St. Thomas Aquinas discusses the three conditions for a just war (1265-74)
About this Quotation:
As wars are being fought around us and in our name it is important that we be clear about the justness of these undertakings. The great Aristotelian philosopher St. Thomas Aquinas has three conditions which need to met before a war can be called “just”: does the prince who declares war have the correct authority to do so? does the war declaring nation have just cause to seek redress for an injury done to it? does the party declaring war have just intent in promoting good or avoiding evil? These are stringent conditions which have not been met very often, if ever, in the past. One recalls the long list of frivolous reasons for going to war which Thomas Gordon drew up.
Other quotes from this week:
- 2009: Thomas Jefferson on the Draft as "the last of all oppressions" (1777)
- 2006: In Percy Shelley’s poem Liberty liberty is compared to a force of nature sweeping the globe, where “tyrants and slaves are like shadows of night” which will disappear in “the van of the morning light” (1824)
- 2005: Edward Gibbon believed that unless public liberty was defended by “intrepid and vigilant guardians” any constitution would degenerate into despotism (1776)
- 2004: Robert Nisbet on the Shock the Founding Fathers would feel if they could see the current size of the Military Establishment and the National Government (1988)
Other quotes about War & Peace:
- 2009: Madison argued that war is the major way by which the executive office increases its power, patronage, and taxing power (1793)
- 2009: Thomas Jefferson on the Draft as "the last of all oppressions" (1777)
- 2009: Daniel Webster thunders that the introduction of conscription would be a violation of the constitution, an affront to individual liberty, and an act of unrivaled despotism (1814)
- 2008: Alexander Hamilton warns of the danger to civil society and liberty from a standing army since “the military state becomes elevated above the civil” (1787)
- 2008: John Trenchard identifies who will benefit from any new war “got up” in Italy: princes, courtiers, jobbers, and pensioners, but definitely not the ordinary taxpayer (1722)
- 2008: Adam Smith observes that the true costs of war remain hidden from the taxpayers because they are sheltered in the metropole far from the fighting and instead of increasing taxes the government pays for the war by increasing the national debt (1776)
- 2007: James Madison on the need for the people to declare war and for each generation, not future generations, to bear the costs of the wars they fight (1792)
- 2007: Thomas Gordon on standing armies as a power which is inconsistent with liberty (1722)
- 2007: James Madison argues that the constitution places war-making powers squarely with the legislative branch; for the president to have these powers is the “the true nurse of executive aggrandizement” (1793)
- 2006: A.V. Dicey noted that a key change in public thinking during the 19thC was the move away from the early close association between “peace and retrenchment” in the size of the government (1905)
- 2006: J.M. Keynes reflected on that “happy age” of international commerce and freedom of travel that was destroyed by the cataclysm of the First World War (1920)
- 2006: John Jay in the Federalist Papers discussed why nations go to war and concluded that it was not for justice but “whenever they have a prospect of getting any thing by it” (1787)
- 2005: Thomas Gordon gives a long list of ridiculous and frivolous reasons why kings and tyrants have started wars which have led only to the enslavement and destruction of their own people (1737)
- 2005: Hugo Grotius states that in an unjust war any acts of hostility done in that war are “unjust in themselves” (1625)
- 2005: Hugo Grotius discusses the just causes of going to war, especially the idea that the capacity to wage war must be matched by the intent to do so (1625)
- 2005: William Graham Sumner denounced America’s war against Spain and thought that “war, debt, taxation, diplomacy, a grand governmental system, pomp, glory, a big army and navy, lavish expenditures, political jobbery” would result in imperialsm (1898)
- 2005: Erasmus has the personification of Peace come down to earth to see with dismay how war ravages human societies (1521)
- 2004: Ludwig von Mises laments the passing of the Age of Limited Warfare and the coming of Mass Destruction in the Age of Statism and Conquest (1949)
- 2004: Thomas Hodgskin on the Suffering of those who had been Impressed or Conscripted into the despotism of the British Navy (1813)
- 2004: Robert Nisbet on the Shock the Founding Fathers would feel if they could see the current size of the Military Establishment and the National Government (1988)
- 2004: Adam Smith on the Sympathy one feels for those Vanquished in a battle rather than for the Victors (1762)
- 2004: Hugo Grotius on sparing Civilian Property from Destruction in Time of War (1625)
- 2004: Bernard Mandeville on how the Hardships and Fatigues of War bear most heavily on the “working slaving People” (1732)
23 July, 2007
 | St. Thomas Aquinas discusses the three conditions for a just war (1265-74) |
The great Aristotelian philosopher Thomas Aquinas discusses in the 2nd part of Summa Theologica the 3 conditions for a just war:
The first thing is the authority of the prince by whose command the war is to be waged. It does not belong to a private person to start a war, for he can prosecute his claim in the court of his superior. In like manner the mustering of the people, that has to be done in wars, does not belong to a private person. But since the care of the commonwealth is entrusted to princes, to them belongs the protection of the common weal of the city, kingdom, or province subject to them. And as they lawfully defend it with the material sword against inward disturbances by punishing male-factors, so it belongs to them also to protect the commonwealth from enemies without by the sword of war.
The full passage from which this quotation was taken can be be viewed below (front page quote in bold):
OF WAR.
Article I.—Is it always a sin to go to war?
R. There are three requisites for a war to be just. The first thing is the authority of the prince by whose command the war is to be waged. It does not belong to a private person to start a war, for he can prosecute his claim in the court of his superior. In like manner the mustering of the people, that has to be done in wars, does not belong to a private person. But since the care of the commonwealth is entrusted to princes, to them belongs the protection of the common weal of the city, kingdom, or province subject to them. And as they lawfully defend it with the material sword against inward disturbances by punishing male-factors, so it belongs to them also to protect the commonwealth from enemies without by the sword of war. The second requisite is a just cause, so that they who are assailed should deserve to be assailed for some fault that they have committed. Hence Augustine says: “Just wars are usually defined as those which avenge injuries, in cases where a nation or city has to be chastised for having either neglected to punish the wicked doings of its people, or neglected to restore what has been wrongfully taken away.” The third thing requisite is a right intention of promoting good or avoiding evil. For Augustine says: “Eagerness to hurt, bloodthirsty desire of revenge, an untamed and unforgiving temper, ferocity in renewing the struggle, dust of empire,—these and the like excesses are justly blamed in war.”
§ 1. To the objection from the text that “all that take the sword shall perish with the sword,” it is to be said, as Augustine says, that “he takes the sword, who without either command or grant of any superior or lawful authority, arms himself to shed the blood of another.” But he who uses the sword by the authority of a prince or judge (if he is a private person), or out of zeal for justice, and by the authority of God (if he is a public person), does not take the sword of himself, but uses it as committed to him by another.
§ 2. To the objection from the text, “I say to you not to resist evil,” it is to be said, as Augustine says, that such precepts are always to be observed “in readiness of heart,” so that a man be ever ready not to resist, if there be occasion for non-resistance. But sometimes he must take another course in view of the common good, or even in view of those with whom he fights. Hence Augustine says: “He is the better for being overcome, from whom the license of wrong-doing is snatched away: for there is no greater unhappiness than the happiness of sinners, the nourishment of an impunity which is only granted as a punishment, and the strengthening of that domestic foe, an evil will.”