History of Morality in war

Views of Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophers.The first Western writer to address the issue of morality in warfare was Thucydides (460–400 BCE) in The Peloponnesian War, which contained the historical account of the war fought between Sparta and Athens in 431 BCE. In The Peloponnesian War, the Athenians said to the Melians, a colony of Sparta that refused to submit to Athenian rule, that right was an issue only between those who were equals in power, not between the strong and the weak; the strong could do what they wanted while the weak had to suffer. When the Melians questioned how it would be good for them to serve while the Athenians ruled, the Athenians replied that it would save them from worse sufferings, and the Athenians would gain without having to destroy the Melians. The Peloponnesian war finally ended with the defeat of Athens and the establishment of Sparta as the leading military power in Greece).
Plato (427–347 BCE) wrote little about war, but he believed that to have peace, it was important to be prepared for war. He emphasized that the right kind of education must be imparted to the soldiers so that decisions about when to wage war could be prudent and well guided. Subsequently, Aristotle (384–322 BCE) was critical of the organization of Sparta’s political life being geared toward war. According to Aristotle, military power should not be an end in itself but must be a defensive tool to maintain peace. Aristotle berated tyrannies for being more predisposed to violent conflicts than other forms of government and suggested that leaders must be properly trained in statecraft.
In ancient Rome (7th century BCE-1st century CE), decisions to wage wars were taken by priests or fetiales who were essentially responsible for maintaining peace, and a war was considered just if it was carried out in accordance with the religious laws; these were usually in the form of lawsuits (Watson, 1993). Roman statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BCE) was one of the first thinkers to voice the need for developing a legal and normative structure for war and insisted that war should be undertaken only with the objective of peace.
Crusades and Just Wars
Crusades are holy wars fought for the defense of religion. Reichberg and his colleagues (2006) identify at least seven crusades-or Christian holy wars or medieval wars-that were fought against the Muslims between 1095/1096 and 1274 for the liberation of Jerusalem and the holy sepulcher, which is Christ’s grave. They contend that the crusades failed to uphold Christian virtues and remained at best a mixture of religious ideals and experiences of brutal violence suffered by the people. Similarly, Muslim holy wars are fought under the concept of jihad. Innocent IV, who was the Pope from 1243 to 1254, wrote commentaries on the contemporary papal legislation known as Decretals, which highly influenced Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) in his development of the concept of the just war. In his Decretals, Innocent IV wrote that the Pope could legitimately take steps to recover and defend the holy land that had been taken over by the Muslims, while also protecting all the faithful inhabitants, but mentioned that the property rights of infidels in other jurisdictions must be respected (Innocent IV, 1535/2006). He argued that the holy land was won in a just war by the Roman emperor after Christ’s death, and so it was legitimate for the Pope to take it back from the infidels (Innocent IV, 1535/2006).
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as Aquinas wrote that holy wars are to be waged against unbelievers not to convert them to Christianity but to prevent them from obstructing the Christian faith. As for those who had once accepted Christianity and do not believe any more, they should be compelled to keep the faith as they are obligated to do so once they have accepted it by exercising their free will (Aquinas, 1268–1271/1920). The key criteria-princely authority, just cause, and right intention-identified by Aquinas for resorting to armed force in a just war are followed even in today’s world. On warfare and violence, Niccoló Machiavelli (1469–1527) wrote in his book The Prince (1532/1985) that war was just if it was necessary, that arms were pious if there was no hope in anything else, and that the end justified the means.
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