Beebee, H orcid.org/0000-0001-7650-3622 and Kaiserman, A (2020) Causal Contribution in War. Journal of Applied Philosophy, 37 (3). pp. 364-377. ISSN 0264-3758
Abstract
Revisionist approaches to the ethics of war seem to imply that civilians on the unjust side of a conflict can be legitimate targets of defensive attack. In response, some authors have argued that although civilians do often causally contribute to unjustified global threats – by voting for war, writing propaganda articles, or manufacturing munitions, for example – their contributions are usually too ‘small’, or ‘remote’, to make them liable to be intentionally killed to avert the threat. What defenders of this view lack, however, is a theory of causal contribution. This article sketches and defends a theory of causal contribution. We then apply it to the kinds of situation that defenders of the view are interested in. We argue, however, that since degrees of causal contribution turn out to be sensitive to particular features of the situation that are extrinsic to the agent's action, whether an agent makes a small or a large contribution to a threat may not only be very difficult to discern but in many cases may not line up very well with the kinds of intuition about liability that defenders of the view want to uphold.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © Society for Applied Philosophy, 2019. This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Beebee, H. and Kaiserman, A. (2020), Causal Contribution in War. J Appl Philos, 37: 364-377., which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/japp.12341]. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions. This article may not be enhanced, enriched or otherwise transformed into a derivative work, without express permission from Wiley or by statutory rights under applicable legislation. Copyright notices must not be removed, obscured or modified. The article must be linked to Wiley’s version of record on Wiley Online Library and any embedding, framing or otherwise making available the article or pages thereof by third parties from platforms, services and websites other than Wiley Online Library must be prohibited. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science (Leeds) > School of Philosophy (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 24 Feb 2022 15:29 |
Last Modified: | 24 Feb 2022 15:29 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Identification Number: | 10.1111/japp.12341 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:183971 |