‘Supreme Emergencies’, ontological holism, and rights to communal membership

Abstract

This paper highlights the importance to just war theory of ontological questions about the constitution of personal identity. It does so through a critical reinterpretation of Michael Walzer’s invocation of a supreme emergency exemption to the principles of jus in bello. Walzer’s argument has been widely criticised for attaching more importance to communities than to individuals. I argue that his position normatively prioritises individuals, but is grounded in a holistic ontology. He valorises political community only because of its importance to the individuals who comprise it. On this view, each community forms a moral world and shapes individual identity. This gives individuals a highest order interest in being part of an autonomous community and makes threats to communal existence a form of moral disaster. The paper concludes that the debate about supreme emergency should engage with ontological questions, and that such engagement would mean problematising the study of what liberalism demands in international ethics.

Keywords:

• supreme emergency
• Walzer
• jus in bello
• ontology
• dirty hands

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Andrius Gališanka, Jason Blakely, Mark Bevir, Ryan Pevnick, Richard Bellamy, and the anonymous reviewers for CRISPP for their helpful comments on previous drafts.

Notes

1. Shue hints at this position when he notes that ‘the human spirit is indomitable’ and ‘it is conceivable that civilization would have recovered even from a Nazi victory’. He adds, however, that the possibility of recovery is not sufficient to vitiate the severity of the threat (Shue 2004, p. 147).

2. Shue, again, hints at this when he accepts that a ‘physical’ national emergency involving the extermination or enslavement of a people might count as an SE, but that a ‘political’ national emergency involving loss of independence would not (Shue 2004, pp. 150–151). Shue and Primoratz differ on whether enslavement would constitute an SE.

3. For a useful alternative typology of the various communities to which Walzer appeals, see Agnafors 2010, pp. 53–88, especially 65–69.

4. Our obligations to our parents or siblings might not constitute a supreme emergency, but we can imagine them embroiling us in dirty hands dilemmas.

5. It is worthy of note that one of the exemptions that Walzer grants to the norm of non-intervention is counter-intervention in civil wars, which are cases when ‘a particular state includes more than one political community’ (Walzer 2007 [1980], p. 225).