello, Sect. VI. 
1 5 C f . Com. in Summa S. Thom., Disp. 64, Cap. 3. 



25 The Ethics of War 
these centuries departed from the stricter teaching of the old 
school. Sylvius (1648), in particular, who remained true to its 
principles, says: "When it is a question of imperiling the lives 
of a mass of men, the safest side must always be chosen." St. 
Alphonse Ligouri (d. 1787), while inclining to the new school, 
nevertheless sympathizes with those who consider a declaration 
of war so serious a matter that it can be justified only if there 
be no possible doubt as to the justice of the cause. He says: 
"War brings such evil with it, such harm to religion and to the 
innocent, that in practice it is hardly ever justifiable." 1 8 

Considering the ever-increasing terrors of modern warfare 
and their results and bearing in mind also that the Catholic 
Church as such has never defined the requisite conditions of a 
just war, it is certainly permissible, and even obligatory, to 
follow that line of argument, particularly when it appears at 
the same time the more logical, which restricts as much as pos-
sible the justifiableness of war. Bannez very aptly compares 
a declaration of war to a sentence of death. If a jury or judge, 
he argues, is morally forbidden to condemn a man to death un-
less they have convinced themselves of his guilt beyond all 
reasonable doubt, it cannot be logically maintained that a civil 
ruler is justified in pronouncing what is practically equivalent 
to the death sentence upon hundreds or thousands of men until 
he has raised the violation of his country's rights beyond the 
realm of reasonable doubt. 

The ruler might, it is true, regard actual injustice as merely 
probable but future and contingent injustice as morally cer-
tain. In other words, while realizing that the evidence of pres-
ent injustice is merely sufficient to generate a high degree of 
probability, still he might see that, if he failed to take belliger-
ent action, the probable injustice would, according to all hu-
man calculation, certainly become actual. In similar circum-
stances, an individual would be justified in using extreme meas-
ures of self-defense. In both cases there would be moral cer-
tainty, not merely a high degree of probability, that one was 
confronted with a grave evil. 

I t is not sufficient, however, that the violation of a strict 
right be unmistakable. I t is further requisite that the guilt of 
the nation involved in the violation be, to borrow the terminol-
ogy of ethicians and moralists, formal and not merely material. 

i«Cf. Lib., III., Tract. IV., Nu. 404. 



26 The Ethics of War 
.Guilt is said to be material only, when an act is really and ob-
jectively contrary to law, but the agent either is unaware of its 
malice or, being aware of it, is compelled by external force to 
place it. Such an act is not strictly an evil deed nor is he who 
places it an evil-doer. On the other hand, formal guilt is had 
when the trespasser not only offends against the right or law 
objectively and as a matter of fact, but a t the same time is 
conscious of the lawlessness of his act and still deliberately 
performs it. 

Luis Molina, S.J. (1535-1600), was evidently the first to 
break with the mooring of the past in this regard and to teach 
that a material injustice on the part" of the offending state is a 
sufficient justification for war. In modern times the opinion 
has reached the stage where some Catholic ethicians hold that 
the question of formal and material guilt can be entirely dis-
regarded. Cronin, for example, says: "One state can go to war 
with another if it is clear that its own rights have been violated, 
without thought of, or care for, the bona fides of that other. 
If wars were disallowed through the bona fides of the sup-
posed offending party, few wars would be allowed in natural 
l a w . " 1 7 

It is true, of course, that in the case of a merely material 
injustice, the unjust possession of alien property might be a 
very important consideration for the holding state. But, as 
Stratmann argues, 1 8 either this unjust possession can be proved 
or it cannot be proved. If it is proved and the state still per-
sists in its refusal to yield what it holds unjustly, then it imme-
diately becomes formally guilty and, in so far as the genuine-
ness of the injustice is concerned, may be justly attacked. 
If, on the contrary, it cannot be satisfactorily proved, then 
there is not even an evident material injustice and war is cer-
tainly out of the question. To say the least, a wrong or in-
justice without formal guilt is a most doubtful thing, and the 
old school is surely right in insisting on proof of formal guilt 
before plunging into the horrors of war. 

Certainly material wrongdoing is to be eliminated from 
the world in so far as it is possible, but war is not the proper 
means. If we are told that this sets up an unjust state of 
things, we can truthfully answer with Stratmann 1 9 that war 

1 7 C f . Cronin, op. tit., II, 666. 
1 8 C f . Stratmann, op. tit., 64. 
1 9 C f . Stratmann, op. tit., 65, 66. 



27 The Ethics of War 
without proof of formal guilt does so much more disastrously. 

Lastly, we must bear in mind that as charity, and at times 
justice, can demand of us under certain conditions that we 
come to the assistance of our neighbor in the defense of his 
rights against an unjust aggressor, so, too, the same virtues 
can make identical claims upon groups of individuals, called 
states. In spite of the difficulty of determining in a concrete 
case whether intervention is forbidden, allowed, or com-
manded, and notwithstanding the fact that intervention is fre-
quently undertaken for selfish purposes, still the general ethical 
principle is clear and incontrovertible. Whenever intervention 
becomes a duty either of charity or justice, it necessarily im-
plies the right to intervene. T h e pretentious assertion that no 
state ever has such a right ignores the truth that governments 
exist essentially for the purpose of promoting human welfare 
and that the right of political independence has neither logical 
nor ethical foundation when it is claimed by a state which, 
instead of attaining, frustrates this end. Unless we are will-
ing to embrace the absurd philosophy that political independ-
ence is an end in itself, we must insist that it ceases or is 
suspended as a national right when it persistently and pro-
foundly fails to safeguard the welfare of the state and its mem-
bers. In the course of the past century this absurdity gained 
so much ground among certain political writers and so-called 
liberals that it provoked the formal condemnation of the 
Church. No. 62 of the condemned principles in the Syllabus 
of Pope Pius I X runs thus: "The principle styled non-interven-
tion is one to be proclaimed and put into practice." 

Conditions which justify and, unless the inconvenience in-
volved be disproportionately great, even require intervention 
by one state in the affairs of another are, for example, grave 
and long-continued oppression inflicted by a stronger state 
upon a weaker, the revolt of a people or a nation against in-
tolerable tyranny, the unsuccessful efforts of a state to sup-
press an unwarranted rebellion injurious to national or inter-
national welfare, grossly immoral practices as cannibalism and 
human sacrifices under the guise of religion, and continued 
anarchy in a state unable for the present to maintain a tol-
erably competent government. 

In order to justify, and much more, in order to require, 
intervention, the foregoing evils, or any of them, must be defi-
nite, certain, and extreme; hope of any remedy from within 



28 The Ethics of War 
must be wanting; the motive of the intervening nation must 
be free from selfishness; armed force must not be resorted to 
so long as milder methods, even those of moral coercion, are 
sufficient, and finally, the aiding nation, after it has accom-
plished its task, must be ready to withdraw at the request of 
the assisted people. 

2. PROPORTIONATE EVIL 
As in every other situation where an act is contemplated 

which will lead to both good and evil results, the rules of ethics 
require that the value and importance of the national right 
menaced or violated be in proportion to the magnitude of the 
damages to be inflicted by the war. In evaluating this 
proportion the aggrieved state must bear in mind the rav-
ages and devastations of war as affecting not only itself, but 
the offending nation and neutral nations as well. I t must 
look beyond its own individual welfare and view the evils of 
war in the light of the solidarity of nations. I t is true that 
its own welfare commands first attention but the common in-
terests of nations must not by any means be considered lightly. 
This latter consideration is ever waxing in importance because 
modern methods of transportation and intercommunication are 
constantly welding nations and international interests more 
closely together. A striking instance is had in the boycott 
declared recently by Mahatma Gandhi and his followers 
against English textile products. Directly it is an act of pas-
sive resistance to English domination over India and, as its 
immediate effect, it cripples a foreign market for English tex-
tiles, but it reaches far beyond this so as to affect even the 
cotton growers of our Southern States. 

Hence, while a nation contemplating war places on one 
side of the scales the disadvantages and losses t h a t its own 
common good and that of others will suffer directly and indi-
rectly in consequence of foregoing its right in a given instance, 
it must place on the other side, first, its own probable loss of 
human lives and of spiritual and material goods, as well as its 
prospect of victory; secondly, the price of war'in all its phases 
to the other party of the combat; and, thirdly, the losses and 
disadvantages that the war will bring upon neutral nations. 
And only when the losses likely to accrue from waiving a 
national right outbalance, or to say the very least counter-



29 The Ethics of War 
balance, the ravages of war in all its ramifications can there 
be thought of justifying a people's going to war on the basis 
of proportionate evil. 

War, particularly in modern times, inflicts so many, such 
various and such enormous injuries upon innocent and guilty 
indiscriminately and not only upon the belligerents themselves 
but upon neutral nations as well, that it cannot be justified 
on the score of proportionate evil except by very grave reasons 
—we might even say, by the gravest known to human society. 
Hence, the rights and interests that are unjustly attacked or 
jeopardized must be of primary importance to the very exist-
ence and proper functioning of the state and essential to the 
life and well-being of its members. Certainly such minor evils 
as a slight or temporary offense against national honor or pres-
tige or comfort or property cannot be weighed in the balance 
with the terrific evils inevitably involved in the devastation of 
modern warfare. 

There is even a conviction rapidly gaining ground, espe-
cially among the Catholic moralists of certain European coun-
tries, to the effect that no reason, however great, can ever be 
proportionately grave to justify warfare between two large 
states in modern times. In other words, it is contended that 
the rule of proportionate evil is alone sufficient to render war-
making by any large state immoral in all instances a t the 
present time. 

That the rule of proportionate evil has become more exact-
ing with each step in the development of war implements 
from their crudest forms to the modern instruments of death 
and destruction, is perfectly true. I t seems also perfectly true 
that the time must come sooner or later when the very deadli-
ness and destructiveness of war, if they continue to increase, 
will throw the evils of war, out of all proportion to any pos-
sible good that may result and, hence, will of themselves out-
law all war except, perhaps, in its simpler forms as we shall 
continue to find it among small states and among semi-civilized 
and uncivilized peoples. We may even be justified in assert-
ing, with the European moralists whose contention we have 
just cited, that such time has already arrived. 

This opinion gathers force from the simple consideration 
that in the calm forum of deliberate reason the sacrifice of a 
single human life outweighs the mere offended vanity of a 
king or a people. Moreover, the welfare of the aggrieved 



30 The Ethics of War 
state, as well as that of the aggressor state, is always far 
better safeguarded through the toleration of relatively small 
wrongs until such time as they can be satisfactorily repaired 
through peaceful processes. The Kellogg Pact bears witness to 
the fact that nations are beginning to realize the seriousness of 
these considerations. 

3. LAST RESORT 
Recourse to war is not justified until all peaceful methods 

have been tried and found inadequate. A fair opportunity of 
adjustment must be given or a reasonable assurance had that 
the offense will not be rectified except solely under the stress 
of war. Hence, if there is reasonable ground to think that 
the offending state will withdraw its menace or repair the in-
jury done and give a fair guarantee of the future security of 
the juridical order between the two states concerned (in con-
sequence of proper representation, judicious diplomacy, patient 
urgency, a mere threat of war, or any other just means this 
side of actual war, such as the severance of diplomatic rela-
tions, the boycott, and trade embargo), the menaced or ag-
grieved state must first experience the futility of these pacific 
means and devices before it can proceed to the extreme of 
war. Moreover, if an apology suffices and has been tendered, 
it must be accepted; nor may the offer of adequate reparation 
and indemnification ever be rejected when the alternative is 
war. Likewise, if there exists a supernational tribunal which 
holds out reasonable hope of settling the matter amicably, it 
must be appealed to and its decision accepted as final. 

Whether in the absence of a supernational tribunal the 
aggrieved state must consent to arbitrate differences of judg-
ment before resorting to war, may in general be a matter of 
dispute. Nevertheless, when in a particular instance the pub-
lic authority has sound reason to think that it can arrange for 
an unbiased tribunal as the alternative of war, the necessity 
of war in, that case is certainly not final, and even though in-
ternational law leaves the state free to accept or to refuse all 
arbitration, the natural law makes it strictly obligatory. 

Provided the contending parties be properly minded, arbi-
tration reasonably unprejudiced is always possible today, e. g., 
through the World Court and the League of Nations. I t s 
superiority to war as a means of disentangling international 



31 The Ethics of War 
difficulties lies in its aptness to function on the basis of justice, 
peace, and good-will, and not, as war, on the basis of might, 
hatred and bloodshed. War, no more than a duel, has ever 
decided who was right. Just as individuals are far more likely 
to get justice by recourse to the courts, instead of staking life 
and property on the wielding of a sword or the pulling of a 
trigger, so too nations are far more likely to obtain justice 
and preserve their material prosperity by recourse to arbitra-
tion rather than to war. 

Should, however, all these pacific devices prove ineffectual, 
then "the calm, deliberate judgment of the people, rather than 
the aims of the ambitious few, should decide whether war be 
the only solution. Knowing that the burdens of war will fall 
most heavily on them, the people will be slower in taking 
aggressive measures and, with an adequate sense of what char-
ity and justice require, they will refuse to be led or driven 
into conflict by false report or specious argument. Reluctance 
of this sort is entirely consistent with firmness for right and 
zeal for national honor. If it were developed in every people, 
it would prove a more effectual restraint than any craft of 
diplomacy or economic prudence." 2 0 

4. REASONABLE HOPE OF VICTORY 
A further condition essential to the legitimate declaration 

of wa:r is that the aggrieved nation should be able to entertain 
a reasonable hope of victory. Statesmen are not justified in 
making war if their country is likely to find itself in a worse 
condition in the end than at the beginning. The reason is clear 
and simple. T o declare war in the face of certain defeat is to 
betray the public trust and is little short of national suicide. 

As Stratmann 2 1 informs us, Cajetan and Vitoria maintain 
that the attacking party must be morally certain of victory. 
Though at times moral certainty can be had, still it does not 
seem reasonable that the responsible persons should be de-
manded always to possess so high a degree of certainty of vic-
tory, because, in the very nature of the case, it is generally 
impossible. It seems sufficient that the government should 
have solid reasons, proportionate to the evil alternative of de-
feat, for expecting victory. 

20Pastoral Letter of the American Hierarchy, 69, 7 0 . 
2 1 C f . Stratmann, op. tit., 67. 



32 The Ethics of War 
5. INITIATED BY PUBLIC AUTHORITY 

The right of war rests solely with the sovereign authority 
of the state. I t cannot become a prerogative of any subordi-
nate in the state or of a section or province or city or an 
individual. This is evident for several reasons. 2 2 First, no 
one, except the juridical guardian of the common good of all, 
can have the right to imperil the common good of all the 
state as happens in war. Secondly, the subordinate parts of 
the state, as well as the individual citizens, can in the case of 
a grievance make appeal for redress to the supreme authority 
of the state; hence, they are not in a position which entitles 
them to the exercise of coercion either among themselves or 
against other nations. Thirdly, a n y such power in hands other 
than those of the sovereign power would upset the peace and 
order of the entire state. With the supreme authority lies also 
the judicial authority to determine when war is necessary and 
what is the necessary and proportionate measure of damage 
it may therein inflict. On the one hand, there is no other nat-
ural tribunal to which recourse may be had, and, on the other, 
without this judicial faculty the right of war would be in vain. 

I t is evident that a person or body designated by the sov-
ereign power through the constitution of the state may also 
have the right to declare war. In England, the king declares 
war through his government; in France, the president with the 
consent of the two chambers; in the United States, war is de-
clared by Congress. 

6. RIGHT INTENTION 
Among the conditions necessary for a just war, we must 

mention also a right intention. It would not be allowable, 
whilst outwardly and seemingly waging war in vindication of 
a right which has been actually violated, inwardly and really 
to wage it for some such illegitimate purpose as, for example 
the humiliation of a great military or naval rival, the desire 
of showing one's prowess, the desire of obtaining promotion, 
or mere delight in the excitement of war. 

The right intention, says St. Thomas, 2 3 is "the intention to 
further good and avoid evil. For, says St. Augustine, in De 

" C f . Catholic Encyclopedia, Art.: "War." 2 3 Cf. II., Hae, 40,1. 



33 The Ethics of War 
Verbis Domini, 'with the true servants of God even wars make 
for peace, as they are not undertaken for greed and cruelty 
but for the sake of peace, that the wicked may be restrained 
and the good protected.' Therefore, it may be that a war is 
declared by lawful authority and for a 'just cause' and yet 
may not be justifiable because the intention of those undertak-
ing it is Wrong. For what Augustine rightly censures in war 
is the desire to harm, the cruelty of revenge, a vindictive 
spirit, the rage of self-defense, the lust of power, and the like." 
A bad intention can vitiate an act, otherwise good and legiti-
mate in war- as well as in every other department of human 
conduct. 

7. RIGHTLY CONDUCTED 
A final condition necessary for legitimate warfare is that it 

be rightly conducted. This condition demands that the war be 
conducted with a moderation which, both in the continuance 
of the struggle and in its settlement, commits no act intrin-
sically immoral, nor exceeds in damage done or in reparation 
exacted the measure of necessity and of proportion to the value 
of the right involved, the cost of the war, and the guarantee 
of future security. 

The questions here involved are generally thrown into the 
background by the all-absorbing question of the war itself. 
When war has once been declared and sane judgment has 
been tainted and biased, if not actually stifled by false patriot-
ism and national hatred, and victory over the hostile forces by 
means fair or foul becomes the one supreme objective, the con-
venient but vicious saying, "all's fair in love and war," only 
too frequently finds expression in fact. The inevitable result 
is that international agreements, malicious propaganda, vio-
lence to non-combatants, and similar phases of the war scarcely 
ever as much as present themselves as ethical issues. This 
consideration forbids us to pass them over in silence. 

(a) Observance of International Agreements 
We may conveniently distinguish four general categories 

of international agreements. Some go to make up international 
law, others are peace treaties, others are compacts entered 
upon by two or more nations during times of peace, while the 



34 The Ethics of War 
fourth class comprises the less formal conventions which we 
might call "gentleman's agreements" or friendly understand-
ings among nations. 

They may include any material good or advantage con-
cerning which international disputes may arise, such as inter-
national boundaries; trade; jurisdiction over rivers and seas; 
protectorates over independent peoples; pacific measures of 
settling international disputes; manner of conducting war with 
reference to use of poisonous gases and dumdum bullets, 
aerial attacks, bombardment of unfortified cities, attacks on 
non-combatants, conversion of merchant ships into warships, 
laying of submarine mines, submarine warfare, and aerial 
attacks; contraband articles; the rights and duties of neutral 
powers and persons; the treatment of captives and wounded; 
and the status of public property held by the enemy. 

Generally speaking, states have both the right and the duty 
to form agreements of this character. These agreements once 
entered upon receive their binding force, as does every promise 
or contract, proximately from the consent of the contracting 
parties, but ultimately from the natural law. T o attempt to 
derive the sanctity of international agreements from positive 
law, from some such formula as "international agreements 
must be kept" is utterly futile. It merely pushes the ques-
tion of moral obligation further back. Unless we wish to face 
the absurdity of an infinite series of postulates, we must admit 
here the obligatory force of the natural law. The first three 
categories as enumerated oblige in justice and at the same 
time also in charity, while the fourth, i. e., friendly under-
standings, would seem in all cases to oblige in charity. How-
ever, this latter may in the course of time, in consequence 
of long standing and mutual observance, tacitly take on the 
character and acquire the binding force of a formal agree-
ment. 

The consent requisite here to be valid and binding must 
be internal, externally expressed, freely given, morally possible 
of execution and not rendered illicit by a higher law, whether 
this restraining higher law be the divine law, ecclesiastical law 
or the law of a clearly and unmistakably greater common 
good. The consent must also be mutual for the simple reason 
that in almost all international agreements the element of 
reciprocity in one way or another enters in. 

Of the enumerated necessary conditions, the question of 



35 The Ethics of War 
internal consent, though absolutely essential to the validity 
of the agreement, has but little importance in the practical 
moral discussion of the subject, since it is invariably taken 
for granted and insisted upon accordingly, as soon as it is 
sufficiently expressed by word of mouth, in writing or by some 
other recognized external sign. The requisite freedom of con-
sent, however, does offer special difficulties in certain cases. 
The remaining conditions seem quite intelligible and, hence, 
demand no further explanation. 

These agreements no matter to what category they belong 
generally retain their moral binding force so long as the cir-
cumstances that prompted or necessitated their making pre-
vail and the conditions requisite for a binding contract are had. 
Hence, some of them, such as those referring to international 
trade relations and in general all those which by their very 
nature presuppose friendly relations between two or more 
nations as a basis for their existence, necessarily lose their 
moral efficacy immediately upon the declaration of war or even 
upon the severance of diplomatic relations. Likewise, the 
flagrant violation of the agreement by one of the contracting 
parties justifies the other party in considering it terminated, 
if it so desires, though it may in justice still insist upon its 
observance and even take measures of proportionate severity 
to accomplish it. This principle obtains certainly in reference 
to the specific violated article of an agreement and probably 
also to the entire agreement, i. e., as soon as an agreement 
has been violated in any one of its phases by one of the con-
tracting parties, whether in time of peace or of war, it would 
seem that the other party is justified in repudiating, if it so 
desires, the agreement in its entirety. 

But in all instances of the cessation of the obliging force of 
international agreement for whatsoever reason, there can be 
question of those obligations only which exist solely in virtue 
of the agreement. Those points which are at the same time 
points of the natural law—and they are many—lose none of 
their natural binding power with the lapse of the agreement. 
Thus, for example, an international agreement relating to the 
humane treatment of prisoners of war, to the sinking of mer-
chant vessels, or to the use of dumdum bullets may have been 
terminated because of its violation by one of the contracting 
parties. This means merely that those obligations which had 
their origin solely in virtue of the agreement cease to exist. 



36 The Ethics of War 
The demands of the natural law which have a bearing on these 
points have in no way been mitigated. 

As stated above, the freedom of consent necessary for the 
validity of agreements offers particular ethical difficulty. 
Among individuals extortionate agreements can ordinarily be 
judged and rectified in the civil courts. But in the absence 
of a competent and authoritative international court, no such 
recourse is open to the state. I t must either unquestioningly 
submit to the unjust agreement or be morally authorized to 
decide for itself the question of observance. 

The state which has compelled another state to subscribe 
to unjust commitments has no valid right to their fulfillment. 
Conversely, the unjustly coerced state is not under obligation 
to the offending state. The principle is clear, but its applica-
tion is difficult. According to the prevailing opinion of Cath-
olic ethicians and moralists, international good faith would 
very soon be shaken to its very foundation if individual states 
were left ethically free to decide for themselves when and 
whether any particular agreement was extortionate and when 
and whether it should be kept. Moreover, there is grave dan-
ger that the menace to the common welfare of nations re-
sulting from the concession of such a right to individual states 
would outweigh the burden imposed upon particular states by 
the alternative denial. And, again, the common good might 
well require the unjustly treated state to observe what the 
offending state has no right to exact. 

Dr. Cronin, who accepts the common view with some quali-
fication, declares that an extorted agreement is not morally 
binding, "if the conditions imposed are manifestly and fla-
grantly unjust; for instance, if they are such as to reduce a 
state to the condition of absolute and irretrievable penury 
and the duress is extreme." 2 4 Some writers follow Grotius in 
maintaining that unjustly imposed agreements are binding 
only when they are as solemn and important as those by which 
peace is made at the close of a w a r ; 2 5 if the contrary opinion 
were generally held, it would render all treaties of peace inse-
cure, cause wars to be more devastating and more prolonged 
and constitute a continuous menace to international stability. 

This impressive argument does not seem to be universally 
2 4 C f . Gronin, op. cit., II, 6S8. 
2 5 C f . Meyer, Institutiones Juris Naturalis, II, 770-771. 



37 The Ethics of War 
conclusive. I t might be urged in opposition that no state is 
obliged, entirely against its will and only under compulsion, 
to promote the common good of nations at the sacrifice of its 
own vital rights and interests and those of its members, and 
that, if all unjust peace treaties were universally observed, 
the stronger states would thereby be occasioned more fre-
quently to inflict unjust treaties upon the weaker. 

Possibly the most reasonable is the compromise opinion 
according to which unjustly imposed agreements covering 
points of secondary importance are not always morally obliga-
tory, whereas the provisions of treaties that terminate wars 
or cover matters of like importance are universally binding, 
unless made under such extreme duress and inflicting such 
extreme injustice that the very notoriety of the injustice would 
automatically free the coerced nation from the unjustly im-
posed conditions.2 6 

(b) No Malicious and Slanderous Propaganda 
"One of the strongest arguments against war," says the 

English Jesuit, Father Keating, "is that it necessitates a sys-
tematic spreading of falsehood in order to circumvent the 
enemy. The enemy must be painted absolutely black and ac-
cused of every imaginable cruelty, as a monster outside the 
pale of human consideration. If this is not done, the hateful 
work of killing and being killed would be impossible."2 7 

We are not here concerned with the mere concealment or 
suppression of the truth effected by severing the means of in-
tercommunication and by news censorship. I t makes no essen-
tial difference whether the purpose be to prevent the complete 
facts from becoming common knowledge at home or in enemy 
territory or among neutral nations. Such restrictive measures 
may well be warranted by the demands of the common good 
and, in general, cannot be impugned on moral or ethical 
grounds. Moreover, it is very doubtful whether news censor-
ship can be made effective in the future in view of modern 
methods of air communication. 

Quite another thing, however, is the systematic spreading 
of positive falsehood which is so much a part of every war. 
It may be carried on by paid propagandists, by conspiring 

2 6 C f . International Ethics, 18, 19. John A. Ryan and Ethics Com-
mittee. (Catholic Association for International Peace, Washington, D. C.) 

2 7 C f . Month, Feb., 1922. 



38 The Ethics of War 
newspapers, or by over-patriotic individuals. Again, it may 
have as its immediate object the distortion or invention of 
facts of war or the false imputation of cruelties to the enemy. 
But by whomsoever it is fostered or sponsored and whatsoever 
form it takes, its ultimate purpose is to instill into the hearts 
of the soldiers at the front and the people at home courage, 
hope of victory, and hatred for the enemy—qualities without 
which no war could be carried on for any considerable length 
of time. 

The defense of lying, deceit, bad faith, treachery, and even 
perjury as legitimate in the stratagems of war and diplomacy, 
where good faith or common convention is not directly vio-
lated, seems to be a sequence of the erroneous and pernicious 
doctrine of Grotius that lying is not intrinsically immoral, 
but only extrinsically so, i. e., only in so far as those with 
whom we deal have the right t o demand the truth of us. 

In the first place, we must bear in mind that the ordinary 
type of war-time propaganda falls in no way short of a de-
liberate mis-statemeilt of fact with the express motive of de-
ceiving others. I t verifies, consequently, in every respect the 
definition of a lie and being such it must stand condemned 
as an act intrinsically evil in the eyes of all thinking people. 
And what is intrinsically evil is necessarily immoral and re-
mains immoral at all times and under all circumstances. 

Secondly, one type of the propaganda here in question has 
all the earmarks of slander or calumny. Malicious defama-
tion is slander whether it be directed against an individual, a 
body of individuals or even a nation; as such, it again stands 
condemned as an act intrinsically immoral. 

Thirdly, apparently war-time propaganda with its host of 
deliberate falsehoods is considered justified on the score that 
it is employed to serve a good purpose. But regardless of mis-
understandings and misinterpretations that stubbornly persist 
in certain quarters, the "principle" (sic) that "the end justi-
fies the means," no matter how vicious they may be in them-
selves, is absolutely and universally untenable in the code of 
true morality. An intrinsic evil can never be justified. 

(c) Excessive Violence to Combatants Unjustifiable 
Just warfare is by its nature a series of defensive acts 

directed against the onslaughts of an unjust aggressor state. 
The defending state must not even for a moment lose sight of 



39 The Ethics of War 
this point of view. I t must judge and direct its every military 
act in its light. Whatever is reasonably judged to fall under 
the category of defensive acts is legitimate, provided the dam-
age inflicted be restricted to the necessary minimum and the 
means employed involve no action opposed either to the nat-
ural law or to the international law. Whatever exceeds these 
limits in any direction reaches out into the offensive and for-
bidden. 

Now the one, objective in all instances of legitimate self-
defense must be to ward off the assault, to stop the aggression 
of the enemy, and to render him incapable of further attack 
here and now and for the immediate future. T o attain this 
purpose the defender may rightfully employ only whatever 
means (provided they be not intrinsically immoral) prove 
actually necessary. If the aggression can be evaded by flight 
or if an outcry suffices to frighten away the assailant the de-
fender may licitly resort to these measures only. If a blow of 
the fist is sufficient, again the defender must limit himself to 
that degree of violence. If the infliction of a wound, be it 
slight or severe, be required to repel the aggressor, the defend-
er may licitly proceed to inflict it, but he may go no further. 
If, however, the assailant can be halted by nothing short of 
death, the defender need not hesitate on moral grounds to 
proceed even to that extreme. Nor can it be said that in this 
latter instance the defender is employing intrinsically immoral 
means. I t is life pitted against life—innocent life unjustly 
attacked against guilty life voluntarily in jeopardy. The ag-
gressor has forfeited his right to life no less than has the 
murderer who is executed by the state. 

It seems futile to argue here, as Cronin does, 2 8 that "no 
man is empowered to forfeit his life to another, Jo place it at 
his disposal; no man has such a right over his own life 
that he can take it away: and, therefore, he cannot confer 
this right on another." One might just as well contend that 
evil under certain conditions can justly claim dominance over 
right and good. 

We must bear distinctly in mind, however, that the defend-
er can lawfully proceed to the extreme of death only when 
our supposition is verified, namely, that "the assailant can be 
halted by nothing short of death." When this supposition finds 

2 8 C f . Cronin, op. cit., II, 98. 



40 The Ethics of War 
verification in fact is difficult to state. Possibly the safest posi-
tion to take is to say very seldom, if ever. T o attain the one 
objective of blameless self-defense, i. e., effectively to ward off 
the enemy aggression, all that is necessary in any case is to 
produce powerlessness in the assailant. Let the assailant be 
incapacitated for further attack and the assault must neces-
sarily and invariably come to an end. Now to render the 
enemy helpless, a wounding, if sufficiently severe, will appar-
ently in all cases prove adequately effective, f h i s means, then, 
that apparently death as such (in se et per se) is never neces-
sary in self-defense, and, hence, that the wounding of the 
assailant, sufficiently severe to be effective, is the limit to which 
one may rightfully proceed. It is true that the aggressor may 
later die in consequence of the wounding or that in the heat 
of the combat the defender frequently finds it impossible to 
discriminate between what kills and what wounds merely. 
But in both these instances death results contrary to the in-
tention of the defender (per accidens, as the ethicians and 
moralists express it) and, hence, does not involve moral guilt. 2 9 

The identical application of general ethical principles ob-
tains whether it be an instance of one individual against an-
other, of a hundred against an equal number, or of a nation 
against a nation. Hence, in defensive warfare, just as in indi-
vidual self-defense, the defending soldiers can lawfully em-
ploy all measures of violence, but also those alone, that prove 
actually necessary in any given case for attaining the objective 
of all defensive warfare, namely, the effective warding off of 
the enemy a t t a c k , 3 0 provided at the same time they do not 
trespass upon natural and international law in doing so. If, 
therefore, the enemy forces could be frightened into capitula-
tion, e. g., by. a display of great military power or by a volley 
of shots above their heads, the defenders would be obliged to 
refrain from anything more drastic. If wounding, slight or 

2 9 C f . Victor Cathrein, S.J., Philosophic. Moralis (Sth ed., 190S), 
242, 243, No. 306; Michael Croniri, The Science of Ethics, II, 97-100; 
Aug. Lehmkuhl, S.J., Theologia Moralis (10th ed., 1902), I, 494, 49S, 
No. 833; Arthur Vermeersch, S.J., Theologia Moralis (1924), II, S17, 
No. 607, 2. 

8 0 I t is evident that the repelling of unjust aggression is not limited 
to the bare warding off of actual inimical attacks, but that it extends, if 
necessary, to the point where the aggressor is sufficiently beaten into 
submission to restore ill-gotten goods, make adequate reparation for 
damage done, and give reasonable assurance of security for the future. 



41 The Ethics of War 
severe, is sufficient to repel the attack and to incapacitate 
the attackers for further aggression, the defenders are for-
bidden to resort to more violent measures. If, however, at any 
time the killing of the attacking forces be genuinely neces-
sary for the effectual repulsion of the onslaught, the defenders 
may proceed without moral scruple to that extreme. 

But here, as in private self-defense, the question arises: 
Is killing as such ever really necessary or will not wounding, 
if sufficiently severe, be at all times properly effective in frus-
trating the immediate assault and in incapacitating the assail-
ants for future military action? On one's answer will depend 
one's course of action in this delicate matter. The sufficient 
effectiveness of wounding seems more in accord with the essen-
tial demands of blameless self-defense for the same reason as 
in individual self-defense. I t seems properly adequate at all 
times to produce powerlessness in the enemy, and this in turn 
must necessarily lead to the sole licit objective of defensive 
warfare—the effectual breaking down of aggressive resistance. 

We should be inclined to adopt this latter view also on 
humanitarian grounds. It must be remembered that while the 
enemy forces in defensive warfare are, of course, unjust ag-
gressors when viewed as a unit, still the individual combatants 
are not such in the same complete sense as is the assailant in 
private unjust aggression. The former are often engaged in 
mortal conflict much against their wills. They are not free to 
retire at will from the attack and, as individuals, are fre-
quently kindly disposed towards those whom they, as soldiers, 
are compelled to regard as enemies. 

Again as in individual self-defense so also here, death will 
frequently result from the wounding. Moreover, the sudden-
ness and intensity of the attack, with its mortal danger to the 
individual combatants, frequently preclude the possibility of 
distinguishing between what kills and what merely wounds. 
Frequently, too, the soldier is forced to discharge his instru-
ment of death merely in the general direction of the hostile 
forces without being able to know in any way beforehand the 
particular damage it will effect. But in all these cases, pro-
vided the combatant be properly minded, death results con-
trary to his intention (per accidens) and, hence, still remains 
within the limits of blameless self-defense. 

While the rule of properly moderated, as opposed to exces-
sive violence may appeal to some as mere casuistry and un-



42 The Ethics of War 
doubtedly meets with difficulties when seeking practical appli-
cation on the field of battle, still the rule is valid on moral 
grounds and a number of instances can be enumerated where 
unmistakably it can and must be observed in all its bold 
rigidity. Thus, for example, it is clearly immoral: to fire even 
a single shot after the flag of truce or surrender has been 
hoisted by the enemy or any other sign given indicative of 
truce, armistice or capitulation; to wound or kill an enemy 
who has surrendered or has been taken captive; or to inflict 
death upon one already wounded beyond all reasonable pos-
sibility of further participation in military activities. Like-
wise, it is morally wrong for; a soldier, from the shelter of 
his trench, to aim deliberately at a vital organ of an unwary 
enemy in "no-man's" land when the infliction of a wound 
would prove amply effective. The same is true of so-called 
snipers, who, without any particular danger to themselves, 
have ample occasion to take deliberate aim. The lawfulness of 
issuing orders that the infantry at the front, irrespective of 
concrete and individualizing circumstances, direct their bayo-
nets solely to the head or heart of the foe, may be rightly 
questioned. While the use of gases that produce temporary 
inertia or powerlessness seems to be within the restrictions of 
the natural law, their use falls under the ban of international 
law. 

International law steadily aiming at lessening the waste of 
human life and the miseries of warfare among civilized na-
tions has done much to clarify points otherwise doubtful. 
Thus, for example, the use of ammunition (poisoned, explo-
sive or dumdum bullets, etc.) causing excessive destruction 
of human life, extreme suffering, incurable wounds or human 
defacement, beyond the requirements for rendering the com-
batants incapable of further fighting, as well as poisoning and 
assassination, are barred by international agreement based 
obviously upon the restrictions of the natural law. 

(d) Violence to Non-Combatants Unjustifiable 
Here, again, the fact that a just war is a series of defen-

sive acts must be our directing norm. While violence to com-
batants is a necessary defensive act, violence to non-combat-
ants can never be so construed. As combatants we must re-
gard not only the fighting army at the front, but also all 



43 The Ethics of War 
soldiers in uniform or soldiers called to arms and also all 
those who in any way are actually engaged in the promotion 
of war or who perform auxiliary military services, such as 
manufacturers of arms and munitions, scouts, those engaged 
in the transportation of food supplies and implements of war, 
the operators of field telegraphy, etc. Mere sympathy with the 
fighters' cause, however, does not place one in the category 
of actual combatants. Hence, the defending army cannot re-
gard the populace of the enemy country as combatants be-
cause of their known sympathy with the enemy's cause. 

The natural law demands that the immunities of non-
combatants be extended to women, to children, to the aged 
and feeble, to those capable of bearing arms but, as a matter 
of fact, in no way participating in the war, and to the wound-
ed and prisoners. It would seem that to this class must be 
added also army chaplains, surgeons, and nurses together with 
the entire hospital personnel, as long as they restrict their 
activities to their respective duties. 

In the prosecution of the war, attacks on non-combatants 
are barred by the moral law except where their simultaneous 
wounding or destruction is an unavoidable accident attending 
the legitimate attack upon combatant forces. That "war is 
hell" is true only in the sense that a maximum of human mis-
eries inevitably follows in its wake; it is ethically untenable 
in the sense that it justifies anything and everything that 
makes for the suffering of the people at war. The defense that 
it hastens the close of the war through sympathy with the 
increased suffering, even of non-combatants, will not stand the 
test of moral principles. It is but another attempted applica-
tion of the would-be principle that "the end justifies the 
means." Not only does the natural law forbid that further 
violence and suffering be inflicted upon the wounded and cap-
tives, but common charity and international law both require 
that they be properly cared for. 

The ethical principles that restrict the application of vio-
lence'1 to combatants only are equally restrictive in regard to 
enemy property. All property and such alone, which is des-
tined either directly or indirectly for purposes of war, can be 
lawfully destroyed and then even if it belongs to private per-
sons. The wanton destruction of the property of non-com-
batants or even of the state or of combatants, which does not 
and will not minister aid to the hostile state or to its army, 



44 The Ethics of War 
is therefore illicit. T h e burning of the Capitol and White 
House a t Washington in 1814 and Sherman's celebrated 
"March to the Sea" during the American Civil War are very 
commonly considered violations of this demand of the natural 
law. International law expressly provides that every care must 
be taken to avoid the destruction of "edifices devoted to re-
ligion, art, science, and charity, historical monuments, hos-
pitals, and places where the sick and wounded are collected, 
provided they are not used at the same time for military 
purposes." 3 1 

(e) Prisoners of War 
A prisoner of war is a public enemy who, While armed or 

attached directly or indirectly to the hostile army for active 
aid, falls into the enemy's hands by capture or surrender. In 
general, all those designated before as combatants may sur-
render or be captured as prisoners of war. Whether army 
chaplains, surgeons, nurses, and hospital personnel fall under 
the category of non-combatants or not, it would seem that, 
because of the peculiar positions they hold, they might rightly 
claim exemption from capture as prisoners of war on the 
basis of the natural law. International law expressly exempts 
them. 

When an enemy throws away his arms and asks for quar-
ter, he ceases to be a combatant. The captured enemy when 
deprived of his arms loses his enemy character. This applies 
indiscriminately to soldier and sailor, to the able-bodied, the 
sick, the wounded, and the shipwrecked. Immediately they 
become entitled to the privileges and immunities, as well as 
subject to the inconveniences of a prisoner of war. 

The natural laws seems to be quite clear in determining 
the status of the prisoner of war. All violence to a prisoner 
must cease forthwith upon capture or surrender. Quarter may 
not be denied him and to put him to death, unless some other 
very grave circumstance enters in, is sheer murder. His life, 
person and.property are placed under the protection of the 
captor state. H e is not a common criminal nor may he be 
treated as such. He may licitly be subjected to that degree of 
confinement only which is necessary to prevent his escape. He 
must obey the just military prisons laws of the captor state 

3 1 C f . The Hague Convention, I I , A r t . 2 7 . 



45 The Ethics of War 
and may be punished for breaches of discipline and shot if 
he attempts to escape. He may not be compelled to take' up 
arms against his own country. He has a right to requisite 
food, clothing and shelter. The sick and wounded are strictly, 
entitled to medical treatment. T h e Geneva Convention of' 1906 
provides that no distinction shall be made in the treatment 
accorded by a commander to his own and to enemy sick and 
wounded. 

The status of a prisoner once established continues so long 
as the captor retains control of his person. It may end by 
successful escape, by exchange of prisoners, by parole, or by 
armistice or peace. If a prisoner has been liberated on parole, 
i.e., freed upon an express promise not to serve in a military 
capacity against the captor during the continuance of the war, 
he is obliged to observe this condition. Violation of the parole 
may be punished, on recapture, by death. 

(i) Air-Raids and Sinking of Merchant Vessels 
War by air is subject to the same general ethical prin-

ciples as regards excessive violence, non-combatants and the 
like, as is war by land or sea, whether airships fight airships or 
engage in battle with land forces. In particular, air raids 
upon fortifications, arsenals, military barracks, munition fac-
tories and other institutions of war are lawful in a just war 
provided every precaution is taken to spare the lives and 
property of non-combatants. This latter restriction is also in 
perfect accord with international law which demands that "the 
commander of an attacking force, before commencing a bom-
bardment, except in case of an assault, should do all he can 
to warn the authorities of what is about to h a p p e n ; " it de-
mands further, as stated above, that every care should be 
taken to avoid the destruction of edifices devoted to religion, 
art, science, and charity, historical monuments, and hospitals.3 2' 
But indiscriminate air-raids upon cities and unfortified places 
are morally unlawful, because they are undertaken directly 
with a view to the death of non-combatants and to the destruc-
tion of their property. Such acts fall also under the ban of 
international law which expressly exempts all undefended 
places "from bombardment or attack by any means whatso-
ever." 3 3 

8 2 C f . Ibid., Articles 26, 27. 
5 3 C f . Ibid., Art. 25. 



4 6 The Ethics of War 
The sinking of provision ships destined for the enemy and 

even of passenger vessels or liners carrying contraband of any 
nature or engaged in any other belligerent mission is lawful, 
provided in both cases all possible care is taken to spare 
human lives. But to sink passenger vessels not connected in 
any way with the war is entirely illicit; and if loss of life 
ensues, the act must be regarded as one of deliberate murder. 

(g) Reprisals 
Reprisal is an act of retaliation and consists in applying 

to the subjects of an offending nation treatment analogous to 
that which the subjects of the offended states have received. 
I t is resorted to when a specific wrong has been committed 
and the seizure is by way of compensation in value for the 
wrong. T h e things seized are held subject to the termination 
of the controversy and are restored in kind or in value if the 
controversy is amicably settled. 

A reprisal, though an act of war in fact, is not such in 
intent. On the contrary, it is resorted to as a means of avoid-
ing war by securing redress without resort to the graver alter-
native. I t may, however, under certain conditions, constitute 
or lead up to a sufficient cause of war. I t generally consists 
in forcibly seizing from an offending nation property equiva-
lent in value to the wrong inflicted upon the aggrieved nation 
or in detaining the property of the offender with the intention 
of forcing the necessary redress. The form of reprisals most 
commonly employed in recent times consists in placing an 
embargo on such ships of the offending state as may be lying 
in the harbors of the aggrieved state, or in the seizure of its 
ships a t sea, or of any property within the jurisdiction of the 
state whether belonging to the state or to private individuals. 

Reprisals are not only lawful, but highly commendable as 
a preventive of war when less severe measures of coercion have 
proved futile and provided they are limited to the seizure of 
enemy property and to other milder forms. But when the evil 
perpetrated by the offending state is, for example, murder, 
wanton pillage, or hostile attack upon women and children, 
reprisals in kind are wholly illicit. The identical principles 
justify reprisals or condemn them, respectively, even when re-
sorted to in the course of the war. 



47 The Ethics of War 
VI 

A R M I S T I C E S , C A P I T U L A T I O N S , A N D 
T R E A T I E S O F P E A C E 

An armistice is a temporary cessation of military opera-
• tions by mutual agreement between belligerents. If its dura-

tion is not fixed, the belligerent parties may resume operations 
at any time, provided only that previous notice of such length 
as has been agreed upon be given to the enemy. In case of 
violation of the conditions of the armistice, the other party 
may renew hostilities without notice. 

After agreeing upon or signing a capitulation, the capitu-
lator must neither injure nor destroy the vessels, property, or 
stores in his possession that he is to deliver, unless the right 
to do so is expressly reserved to him in the agreement or 
capitulation. 

Upon the termination of war, the belligerents cease to be 
enemies and the residents of both countries resume their peace-
ful pursuits as though the war had not intervened. All rights 
and obligations existing a t the outbreak of the war may again 
be enforced, provided their nature is not such as to render 
their performance, through lapse of time or change of circum-
stances, useless or impossible. 

War may terminate either by treaty, by cessafion of hos-
tilities or by conquest. T h e treaty is the usual and best meth-
od and at times well-nigh indispensable. The parties to the 
war can and should settle by a careful and formal document 
the various issues that caused the war and provide for peace-
ful and harmonious relations in the future. 

Charity as well as justice must be manifest on both sides 
in drafting the terms of peace. Victory does not give the un-
just aggressor the right to impose burdens upon the vanquished. 
On the contrary, the former owes the latter full measure of 
restitution. If victory crowns the arms of the state whose 
cause was just, it may in justice exact full reparation of the 
original injustice suffered, full compensation for all its own 
losses by reason of the war, and adequate guarantee of secur-
ity for the future. T h e appropriation of a part of the territory 
of the vanquished, or even its entire subjection as a part of, 
or as tributary to, its conqueror may strictly speaking be 
exacted at times under these heads. But the history of nations 
would indicate that this exaction has been enforced far oftener 



48 The Ethics of War 
in the past than was justified by proportionate necessity. 
Here, if anywhere, must justice be tempered with mercy, and 
while justice may be well within its bounds in clamoring for 
its "pound of flesh," charity may require that the obligations 
of reparations and indemnities be postponed. or reduced or 
entirely condoned and canceled. 

Finally, inasmuch as both victors and vanquished always 
believe they have been in the right and inasmuch as no vic-
torious nation can be assumed to treat the conquered nation 
with either justice or charity, the natural law indicates, if it 
does not actually command, that peace treaties should be made 
under the supervision of a neutral and impartial tribunal. 

VII 
D I S A R M A M E N T 

Every state is entitled and obliged to maintain a land and 
naval force adequate to protect itself and its citizens at any 
given time against domestic and foreign foes. This right and 
duty is but the extension of the state's right and duty of em-
ploying, when necessary, physical force for the exaction of 
its rightful claims against an unjust aggressor (right and duty 
of coercion). The right and duty of coercion, with which every 
state is vested by nature, would be vain and meaningless were 
the state denied the supplementary right of providing itself 
with the means without which the exercise of coercion would 
be unthinkable. 

The right of armament is not absolute. As is true of every 
other state right, both its existence and its extension are condi-
tioned by the common good of nations as well as by that of 
the individual possessing state. And since armament is far 
from being an unalloyed asset and blessing (it is simulta-
neously, both in itself and in its effects, both nationally and 
internationally, a liability, a burden, and an agent of much 
evil), it merits serious moral consideration in all its phases. 

In the first place, to meet the demands of morality, arma-
ment must be intended for legitimate purposes only, i. e., for 
defensive warfare only. T o levy armies or to build navies for 
purposes of offensive warfare or with the reasonable assurance 
that such military activities must lead ultimately to unneces-
sary and offensive war partakes of the immorality of offen-



49 The Ethics of War 
sive warfare itself since it is but the preparation for the latter 
or, we might even say, its first stages. 

Secondly, because of the tremendous economic burden that 
preparedness imposes upon the citizens of an arming nation 
and indirectly upon the world at large, it must be limited to 
the minimum requisite for national and international safety. 
When we recall, that, as commonly estimated, the cost of pre-
paredness at the present time (1932) is far in excess of its 
cost prior to the World War: that, according to figures taken 
from The World Almanac, 20,370,625 trained men constitute 
the standing armies and the reserve forces of the six Great 
Powers today; and that, according to the same source, $1,411,-
891,441 were appropriated by five of the Great Powers during 
the year 1930-1931 for naval development alone, we cannot but 
see how the unbridled race for armaments is annually swal-
lowing up billions of dollars of the public wealth that might 
otherwise redound to the general welfare of the citizenry in the 
form of reduced taxes, or be employed in stimulating world 
trade and prosperity, or be spent to provide the necessaries 
of life for millions of the unemployed; or to promote benefi-
cent public undertakings such as hospitals for the poor sick 
and decent dwellings for the homeless.3 4 One of our most 
prominent contemporary statesmen has said quite truthfully: 
"What the nations spend for armament and its upkeep would 
wipe out the slums of the cities, educate the children of the 
world, reestablish farms and industry, and restore prosperity 
to mankind." Moreover, at the present time, the funds re-
leased from military expenditures would permit a scaling-
down of both war debts and German reparations without finan-
cial loss to any of the nations involved and thus help notice-
ably to solve one of the serious problems that bar the way to 
world economic recovery. In the light of these considerations, 
it is clearly the bounden duty of states to limit their ma-
chinery of war to the minimum requisite for national and inter-
national safety and to apply the staggering sums of public 
money, now squandered upon instruments of mutual slaughter, 
to works of genuine common welfare. 

Thirdly, and this is the most serious consideration, exces-
sive armaments are a continuous menace to peace because 
they are a continuous and powerful incitation to war. They 

3 4 C f . Apostolic Letter, Pope Pius XI, Oct. 3, 1931. 



so The Ethics of War 
tend to foster national egoism, arrogance, aggressiveness and 
injustice towards weaker states. T h e error of contending that 
"might is right" is not committed by unarmed nations. While 
the armed nation assumes its haughty and offensive attitude 
provocative of war, the unarmed nation is bent upon pursuing 
its peaceful course, conscientiously avoiding what might be of 
offense to its neighbor and charitably ignoring petty occur-
rences that a more prepared nation would be quick to regard 
as national insults. The founders of our Union prohibited by 
a clause in the Constitution the maintenance of armaments by 
the single States. After our second war with Great Britain, 
the statesmen of the two countries decided to dismantle the 
gunboats of the Great Lakes and agreed that the 5,000 miles 
of Canadian border should remain undefended by warship, 
fort, or garrison. The peaceful results consequent to the pre-
cautions taken in both these instances present a spectacle 
quite at variance with the European situation where force and 
the threat of force have only too often been the measures em-
ployed by the Great Powers to promote their own interests 
at the expense of less powerful neighbors and in defiance of 
justice and equity. 

Large armaments also breed fear, suspicion, ill-will, and 
hostility. During the decade that preceded the World War, 
German armaments aroused the fear of France, while at the 
same time French army laws caused suspicion and alarm in 
Germany. When a nation increases its military forces, the 
nations against which these instruments of war might con-
ceivably be directed at some future time immediately and 
quite naturally become suspicious and apprehensive and ordi-
narily respond with counter-increases. This action in turn 
provokes new increases on the part of the first nation. When 
such rivalry becomes acute as it did in Europe between the 
years 1904-1914, we can expect war to be the one logical 
outcome. 

Finally, excessive armaments have the effect of provoking 
hasty action in case of disputes and thus of interfering with 
peaceful negotiations and of precipitating unnecessary conflict. 
The unarmed nation, as the unarmed individual, knowing the 
impossibility of violent attack and of armed resistance will at 
all times think in terms of peaceful negotiations for the settle-
ment of its difficulties and will mold its entire national policy 
in the light of that philosophy. But whether it be an instance 



51 The Ethics of War 
of armed individuals as, for example, in the frontier days of 
our country or of armed states, there is ever present the lurk-
ing danger of being too ready and hasty with the gun or the 
sword. In the summer of 1914, when the clouds of war began 
to gather over Europe, the military authorities immediately 
urged mobilization on the plea of proximate preparedness. 
But these military measures had the effect of cutting diplo-
matic negotiations short and of transferring the concern of 
statesmen from the peaceful settlement of the political issues 
at stake to the necessity of being in the advantageous position 
of striking the first blow. 3 5 

Since, then excessive armaments are a constant menace to 
peace because they are a continual incitation to war, nations 
are in duty bound, also from this point of view to limit their 
war machinery to the minimum requisite for national and 
international safety. This obligation binds their consciences 
with the same rigidity as does their obligation to avoid un-
necessary and hence unjust wars in which extravagant pre-
paredness has so commonly reached its natural culmination in 
the past. 

But what is the minimum of preparedness reasonably 
necessary for national and international safety? Each nation 
disavows any evil designs upon its neighbors and protests that 
its armaments are intended for defensive purposes only. But 
as the attack, justifying the defense, can come only from an-
other state equally emphatic in protesting its readiness to dis-
arm if it were not for its own need of self-protection, the 
nations become entangled in a vicious circle. Each alleges de-
fense as its object and transfers to some other nation the 
designs of aggression that alone can necessitate preparedness. 
The result is that each arms itself against the other and the 
ensuing race for armaments merely serves to augment the 
mutual suspicion of each other's motives. 

The vicious circle must be broken and the obligation of 
doing so rests primarily with the more powerful of the nations 
involved. They must reënforce their verbal disavowals of evil 
designs against their neighbors by the practical proof of scrap-
ping the very implements needed for the execution of any 
such designs. This will tend to restore international confi-

n e / . Causes of War, 9, 10. Parker T. Moon and Economic Rela-
tions Committee. (The Catholic Association for International Peace, 
Washington, D. C.) 



52 The Ethics of War 
dence and to create among nations the atmosphere of security 
so essential to disarmament. When one of the powerful nations 
decreases its military forces in testimony of its sincerity, the 
neighbor nations will be more inclined to reply with a cor-
responding reduction, which in turn, as the sense of security 
grows, will induce the first nation to look favorably upon a 
further reduction. Thus again the nations will be operating 
on the circumference of a circle, but now in a scaling-down 
process. 

I t ever remains true, however, that security, arbitration, 
and disarmament are inseparably inter-associated. Any one of 
the three is unthinkable on a large scale over a considerable 
period of time in the absence of the other two or even of one 
of them. Nations must be brought to realize that, with the 
possibility and feasibility of developing a system of collective 
responsibility on the part of all nations as a body for the pro-
tection of each, there no longer exists, in the same sense as 
formerly, the cruel necessity of each state's building up an 
army and navy adequate to meet all probable, if not all pos-
sible emergencies of self-defense. In particular, they must be 
brought to realize that some form of conciliation or arbitra-
tion must always be preferred to war, that existing wrongs 
can and must find a hearing and receive redress before a com-
mon forum of the nations, and that national security can and 
must be guaranteed by concerted action of all nations against 
the aggressor. When international security has been thus 
established and conciliation and arbitration have come to be 
the accepted methods of disentangling international difficul-
ties, the disarmament problem will no longer be a wrangle 
over ratios of individual armament, but a matter of such lim-
ited forces only as, taken collectively, will suffice to uphold the 
authority of the community of nations as a whole. 

The desideratum of procuring security, arbitration, and dis-
armament is not merely an idealistic, unattainable Utopia. On 
the contrary, it is a goal well within the grasp of all rightly 
minded nations at the present time. And apparently it is con-
stantly becoming more and more attainable. As it becomes 
more and more possible of attainment, however, the obliga-
tion of nations to accept it as a substitute for the horrors and 
savagery of war becomes more and more binding. 3 8 

8 e C f . Apostolic Letter, Pope Pius X I , Oct. 3, 1931. 



53 The Ethics of War 
We must also bear in mind that in matters of this nature 

obligations are always in proportion to capacity. Hence, the 
nations that are in a position to control the destinies of the 
world, are the ones primarily obliged to throw the full weight 
of their influence on the side of disarmament. In this respect 
the United States is uniquely outstanding at the present time. 3 7 
In the first place, because of our country's vast industrial, finan-
cial and political power, it is preeminently fitted for world 
leadership—a fact that is becoming increasingly pronounced 
as other nations look to us for help and guidance. Secondly, 
our country's very geographic position gives it the assurance 
of comparatively slight danger and likelihood of armed attack. 
Hence, it can set the example of disarmament without incurring 
the risks that confront other nations less advantageously situ-
ated. The United States, then, is in a position to work for 
reduction of armament more effectively than any other nation, 
perhaps more effectively than all others combined and, further-
more, it is in a position to do so without any particular danger 
to itself. Its path of strict moral duty is, in consequence, clear 
and unmistakable. 

C O N C L U S I O N 
War in all its phases—in its inception, its progress, and its 

termination—falls within the controlling and guiding scope of 
moral principles. Of these principles those that determine the 
conditions of just warfare are the most important. As we have 
enumerated them, they are eight in number, namely: (1) de-
fensive warfare alone is justifiable; (2) it may be undertaken 
solely in vindication of a strict right; (3) there must be ade-
quate proportion between the violated right and the evils of 
war; (4) recourse may be had to war only as a last appeal; 
(5) there must be reasonable hope of victory; (6) wat may 
be initiated by public authority only; (7) the belligerents 
must have the right intention; and (8) the war must be 
rightly conducted. 

Since ethics must look not merely to the past and present 
but also to the future, one may ask whether or not future 
wars, with the ever-increasing horrors and miseries which they 

3 7 C f . Europe and the United States: Elements in Their Relationship, 
24-28. R. A. McGowan and Europe Committee. (The Catholic Asso-
ciation for International Peace, Washington, D. C.) 



54 The Ethics of War 
inflict not only upon the belligerents themselves but upon neu-
tral nations as well, will continue to find their justification and 
their condemnation in the principles here enunciated. We an-
swer in the affirmative. Whenever the eight conditions neces-
sary for a just war are verified, whatever be the place or time, 
war is legitimate; whenever they fail of verification, war is il-
licit. I t is true, it is becoming ever more difficult to find all 
the conditions verified simultaneously in any given case. And 
in few, if any, modern wars have they been observed; nor has 
even an honest attempt to observe them been made by the na-
tions that initiated hostilities. I t is particularly the growing 
brutality of modern warfare and the comparative ease with 
which unbiased arbitration can be had in practically all in-
stances that render the justification of war so difficult at the 
present time. And, undoubtedly, the time cannot be far dis-
tant and it is not improbable, perhaps, to say it is already here, 
when insistence upon the rule of proportionate evil and the 
rule of last appeal will outlaw all war on a large scale among 
the Great Powers. 

I t is primarily the duty of the powers of government to see 
to it that the requisite justifying conditions be fulfilled before 
war is entered upon. But the conscience of the individual sol-
dier is not, in consequence, entirely exonerated. If the soldiers 
are conscripted or have voluntarily enlisted prior to the out-
break of the war, they are ordinarily not obliged to inquire into 
the justice of the war. They may presume that their country 
is in the right unless it is evidently in the wrong, and in doubt 
they must obey the commands of their lawful superiors. But 
if the war is clearly unjust, the only course that is open to the 
individual soldier, provided he cannot evade military service, 
is to refrain from inflicting injury on the enemy; otherwise, as 
is evident, he becomes a co-operator in injustice. I t will sel-
dom happen, however, that the private soldier will be in a posi-
tion to declare the war undoubtedly unjust, because of his ig-
norance of many facts and considerations known frequently 
only to the country's highest officials. 

I t is quite different in the case of those who wish volunta-
rily to enlist after the outbreak of the war. Before these can 
lawfully consider themselves free to volunteer their services, 
they must assure themselves of the righteousness of the war, 
just as they are obliged to form a morally certain conscience 
about the lawfulness of any action that they undertake. 



55 The Ethics of War 
In the course of a war justice may change sides or it may 

come to be disregarded by both combatants. The latter hy-
pothesis was apparently verified in the World War when the 
representatives of both groups refused to heed the peace pleas 
of Pope Benedict X V . 8 8 

Whether in the future wars will come within the governing 
reach of ethics, peaceful conciliation or arbitration become the 
universally accepted substitute of war for determining issues 
of public justice, and so great a sense of security prevail among 
nations as to effect vast reductions of armaments, depends upon 
the influence that economic, industrial, social, religious, and 
moral considerations can be made to bear upon the philosophies 
and consciences of those who control the fate of nations. Will 
they be forced to acknowledge in a practical way the useless-
ness, wastefulness and sinfulness of war? If with the passing 
of time it becomes evident that they are impervious to all con-
sideration of human appeal, then it is for the peoples them-
selves, upon whom the burdens and horrors of war fall most 
heavily and surely, to devise some method for the settlement 
of international disputes more human than war, and by every 
legitimate means at their disposal to force its acceptance upon 
the governments of the world. 

3 8 C f . The Permanent Peace Program o>j Pope Benedict XV, Donald 
A. MacLean. (Catholic Association for International Peace, Washington, 
D. C.) 



T h e Catholic Association for International Peace 

Honorary President 

M O S T R E V . T H O M A S F . L I L L I S , D . D . 

P A R K E R T . M O O N , President 

Vice Presidents 
M R S . W I L L I A M J . B U S H E A 
M A R I E J . CARROLL 
M I C H A E L F . D O Y L E 
A N N A D I L L G A M B L E 
F R E D E R I C K P . K E N K E L 
R E V . J O H N L A F A R G E , S . J . 
R E V . L I N U S A . L I L L Y , S . J . 
R E V . R O B E R T E . L U C E Y 
H E R B E R T W R I G H T 
R E V . F R A N C I S J . H A A S , Ex-Officio 
M A R I E R . M A D D E N , Treasurer 
E L I Z A B E T H B . S W E E N E Y , Executive Secretary 

C O M M I T T E E S 
Ethics—REV. J O H N A . R Y A N , Chairman 
Law and Organization—CHARLES G . F E N W I C K , Chairman 
Economic Relations—PARKER T . M O O N , Chairman 
Agriculture—REV. EDGAR S C H M I E D E L E R , O . S . B . , Chairman 
Historical—WILLIAM F . R O E M E R , Chairman 
Education—REV. J O H N R . H A G AN, Chairman 
National Attitudes—CARLTON J . H . H A Y E S , Chairman 
U. S. Dependencies—WILLIAM F . M O N T A V O N , Chairman 
Latin America—REV. R . A . M C G O W A N , Chairman 
Europe—REV. J O S E P H F . T H O R N I N G , S . J . , Chairman 

R E V . T H O M A S F . D I V I N E , S . J . , Acting Chairman 
Asia—ELIZABETH M . L Y N S K E Y , Chairman 
Canada—REV. M A U R I C E S . S H E E H Y , Chairman 



TH E Catholic Association for International Peace has grown out of a series of meetings during 1926-1927. Fol-
lowing the Eucharistic Congress in Chicago in 1926, represent-
atives of a dozen nations met with Americans for discussion. 
In October of the same year a meeting was held in Cleveland 
where a temporary organization called The Catholic Commit-
tee on International Relations was formed. The permanent 
name, T h e Catholic Association for International Peace, was 
adopted at a two-day Conference in Washington in 1927. 
Three similar conferences were held in the same city in 1928, 
1929, and 1930. An all-day regional Conference was held in 
Chicago on Armistice Day, 1930. T h e Fifth Annual Meeting 
was held in New York City in April, 1931. A one-day Re-
gional Conference was held February 22, 1932, in St. Louis, 
and the Sixth Annual meeting was held in Cleveland on March 
28, 29, 1932. Its objects and purposes are: 

To study, disseminate and apply the principles of natural law and 
Christian charity to international problems of the day; 

To consider the moral and legal aspects of any action which may 
be proposed or advocated in the international sphere; 

To examine and consider issues whch bear upon international 
goodwill; 

To encourage the formation of conferences, lectures and study 
circles; 

To issue reports on questions of international importance; 
To further, in cooperation with similar Catholic organizations in 

other countries, in accord with the teachings of the Church, the 
object and purposes of world peace and happiness. 

The ultimate purpose is to promote, in conformity with the mind 
of the Church, "the Peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ." 

T h e Association works through the preparation of com-
mittee reports. Following careful preparation, these are dis-
cussed both publicly and privately in order to secure able 
revision and they are then published by the organization. 
Additional committees will be created from time to time. The 
Association solicits the membership and cooperation of Cath-
olics of like mind. I t is seeking especially the membership 
and cooperation of those whose experience and studies are 
such that they can take part in the preparation of committee 
reports. 

T h e Committees on Ethics, Law and Organization, and 
Economic Relations serve as a guiding committee on the par-
ticular questions for all other committees. Questions involv-
ing moral judgments must be submitted to the Committee on 
Ethics. 



Publications of the Catholic Associa-
tion for International Peace 

Pamphlet S e r i e s — 
N o . 1 — I n t e r n a t i o n a l E t h i c s . 
N o . 2 — L a t i n A m e r i c a a n d t h e U n i t e d S t a t e s . 
N o . 3—Cause» of W a r , a n d Security, O l d a n d N e w . 
N o . 4—Haiti, P a s t a n d P r e s e n t . 
N o . 5 — F r a n c i s de Vitoria. 
N o . 6—American A g r i c u l t u r e a n d I n t e r n a t i o n a l A f f a i r s . 
N o . 7 — P o r t o Rico a n d t h e U n i t e d S t a t e s . 
N o . 8 — E u r o p e a n d t h e U n i t e d S t a t e s — E l e m e n t s in T h e i r 

Relationship. 
N o . 9 — T h e E t h i c s of W a r . 

Miscellaneous S e r i e s — 
L e a g u e of N a t i o n s in I t s F i r s t Deeade. 
T h e W o r l d S t a t e . 
P e r m a n e n t P e a c e P r o g r a m of P o p e Benedict X V . 
A p p e a l s f o r P e a c e of P o p e Benedict X V a n d P o p e P i u s X I . 
P e a c e T r e n d s . 

Reports i n Preparation— 
T a r i f f s a n d W o r l d P e a c e . 
I s W a r J u s t i f i a b l e T o d a y ? 
D i s a r m a m e n t . 
T h e C h u r c h a n d P e a c e E f f o r t s . 
U . S. R e l a t i o n s w i t h Asia. 
T h e W o r l d C o u r t . 
I n t e r n a t i o n a l C u l t u r a l Relations. 
P e a c e E d u c a t i o n . 
S o - c a l l e d " O v e r P o p u l a t i o n . " 
Catholicism—the Keynote of Pan-Americanism. 
N a t i o n a l A t t i t u d e s in Children. 
F r e n c h - I t a l i a n Relations. 

N. C. W. C. Joint Committee o n P e a c e — 
T h e C h r i s t i a n W a y t o P e a c e . 
P e a c e S t a t e m e n t s of R e c e n t P o p e s . 

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