David Mellow

Counterfactuals and the Proportionality Criterion

Ethics and International Affairs, 20.4 (2006): 439-454.

 

 

The journal Ethics and International Affairs and publisher Blackwell have kindly provided free access to this article at:

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1747-7093.2006.00044.x

 

 

Abstract

In addition to having a just cause, a resort to war or use of military force must be proportionate in order to be morally justified. In this essay, Mellow argues for the need of a counterfactual baseline with moral qualifiers when making the proportionality evaluation. In defending his proposal, he also contends that the relevant goods and harms that are weighed in the proportionality evaluation are not as open-ended as is sometimes presumed.

 

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