second draft
Ayaha Ikezawa
Mr.Pangier/Mr.Shaffer
European Literature/European History
1 April 2016
Just War Theory
Justification. That’s an act to give righteous reasons for something to happen. War. That’s a fight between huge groups of people, often brutal, that happens for a certain purpose. War generally sounds cruel, unright, inhumane. It’s a fight. It’s like one huge group of people trying to knock one another for their own sake. So is justification of war possible?
According to Thomas Aquinas, there needs to be several rules to justify warfare. One of them is that “war must occur for a good and just purpose rather than for self-gain”(Aquinas, Sum ll-ll, Q40. A1). Just purposes meaning as punishment, lost territory, lost property. It also means war is unjust when it has a purpose as invasion, destruction. Another one is this: “Third, peace must be a central motive even in the midst of violence”(Aquinas, Sum ll-ll, Q40. A1). Anyhow a war starts, it always have to end in peace, and that should be the most prioritized purpose. This is an opinion that the United Nations agree: “All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.” (United-Nations). Nowadays, human strive for peace by unifying themselves across borders.
However, even if we follow those rules, warfare is a hard idea to justify. Even if it has rules and righteous purpose to it, it’s content still remains just some violence to one another. As we can see in the novel All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, warfare creates unjust, tragedies, destruction to all kinds of people. It’s a disaster. It produces uncountable number of victims. Those includes the civilians of course, but also youth sent to battle-fields counts. So argues Remarque: “The war has ruined us for everything”(Remarque 87).
The World War 1 was the war that the Remarque himself experienced, the war most of the nations followed Aquinas’ rule, the “war to end all wars”. As a consequence, it cause top ranking number of death in all wars. It killed many innocent civilians, but also young soldiers, millions of them. It consumed the life of young soldiers, destroyed their future. Was World War 1 justice? No way.
As long as warfare takes shape as it is now, it will definitely include violence, injury, tragedies, and numerous deaths: “I have killed a printer, Gerald Duval. I must be a printer, I think confusedly, be a printer, printer--”(Remarque 225). In the novel, protagonist Paul is weary yet conflicting to the fact that he has to become a murderer, for their nation’s justice. Yet, murder is one of the worst scene in human history. In any way, the act of murder can not be justified in human culture.
We can always include rules to attempt justification of warfare; but I don’t think that’s enough. As long as wars include numerous deaths and murders, it can never be called justice. A suggestion from Remarque, presented in the novel, is that “war should be a kind of popular festival with entrance-tickets and bands, like a bull fight. Then in the arena the ministers and generals of the two countries, dressed in bathing-drawers and armed with clubs, can have it out among themselves. Whoever survives, his country wins. That would be much simpler and more just than this arrangement, where the wrong people do the fighting”(Remarque 41). There is no need of extra victims in war, to decide one fight between nations. In a much simpler, smaller scale, war can be fought under rules, for their own purposes: that’s how war can be justified.
Mr.Pangier/Mr.Shaffer
European Literature/European History
1 April 2016
Just War Theory
Justification. That’s an act to give righteous reasons for something to happen. War. That’s a fight between huge groups of people, often brutal, that happens for a certain purpose. War generally sounds cruel, unright, inhumane. It’s a fight. It’s like one huge group of people trying to knock one another for their own sake. So is justification of war possible?
According to Thomas Aquinas, there needs to be several rules to justify warfare. One of them is that “war must occur for a good and just purpose rather than for self-gain”(Aquinas, Sum ll-ll, Q40. A1). Just purposes meaning as punishment, lost territory, lost property. It also means war is unjust when it has a purpose as invasion, destruction. Another one is this: “Third, peace must be a central motive even in the midst of violence”(Aquinas, Sum ll-ll, Q40. A1). Anyhow a war starts, it always have to end in peace, and that should be the most prioritized purpose. This is an opinion that the United Nations agree: “All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.” (United-Nations). Nowadays, human strive for peace by unifying themselves across borders.
However, even if we follow those rules, warfare is a hard idea to justify. Even if it has rules and righteous purpose to it, it’s content still remains just some violence to one another. As we can see in the novel All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, warfare creates unjust, tragedies, destruction to all kinds of people. It’s a disaster. It produces uncountable number of victims. Those includes the civilians of course, but also youth sent to battle-fields counts. So argues Remarque: “The war has ruined us for everything”(Remarque 87).
The World War 1 was the war that the Remarque himself experienced, the war most of the nations followed Aquinas’ rule, the “war to end all wars”. As a consequence, it cause top ranking number of death in all wars. It killed many innocent civilians, but also young soldiers, millions of them. It consumed the life of young soldiers, destroyed their future. Was World War 1 justice? No way.
As long as warfare takes shape as it is now, it will definitely include violence, injury, tragedies, and numerous deaths: “I have killed a printer, Gerald Duval. I must be a printer, I think confusedly, be a printer, printer--”(Remarque 225). In the novel, protagonist Paul is weary yet conflicting to the fact that he has to become a murderer, for their nation’s justice. Yet, murder is one of the worst scene in human history. In any way, the act of murder can not be justified in human culture.
We can always include rules to attempt justification of warfare; but I don’t think that’s enough. As long as wars include numerous deaths and murders, it can never be called justice. A suggestion from Remarque, presented in the novel, is that “war should be a kind of popular festival with entrance-tickets and bands, like a bull fight. Then in the arena the ministers and generals of the two countries, dressed in bathing-drawers and armed with clubs, can have it out among themselves. Whoever survives, his country wins. That would be much simpler and more just than this arrangement, where the wrong people do the fighting”(Remarque 41). There is no need of extra victims in war, to decide one fight between nations. In a much simpler, smaller scale, war can be fought under rules, for their own purposes: that’s how war can be justified.
Works cited
Remarque, Erich Maria. All Quiet on the Western Front. Trans. A. W. Wheen. New York: Ballantine Books, 1987. Print.
Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologica. Trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province. 5 vols. Westminster: Christian Classics, 1948. Print.
United Nations. Charter of the United Nations. N.p.: n.p., 1945. Print.
Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologica. Trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province. 5 vols. Westminster: Christian Classics, 1948. Print.
United Nations. Charter of the United Nations. N.p.: n.p., 1945. Print.
changes
My adviser in the session was Karin. To fix the essay, rather than fixing it, I just rewrote the whole context. I cut out needless informations to keep my theory simple and clear. I changed my writing style, because the previous one often repeated questions, which made the text cliche.