Philosophy Commons^™

Risking Aggression, Matt Beard

Philosophy Conference Papers

Generally speaking, just war theory (JWT) holds that there are two just causes for war: self-defence and ‘other-defence’, the most common type of which is popularly known as ‘humanitarian intervention’. There is however some debate as to whether these serve equally as just causes for preventive war. Whilst this debate is ongoing, those theorists who claim to subscribe to JWT tend to be unified in treating preventive war with a healthy dose of suspicion. Those who oppose preventive war tend to do so on the basis that it fails to fit popular criteria for jus ad bello; particularly, the …