Proportionality, Analogy, and Practical Reasoning About War

I argue against the view that the proportionality criteria of just war theory draw upon both deontological and consequentialist theories of rationality. I demonstrate that the consensus view of proportionality shared by many, if not most, just war theorists is implicitly committed to a teleological theory of goods with a complex internal structure. It is only with respect to this theory of goods that wars are sometimes proportionate and, by analogy, “just.” I argue that “justice” is predicated of war only by an “analogy of proportion” between a correct theory of goods (whatever one takes it to be) and the act of war (jus ad bellum), or act in war (jus in bello), under consideration.