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| Heavily armed RCMP officers enter a residence during manhunt for shooting suspect in Moncton (New Brunswick), Thursday, June 5, 2014. (Andrew Vaughan/ THE CANADIAN PRESS) |
APOLOGIA
By Hendrik van
der Breggen
The Carillon, September 18, 2014
Just war and justly pro-life
A friend asked
me the following question to challenge my non-pacifist, just war position: How
can you be consistently pro-life without also being against the use of lethal force
to resolve conflict?
Here's how: by
simultaneously applying two distinctions: (1) absolute vs. prima facie; (2) innocent
life vs. life that's forfeited the right to life.
Human life has
great worth, but the prohibition against its destruction isn't absolute.
Sometimes, say, when a murderer is engaged in a shooting spree in a school, a
police officer may have to kill the murderer—and this killing is just.
Yes, the shooter
has the right to life, but it's a prima facie right, not an absolute right.
“Prima facie”
is Latin for first appearance. In ethics it means duty X is what apparently
ought to be done, unless a more pressing duty Y outweighs it. For example, I
have a duty to keep my promise to Morgan to meet him for lunch, unless I must
save Patricia from drowning while on my way to meet Morgan.
Also, police officers
have the duty to protect school shooters, but the duty to innocent students
being shot outweighs the duty to the murderer. If lethal force—killing the
shooter—is required to defend the lives of innocents, then the shooter forfeits
his right to life.
Biblical
history provides ample evidence of people who engaged in activities that
forfeit their right to life. There are occasions when people are justly killed
by God either by natural means (e.g., flood, pestilence) or by human agents of
God's wrath (e.g., the sword of government).
In other words,
humans are made in God's image and thus have great worth, but they aren't God
and thus don't have absolute worth.
Sadly, if we
allow evil aggressors (who require lethal force to be stopped) to murder
innocents, that is, if we preclude all lethal police/ military interventions,
then we sacrifice innocent lives—people who haven't forfeited their right to
life—to evil forces. This is neither pro-life nor just.
But wait: what
about abortionists who kill innocent children? Should I apply lethal force to
the abortionists? My answer: No.
There is still
some reasonable debate or doubt about whether the unborn in the early stages is
an actual human being or person (though the reasonableness of this doubt is
shrinking as more science and careful thinking are done), and there are still peaceful
means that have promise of success to enable the protection of the unborn
(e.g., education, law reform, crisis pregnancy centres).
But in the case
of, say, ISIS, there is no reasonable doubt that innocent human persons are
being murdered. And there is no reasonable doubt that there aren't any wholly
peaceful means which will actually enable the urgent protection of the men,
women, and children who are presently being murdered and targeted for murder. Also,
ISIS is clear that the only "peace" it wants is a peace in which all
opposition is destroyed.
Unlike the
abortion situation, then, with ISIS we have a case in which killers are clearly
on a murderous rampage—a rampage whose explicit murderous intent, brutal track
record, and dangerous growth make it not at all amenable to being stopped by a
non-lethal force.
But how does
the just war view relate to the pro-life view on euthanasia? I think that here
we have to keep in mind that whereas ISIS has engaged in acts which forfeit
their right to life, the elderly and disabled and terminally ill haven't
engaged in acts that forfeit their right to life.
Thus, by making
two careful distinctions—absolute vs. prima facie, and innocent life vs. life
that's forfeited the right to life—one can be consistently pro-life and
pro-just-war.
Surely it's
reasonable and good—and pro-life—to favour the judicious, wise use of lethal
force to protect innocent lives—especially the weak and vulnerable—from
murderous aggressors. That's why we arm police officers.
(Hendrik van der Breggen, PhD, is associate
professor of philosophy at Providence University College. The views in this column do not always reflect the views of Providence.)