Applying the Doctrine of Double Effect

July 27th, 2006

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Posted by ChrisG at 10:18 am

As in Iraq, the Israeli assault on Lebanon has relied heavily on strategic bombing, and so the issue of civilian casualties keeps being harped on about. The difference is of course that Hizbollah deliberately targets civilians, but that Israel targets strategic objectives (including ‘terrorist infrastructure’) and enemy fighters. Of course attacking these targets unfortunately puts civilians at risk, but the tactics of Hizbollah (siting headquarters in residential areas, hiding fighters amongst villagers) are placing these people in the firing line. Therefore the death of civilians is a regrettable but justifiable consequence of legitimate military action, i.e. the strategic bombing of Lebanon.

Now moral justification is obviously hot currency in this conflict. So let’s look at the means of securing some of this good stuff a bit more closely.

The grounds on which the righteousness of this action is based lie in the venerable tradition of just war theory, one of the cherished principles of which is the doctrine of double effect. This states that it’s permitted to commit certain moral wrongs when one attempts to bring about certain morally justifiable ends. Crucial here is the question of intention. For Thomas Aquinas, the exemplary case of double effect was the death of an assailant caused in the process of defending oneself. If, in the heat of the moment, I respond to an attack by killing my attacker, then I haven’t intended his death but have preserved my life. This then is permissible.

This paradigm case has no bearing on the current situation. The ‘existential threat’ represented by an unexpected attacker who represents either an obvious threat to life, or an unknown level of danger, is not the kind of threat posed to Israel by Hizbollah. If the threat were so extreme, then any measures to ensure the survival of the state would be justified – the kind of fantasy threat situation in which, thanks to the utter evil of the enemy, all bets are off and we are allowed to do the absolutely taboo and enjoy our own violence, a situation beloved of filmmakers from Red Dawn to Independence Day to Iraq War 2003. It’s not difficult to figure out that Hizbollah does not belong in this category – unless, of course, you’re ideologically opposed to them belonging in any other category except that of Absolute Evil, in which case you should probably stop arguing and just start punching anyone who disagrees with you in the face. If someone threatens to kill you but entirely lacks the ability or the will to do so, and you’re perfectly aware of this, then you’re not justified in killing them.

So the case is not clearcut. If the case is not so clearcut, then just war theorists have traditionally argued that other criteria must apply. For instance, the harm produced cannot itself contribute to the achievement of the desired end. So if the Israeli action is an attempt to, through general military pressure on Lebanese infrastructure, to cause the Lebanese people to turn against Hizbollah, then this is not permissible (no more than the deliberate bombing of civilians in wartime is ever permissible). Let’s assume that this is not the point of the Israeli action, and that it is, in fact aimed at some obvious good.

If we assume the destruction of Hizbollah is an obvious good, then we’re back into history to establish a context of grievances and counter-grievances, and maybe to thereby understand the patterns of action which determine the current situation. Some people say that’s precisely where we should start (me included). Also, there’s the question of the possibility of the intended goal: if it’s not possible to achieve it, then double-effect cannot justify it. Guerilla movements tend not to be beaten by bombing the shit out of either them or their ‘civilian base’. Let’s bracket both that and the difficult question of history for the moment, and set our sights on resolving the moral side of things in the here-now.

The removal of Hizbollah’s capacity to threaten Israel is a more limited, though vaguer goal. In just war theory, we have to ask: is direct military action in the present the only way to settle this? Negotiations that, as occasionally in Israel’s past, cut the Gordian knot by taking seriously the possibility of a settlement that involves land for peace might be another possibility. But let’s suppose that this is impossible, and that Hiz would necessarily be opposed to being part of any solution that didn’t include the Jews being pushed into the sea (again, maybe this supposition implies the kind of ideological commitment that should really make you want to stop arguing and start cracking your interlocutors’ heads instead). So then military action for the lesser goal of removing the Hiz threat somehow becomes an option. In other words, attaining a specific military advantage can be used to justify a high number of collateral civilian casualities. So we need to have our strategic goals pretty well mapped out in advance in order for this to hold. At this point, we can affirm that the removal of the direct threat to Israeli civilians, and to military infrastructure accidentally located in and around Israeli Arab villages is a good reason for taking action. Although how this actually is to be done might have to be something we make up as we go along.

Therefore we have ticked off several criteria in the just warrior’s wish-list: we have established that there is no existential threat to Israel. We have assumed that there is a difference between civilians and non-civilians, given that to do otherwise would make us exactly equivalent to our enemies. We have also assumed that there is no question that Israel intends, through deliberate targeting of civilians, some goal such as Lebanese regime change brought about through ‘weakening morale’. We have noted that the idea that Hizbollah should be destroyed involves difficult questions of history and actual possibility, neither of which can be satisfactorily settled in time. The bombers are waiting. As to the proper goal, the removal of the Hizbollah threat, we have to assume that there is no other means open to us by which this could be pursued. OK, we’ve assumed that.

So now we start the bombing. According to just war theory, we have to figure out whether the value of attaining the good end outweighs the disvalue of the harm we’re going to foreseeably commit. Tricky. Obviously the benefit of Israeli civilians, and military infrastructure accidentally located in and around Israeli Arab villages, not being threatened is quite high. The possible and likely costs, on the other hand, are quite high also, and in some cases, imponderably high. So we have to justify the action within the context of all these harms.

• High number of civilian casualties, increased by occasional underestimates of how many non-combatants might be in a building/residential neighbourhood
• ‘Accidents’ caused by targeting something that has a high probability of being a non-legitimate target
• Destruction of civilian infrastructure, leading indirectly to further civilian deaths
• Creation of from 500,000 and 900,000 refugees.
• Destabilisation of a ‘fragile democracy’ and its economy
• Destabilisation of a regional situation that could lead to further conflict
• Retrenchment of support for Hizbollah within the Lebanese polity.

Must remember too that these costs have to be assessed on the basis of moral individualism, i.e. that all individuals involved have the same intrinsic value. So, in other words, we can’t just write off some or all of these costs by saying ‘well, it’s not happening to us’.

We also need to not forget that the imponderable nature of some of those costs means that it’s quite possible that the justification of our actions might only be possible after the event, when we weigh, on the one side, the weakened terrorist organisation and the lack of threat to Israeli civilians and military infrastructure accidentally located in and around Israeli Arab villages, against the civilian deaths, millions of shekels’ worth of damage to civilian infrastructure, the creation of refugees, national and regional destabilisation, and the possibility that the source of Hizbollah – resentment – might actually have been stoked rather than quenched by our actions.

Certainly not as simple as saying ‘Hizbollah targets civilians, we don’t’, is it? Or as convenient. Alternatively we could forget trying to justify what we know we’re about to do, and say that to drop the bombs we’re about to drop might not be justified – hell, there’s no time to figure it out – but it is at least necessary in our view. That in other words, might doesn’t so much make right, as replace it. But if we’re prepared to be this honest, maybe we could be honest about what it’s in fact necessary for, and why we’re prepared to risk countless lives of non-combatants – even if we don’t, unlike Hiz, explicitly worry about whether we’re going to kill them or not.