The Moral Equality of Combatants

Carl Ceulemans investigates the The Moral Equality of Combatants in PARAMETERS, US Army War College Quarterly - Winter 2007-08 (pp. 99-109). I think his main conclusion is to justify continuing the war in Iraq and Afghanistan even though going to war (ad bellum) may have been injust, continuing action in the war (in bellum) is just. There is no fruit of the poisoned tree logic here. He just says the ordinary participants are only morally culpable in bellum.

The question of moral equality is whether all participants in a war equally culpable without regard to their own conduct. In any war, one side must be engaged in an unjust war. The question posed here is whether all participants of that side are morally culpable. Participants from the other side become morally culpable if their conduct is. The justness of the cause does not exculpate them.

His conclusion is:

Can combatants ever be blamed for unjust wars in which they participate? This question reflects the complexity of the moral duality of war. Philosophers such as Walzer and Christopher argue that soldiers can never be held responsible for the justice of the war. The war in which they participate is not their war, but is, as Jean-Jacques Rousseau remarked, a relationship between the political entities to which they belong.¹⁹ Combatants are, in this view, moral equals. Others will argue against this traditional position. For those like McMahan, combatants cannot escape the moral consequences of their participation in an unjust war. His view is straightforward: Those who fight in a just war are just combatants, while those who fight in a war that is unjust are unjust combatants.²⁰ For that reason alone they cannot be moral equals.

This article did not go quite that far in determining a combatant’s responsibility. It was argued that soldiers only become unjust combatants when they are aware of their involvement in the illegitimate activity associated with an unjust war. There is little doubt when dealing with regimes that blatantly lack any form of political legitimacy as to the justice of the war. The fact is that all such regime’s wars are unjust, and those who willingly participate cannot escape responsibility. However, blaming soldiers who fight in an unjust war that was initiated by a legitimate government raises a number of issues. Except for those who may have knowledge of the ad bellum decisionmaking process, it is not reasonable to assume an ad bellum responsibility for the military members conducting the conflict. It may well be argued that the principle of the moral equality of combatants is presumptively correct. In other words, the moral equality of combatants is not an absolute but rather a prima facie position. Based on this line of reasoning, questioning the moral equality of the soldier on the ground is much harder than alluding to the complicity of senior leaders.

pp. 108-109

Emphasis Mine

This conclusion is just a cop-out: individuals are responsible for their actions. we cannot devolve responsibility to others unless there are extenuating circumstances.

War involves the commission of an evil act: killing human beings. The commission of this evil comes at a cost for the victim, the perpetrators, and bystanders. The survivors are morally degraded because they cannot repudiate the act and punish the offenders.

The only counter to this moral degradation is the compensation gained moral enhancement: a greater good has been achieved. This evil was done so that good can prevail, and there was no other way to achieve this.

Just War theory seeks to assure the participants that they are doing a morally repugnant act for ethical reasons. Thus, all participants are not morally equal. I am in agreement with McMahan in this.

Earlier in the article, the author considers the scenario where the military is completely isolated from the rest of society:

In reality such a scenario is not very likely. No unjust regime is so powerful or inventive that it can hide its true nature all of the time. Of course, there will inevitably be citizens who will turn a blind eye when confronted with a regime’s immoral policies. These individuals pretend not to notice or care. There are several explanations for this attitude of denial. There is the fear of becoming one of the regime’s victims, the anxiety associated with losing certain advantages (power, wealth, opportunities, and positions). There is no reason to believe that members of the military would be immune to this kind of logic. It goes without saying that those who are unable to invoke invincible ignorance cannot escape their military ad bellum responsibility. We have already examined the case of military members acting under severe duress. Those who turn a blind eye out of fear of losing their privileges also revert to the status of unjust combatants. They knowingly—although they may pretend otherwise—contribute to the continuing existence of an immoral regime by their participation in its unjust war.

pp. 104-105

Emphasis Mine

I would think that many citizens of both Australia and USA fall into this category. They are showing wilful ignorance because it is their material advantage to do.