War, Legitimacy, and Democracy

This discussion article examines Massimo Renzo’s highly illuminating critique of the revisionist view of the moral obligations of soldiers in war and his effort to defend an intermediate position between the classical (or “traditional”) approach and the revisionist approach. The classical approach argues that soldiers have a duty to fight if commanded to do so by a legitimate state. This supports the idea that soldiers on all sides are moral equals. The revisionist approach argues that soldiers are obligated to fight only if they have a justified belief that the war is just. The legitimacy of the state and the need for legitimate political authority are not essential to the assessment of the moral obligation of soldiers, say revisionists. Many soldiers are permitted to fight, others are just criminals. Renzo defends the view that a soldier is permitted to fight if she is commanded to do so by a legitimate state and she has no justification for the idea that the war is unjust, thus reversing the revisionist presumption against fighting. This discussion article examines Renzo’s argument for a modified account of moral equality. It probes and questions the main argument for the presumptive approach to the duty to fight. And it critiques Renzo’s thesis that a citizen’s possession of a justification for the idea that a war is unjust is sufficient to defeat the presumption in favor of the obligation to fight. The problem arises particularly in democratic societies where it is expected, or at least hoped, that citizens engage in reasoned debate about war, yet the debate is often unresolved.