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• Title: War and Liberty (Symposium: War and Liberty)
• Author : Reason Papers
• Release Date : January 22, 2006
• Genre: Religion & Spirituality,Books,
• Pages : * pages
• Size : 166 KB

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It's a cliche of the left that "business ethics" is an oxymoron. That is a tired cliche not only because it is so old as to be entirely devoid of humor, but also because it actually is not true. On reflection, it's perfectly obvious that commerce may be practiced ethically or unethically, that people engaged in business make decisions with moral content as often as many others. To the extent that it was ever funny, the cliche would have depended for its humor on the presupposition that there is something prima facie wrong with business, a Marxian suspicion that all businessmen are corrupt profit-maximizers. More reasonable analysis reveals that ethical people may engage in commerce, and so business ethics is a legitimate concept after all. Analogously, some, not all on the left, scoff at the allegedly oxymoronic notion of "just war theory," and I'll be arguing that here too there is some legitimacy to the concept, although it may not correspond to the traditional model of just war theory. Actually, the similarities to business ethics continue, and are illustrative. In addition to the critique of business ethics that stems from an opposition to capitalism, one might also criticize the idea of business ethics on the grounds that in a dog-eat-dog, competitive world, one has to be realistic and do what it necessary to get ahead, that there is no room for high-minded moralism in the cost-benefit analysis. Cynics might think in terms of the explanation from Fight Club (1999): "A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one." Similarly, proponents of a just war theory will face skepticism from two points of view. One is the position generally known as "military realism"--"inter arma silent leges" (in times of war the laws are silent)--which is the view that there are no rules (and, hence, no standards of justice) in war, and that there shouldn't be, on the grounds that the only important thing is to win by any means necessary. The other point of view is pacifism, which is the position that war is inherently unjust, so just war theory really is an oxymoron. It is this latter position to which I'll be primarily speaking today.

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