Is it Logically Possible to Love Those You Kill in War?
500 words to answer a question that has been asked for multiple millennia.
Logic started like all other courses. The professor gave that classic speech covering his background, education, hobbies, how rabid of a Baylor football fan he is (ok, that one may be specific to Baylor), and finally outlined the course. Typical. Prior to class ending though, that typical first day became a bit less typical.
The young professor handed out a writing prompt. My immediate reaction was, “Really?! Already?! Geeze?! Are you kidding Prof?!” All silently in my head of course as I wished to remain at Baylor for longer than a week. But as I read the prompt, I became intrigued. It read:
“Support or critique this deductive argument. Take and defend a position on whether the conclusion is true or false. Complete in 250–500 words.
P1. You ought to love all people.
P2. You do not love those who you kill in war.
C. Therefore, you ought not kill people in war.
Seems simple, but a simple, valid deductive argument about a tough issue can be a bit tricky to navigate. Deductive arguments are not like probabilistic inductive arguments popularly used in science. Deductive arguments have a math-like finality. If the premises (P1 & P2—think 2+2) are true, then it is impossible to escape the conclusion (C—think =4), which in this case states it is not logically possible to love someone you kill in war.
So, I used all 500 words (impossibly short on a topic like this) and mulled over this argument’s truth or falsity. Here was my brief response.
A Response: The Argument of Love and War
I believe premise two falls short of providing a significantly compelling case for the truth of the conclusion (C. You ought not kill people in war.). Before proceeding to a critique of premise two, a brief examination of premise one will be helpful.
P1. You ought to love all people.
Let us assume, for brevity’s sake, that objective moral truths exist and this proposition is appealing to one. The basic claim behind the objective “ought” seems to be the idea of intrinsic human dignity and what it means for humans to flourish. Therefore, as I understand this premise, you ought to love all people because not loving all people would be analogous to doing something which goes against the dignity and flourishing of the Human Being (i.e., not loving positively acts to harm yourself or potentially others). But that begs the question: What is love?
Love can be a difficult term to define. It has a variety of sub-definitions and contexts to inform the type of love one is referring to. In the case of this argument, I will go with Aquinas’—who followed Aristotle’s—fairly simple definition as “to will the good of another” as other. So, premise one states that we ought to will (in an active sense) the good of all people for their sake. To this, I wholeheartedly agree!
Premise two then makes an emphatic assertion.
P2. You do not love those who you kill in war.
Here it is again important to know what war is to determine whether the action of killing in the context of war is logically inconsistent with willing the good of all people. I take this argument to be using ‘war’ in a more formal sense. Thus, war can be defined as a conflict between nations or groups within nations, with the aggressing nation/group using land, sea, or air to violently force the non-aggressing nation/group into submission. War, in this case, is not a person to person conflict over a parking spot at the mall. It is a large group of individuals threatening, with no morally virtuous justification, to kill any and all who stand in their way.
When is it justified to go to war?
The morally unjust violence of the aggressing nation/group raises a further question discussed for multiple millennia: When is it justified to go to war? Many recognize moral responsibilities so great (e.g., protecting the lives of innocent civilians and thus their continued capacity to enact the great good of loving their neighbor) that the preventable atrocities of an aggressing nation/group may, if a particular set of criteria are met, outweigh the atrocities of fighting and justify the horror of war.
In conclusion, if love is simply defined as willing the good of all people, and if just war theory successfully argues that willing the good of all people morally necessitates war in horrifically extreme cases (I think it does. The particular criterion used to justify war is of course a separate issue.), then there is no logical inconsistency between love and killing in war.
The argument could be slightly adjusted to yield a more compelling result by adding:
P1. You ought to love all people.
P2. You do not love those who you kill in war when killing can be avoided.
C. Therefore, you ought not kill people in war when killing can be avoided.
With the controversial Israeli-Palestinian conflict still fresh and the violent rise of ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and al Sham), the complex dialogue between love and war proves to be a discussion continually worth having.
Formal argumentation—much better than the informal, emotional kind of arguments—plays a vital role in having that discussion meaningfully. And when wielded correctly, it is a powerful tool which can cut to the heart of the matter.
Touché Professor. I will no longer question your methods… or timing.
