OORLOG, RECHTVAARDIGHEID EN HET ‘JUISTE INTENTIE’-PRINCIPE DE THEORIE VAN DE RECHTVAARDIGE OORLOG ALS INSTRUMENT VOOR EEN KRITISCH BURGERSCHAP

No state sends off its soldiers to war without offering a proper justification to its own citizens and the outside world. Throughout history, the Just War Tradition has provided public officials with a normative language that allows them to do just that. But how can a citizen be certain that public authorities are sincere about what they are claiming? Was this or that particular military operation really about saving others? Or was it just another instance of vice paying tribute to virtue? Just War Theory seeks to counter this kind of criticism by insisting that having a just cause for starting a war is not enough. One should also have the right intention. This means that those planning to go to war must aim to achieve the just cause and, furthermore, achieving this aim has to be motivated by a desire to obtain a better peace after the war. The trouble with the right intention principle as a necessary condition for starting a war is that it risks making the Just War Theory too demanding. A military intervention that has the potential to save thousands of lives risks becoming morally impermissible simply because the operation is conducted from improper motives. In this article, we want to offer an alternative interpretation of the right intention principle. The basic idea is that we no longer want to take into account the motivation in determining the moral permissibility of starting a war. This does not mean, however, that motivation as such would become morally irrelevant. Judging the motives that push an agent to go to war tells us something that goes beyond the mere deontic status of the war. The central idea here is that tapping into a more aretaic terminology will allow us to enrich our overall moral appreciation of war.