The indispensable mental element of justification and the failure of purely objectivist (mostly “revisionist”) just war theories

The “right intention” requirement, in the form of a requirement that the agent must have a justified true belief that the mind-independent conditions of the justification to use force are fulfilled, is not an additional criterion, but one that constrains the interpretation of the other criteria. Without it, the only possible interpretation of the mind-independent criteria is purely objectivist, that is, purely fact-relative. Pure objectivism condemns self-defense and just war theory to irrelevance since it cannot provide proper action guidance: it is impractically demanding. This means that “revisionist” just war theories which base their doctrine of the moral inequality of combatants on the idea that objective justification defeats liability are irrelevant for the real world, where objective justification is virtually inaccessible. Moreover, only the right intention requirement in the form of a knowledge requirement, as opposed to requiring “good intentions” or “acceptable motivations,” can solve this problem

Spin gauge symmetry in the action principle for classical relativistic particles

We suggest that the physically irrelevant choice of a representative worldline of a relativistic spinning particle should correspond to a gauge symmetry in an action approach. Using a canonical formalism in special relativity, we identify a (first-class) spin gauge constraint, which generates a shift of the worldline together with the corresponding transformation of the spin on phase space. An action principle is formulated for which a minimal coupling to fields is straightforward. The electromagnetic interaction of a monopole-dipole particle is constructed explicitly.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figur

Is There a Duty to Militarily Intervene to Stop a Genocide?

Is there is a moral obligation to militarily intervene in another state to stop a genocide from happening (if this can be done with proportionate force)? My answer is that under exceptional circumstances a state or even a non-state actor might have a duty to stop a genocide (for example if these actors have promised to do so), but under most circumstances there is no such obligation. To wit, “humanity,” states, collectives, and individuals do not have an obligation to make such promises in the first place or to create institutions that would impose a legal obligation of intervention upon them. Nor do states or persons or humanity “collectively” have – originally, without specifically creating such duties by contracts or promises – any pro tanto or special duties to save strangers at considerable cost to themselves or their own citizens (including their soldiers). That is, these costs do not merely override a duty to intervene, but rather there is no such duty to begin with – as shown by the fact that in such cases of non-intervention agents would not owe those they let die any compensation: if I do not save someone’s life because saving him would have cost me my arm or would have come with a high risk of losing my own life or would have forced me to kill innocent bystanders, I do not owe this person compensation. Thus the point of this chapter is that there is no “natural” or “general” or “original” duty to militarily intervene (or to create a legal obligation) to stop a genocide. I will consider and refute a number of arguments to the contrary, for example by Lango, Tan, and Pattison

Just Cause and the Continuous Application of Jus ad Bellum

What one is ultimately interested in with regard to ‘just cause’ is whether a specific war, actual or potential, is justified. I call this ‘the applied question’. Answering this question requires knowing the empirical facts on the ground. However, an answer to the applied question regarding a specific war requires a prior answer to some more general questions, both descriptive and normative. These questions are: What kind of thing is a ‘just cause’ for war (an aim, an injury or wrong suffered, or something different altogether)? I call this ‘the formal question’. Then there is what I call the ‘the general substantive question’. Depending on the previous answer to the formal question, the general substantive question can be formulated as: ‘Which causes are just?’ or as ‘Under what conditions is there a just cause?’ A final question, which has recently elicited increased interest, is what I call ‘the question of timing’: does the ‘just cause’ criterion only apply to the initiation of a war or also to the continuation of a war, that is, can a war that had a just cause at the beginning lose it at some point in its course (and vice versa)? I argue that a just cause is a state of affairs. Moreover, the criterion of just cause is not independent of proportionality and other valid jus ad bellum criteria. One cannot know whether there is a just cause without knowing whether the other (valid) criteria (apart from ‘right intention’) are satisfied; and this account has certain theoretical and practical advantages. As regards the general substantive question, I argue that all kinds of aims can, in principle, be legitimately pursued by means of war, even aims that might sound dubious at first, like vengeance or the search for glory. Thus, the pursuit of such aims does not make the war disproportionate or deprive it of just cause. As regards the question of timing, I argue that the criteria of jus ad bellum apply throughout the war, not only at the point of its initiation. While starting a war at t1 might be justified, continuing it at time t2 might be unjustified (and vice versa), and this insight does not require an addition to jus ad bellum but is already contained in it

Waldron on the “Basic Equality” of Hitler and Schweitzer: A Brief Refutation

The idea that all human beings have equal moral worth has been challenged by insisting that this is utterly counter-intuitive in the case of individuals like, for instance, Hitler on the one hand and Schweitzer on the other. This seems to be confirmed by a hypothetical in which one can only save one of the two: intuitively, one clearly should save Schweitzer, not Hitler, even if Hitler does not pose a threat anymore. The most natural interpretation of this intuition appeals to unequal moral worth. Jeremy Waldron has recently tried to meet this challenge by giving a different interpretation, thereby trying to explain away the counter-intuitive implications of the basic equality doctrine in this case, and by suggesting that the rejection of basic equality comes with counter-intuitive implications of its own. I shall argue that Waldron’s response to the challenge fails on both counts

Development of a multigrid transonic potential flow code for cascades

Finite-volume methods for discretizing transonic potential flow equations have proven to be very flexible and accurate for both two and three dimensional problems. Since they only use local properties of the mapping, they allow decoupling of the grid generation from the rest of the problem. A very effective method for solving the discretized equations and converging to a solution is the multigrid-ADI technique. It has been successfully applied to airfoil problems where O type, C type and slit mappings have been used. Convergence rates for these cases are more than an order of magnitude faster than with relaxation techniques. In this report, we describe a method to extend the above methods, with the C type mappings, to airfoil cascade problems

Quong on Proportionality in Self-defense and the “Stringency Principle”

Jonathan Quong proposes the following “Stringency Principle” for proportionality in self-defense: “If a wrongful attacker threatens to violate a right with stringency level X, then the level of defensive force it is proportionate to impose on the attacker is equivalent to X.” I adduce a counter-example that shows that this principle is wrong. Furthermore, Quong assumes that what determines the stringency of a person’s right is exclusively the amount of force that one would have to avert from someone else in order to have a necessity justification for one’s transgressing the right in order to avert said force. Yet, Quong provides no argument as to why, first, the stringency of a right should be measured exclusively with reference to permissible rights-infringement; and second, he provides no explanation as to why the permissibility of the rights-infringement should be established with reference to “someone else,” namely with reference to an “innocent person,” instead of with reference to the person against whom the right in question is actually being held: the aggressor. I argue that the latter option is certainly the more plausible one, but so amended the stringency principle will be unable to adjudicate any substantive questions about proportionality in self-defense. In particular, Quong’s account cannot “explain” – contrary to what Quong claims – the allegedly intuitive judgment that one must not kill in defense of property or in order to avoid minor injuries

Equivalence of ADM Hamiltonian and Effective Field Theory approaches at next-to-next-to-leading order spin1-spin2 coupling of binary inspirals

The next-to-next-to-leading order spin1-spin2 potential for an inspiralling binary, that is essential for accuracy to fourth post-Newtonian order, if both components in the binary are spinning rapidly, has been recently derived independently via the ADM Hamiltonian and the Effective Field Theory approaches, using different gauges and variables. Here we show the complete physical equivalence of the two results, thereby we first prove the equivalence of the ADM Hamiltonian and the Effective Field Theory approaches at next-to-next-to-leading order with the inclusion of spins. The main difficulty in the spinning sectors, which also prescribes the manner in which the comparison of the two results is tackled here, is the existence of redundant unphysical spin degrees of freedom, associated with the spin gauge choice of a point within the extended spinning object for its representative worldline. After gauge fixing and eliminating the unphysical degrees of freedom of the spin and its conjugate at the level of the action, we arrive at curved spacetime generalizations of the Newton-Wigner variables in closed form, which can also be used to obtain further Hamiltonians, based on an Effective Field Theory formulation and computation. Finally, we make use of our validated result to provide gauge invariant relations among the binding energy, angular momentum, and orbital frequency of an inspiralling binary with generic compact spinning components to fourth post-Newtonian order, including all known sectors up to date.Comment: 44 pages; v2: publishe