Just assassinations

Abstract

I argue that widely accepted just war theory precepts morally allow and require the assassination of politically powerful individuals under some circumstances instead of waging a just war or implementing any other policy such as non-targeted economic sanctions that would very likely severely harm more innocents. While all just war theory precepts permit just assassinations under certain circumstances, proportionality, necessity, and last resort make just assassinations required whenever they would cause severe harm to the fewest innocents. There are several implications of my argument. First, there are fewer circumstances when wars and other policies that foreseeably but unintentionally harm innocents are just than is commonly thought. Second, the realm of morally permissible violent and non-violent action for powerful individuals is more limited than many presume and politicians are more often morally liable to actions that would mitigate or end objectively unjust serious threats for which they are culpable, although this does not always include lethal force.

13 Pacifism and Targeted Killing as Force Short of War

“…A one-off attack might be justifi ed if the target is an important and unjust leader and no innocents, or a suffi ciently low number of innocents are killed, according to conditional and contingent pacifi sm respectively. Assassination of an unjust leader currently engaged in harm to innocents is not murder, but rather other-defence (it is bizarre that some hold such killing to be unjust and yet the mass-scale killing in war to be just) (Aloyo 2013;Allen-Gunasekera 2015). 9 Pacifi sts take no issue with harming non-innocent aggressors to save innocents.…”

“…Targeted killing is one of these alternatives -as the effectiveness and relative harmlessness of targeted killing increases, therefore, the justifi catory threshold for war as a last resort also increases. So the availability of effective targeted killing increases the moral presumption against war (Aloyo 2013;Allen-Gunasekera 2015). But the last resort criterion also applies to targeted killing (albeit, perhaps, in a revised sense).…”

The transformation of targeted killing and international order

“…Focusing on jus ad bellum , Altman and Wellman ( 2008 ) and Statman ( 2004 , 2012 ) argue that once large-scale military intervention becomes morally permissible, so does targeted killing. Aloyo ( 2013 ) takes this reasoning one step further by speaking of a moral obligation to choose targeted killing over other alternative measures that entail more harm to innocents (see also Strawser 2010 for a similar argument on the use of drones).…”

“…Although the current debate about targeted killing puts an emphasis on the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (or drones), targeted killing involves a large number of methods (Alston, 2010 , p. 4) such as shooting at close or long ranges, stabbing, suffocation, bomb attacks, and contamination with toxic or radioactive substances. Second, the use of lethal violence is intentional (Aloyo, 2013 , p. 349; Altman, 2012 ; Knoepfler, 2010 , p. 470) in the sense that the source has a preconceived plan to kill a human being or group of human beings. This criterion of intentionality sets targeted killing apart from unintentional killing such as “rage-induced or reflex-controlled … killing” (Protevi, 2008 , p. 409) or the incidental or accidental killing of noncombatants in warfare, that is, collateral damage (Coady, 2013 ).…”

The Transformation of Targeted Killing and International Order

“…Focusing on jus ad bellum, Altman and Wellman (2008) and Statman (2004Statman ( , 2012 argue that once large-scale military intervention becomes morally permissible, so does targeted killing. Aloyo (2013) takes this reasoning one step further by speaking of a moral obligation to choose targeted killing over other alternative measures that entail more harm to innocents (see also Strawser 2010 for a similar argument on the use of drones).…”