Ethics and War: A Catholic View

Joseph C. McKenna

American Political Science Review, 1960, vol. 54, issue 3, 647-658

Abstract: World War II and Cold War I have influenced the moral appraisal of diplomacy much as they have influenced all systematic analysis of international relations. Commentators are now more aware that the wide gap between what is and what ought to be cannot be nullified by exhortation or legal formula or inexorable institutional evolution. They appreciate more profoundly the structure and function of power. They have learned from Mukden, Wal-Wal and Munich that accommodation can be more costly than resoluteness, and that an ethic dissociated from the world in which men live cannot give adequate moral guidance for men's living. Nevertheless the commentators remain reluctant, on both political and moral grounds, to accept Realpolitik's ethical outlook on the use of force. The shortcomings of yesterday's total victory have been too sobering; and Hiroshima's destruction has left a scar upon the conscience. Moral judgments on diplomacy are accordingly less simplist, less absolute, more troubled and uneasy than in the pre-war decades. The moral theories that have attracted most attention among students of international politics are either Protestant Christian or secular humanist in their basic orientations. This is not to say that these orientations are clearly distinguishable in any particular statement; more or less of them can be found in Niebuhr, Wolfers, Butterfield, Lefever, and Osgood among others. Less well known is a view that can be classified as Catholic or Scholastic. In the hope that this could illuminate, if it does not modify, the problems and the answers as conceived by the better known theories, the present study will put forth such a view. The position will be stated first, with such explanation as might be needed for understanding it, and some indication of differences from the Protestant and humanist conceptions. The theory can then be applied to varying hypothetical projections of the contemporary international scene.

Date: 1960
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