The moral equality of combatants

Reading 2 McMahan on the moral equality of combatants

Source: McMahan, J. (2006) ‘On the moral equality of combatants’, Journal of Political Philosophy , vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 377–82 [Online]. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9760.2006.00265.x (Accessed 17 October 2013). Copyright © John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

  • 1 IV.i.128–35.
  • 2 For the distinction between a good cause and a just cause, see Jeff McMahan, ‘Just cause for war’, Ethics and International Affairs , 19 (2005), 1–21.
  • 3 Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977), p. 146.
  • 4 Jeff McMahan, ‘The ethics of killing in war’, Ethics , 114 (2004), 693–733, especially pp. 708–18.
  • 5 In The Ethics of Killing in War I will identify some confusions that I believe motivate people’s commitment to the doctrine of the moral equality of combatants.
  • 6 Just and Unjust Wars , p. 145. On p. 136 he claims that ‘simply by fighting … [combatants] have lost their title to life and liberty.’
  • 7 Just and Unjust Wars , p. 37.