Supreme Emergencies Without the Bad Guys

Per Sandin

Go to:

Abstract

This paper discusses the application of the supreme emergency doctrine from just-war theory to non-antagonistic threats. Two versions of the doctrine are considered: Michael Walzer’s communitarian version and Brian Orend’s prudential one. I investigate first whether the doctrines are applicable to non-antagonistic threats, and second whether they are defensible. I argue that a version of Walzer’s doctrine seems to be applicable to non-antagonistic threats, but that it is very doubtful whether the doctrine is defensible. I also argue that Orend’s version of the doctrine is applicable to non-antagonistic threats, but that his account is not defensible, regardless of whether the threats are antagonistic or not.

Keywords: Ethics, Supreme emergency, Just war, Disease control

Introduction

There is a widespread intuition that if a society faces an overwhelmingly horrible threat, then some actions that are ordinarily prohibited might become permissible or even mandatory. Torture, for instance, is usually thought to be absolutely prohibited in the ordinary course of things. However, many people think that in certain extreme circumstances, it may be justified. Suppose that an unusually capable terrorist has planted hydrogen bombs in London, Manchester, and Birmingham, and plans to set them off simultaneously. Time is short, and the only way to stop the bombs from going off is to torture the terrorist into revealing their location. In this situation – one of supreme emergency – it can be argued that the absolute ban on torture should be lifted and that the terrorist may, or even should, be tortured. It might even be justifiable to torture or at least threaten to torture innocent people in order to avoid the consequences of the hydrogen bombs. Or so the argument goes.1

Another example, from the real world, concerns Britain’s situation during the Blitz in 1940. Britain responded to the Nazi threat by bombing German cities, thus deliberately targeting non-combatants and thereby blatantly violating the perhaps most firmly established rule of war. Was that justifiable, given the supreme emergency Britain, and not only Britain but also a large part of the civilised world, found itself in? Michael Walzer, the most well-known writer on the supreme emergency argument, argues, hesitantly, that it was (Walzer 2000, Ch. 16).2

If we turn to Walzer’s definitions of supreme emergencies, we find that he characterises them in two slightly different ways. In his widely known Just and Unjust Wars, he describes a supreme emergency as being defined by two conditions: the nature of the looming danger and its imminence. Both conditions must be fulfilled for a supreme emergency to be present: the danger must be imminent, and, in addition, ‘of an unusual and horrifying kind’ (Walzer 2000, p. 253). In a less often-quoted essay entitled ‘Emergency Ethics’, he states that ‘[a] supreme emergency exists when our deepest values and our collective survival are in imminent danger’ (Walzer 2004, p. 33). I take the phrase about collective survival and deep values to be a way of making more precise the condition of horribleness. Thus, a supreme emergency is a situation where our deepest values and/or collective survival are in imminent danger.

The discussion on supreme emergency has generally concerned situations involving antagonistic threats, that is, threats from hostile states or, as in the terrorist case, hostile non-state actors. In this paper, I will investigate whether arguments from the discussion on supreme emergency can be applied to situations involving non-antagonistic threats (such as pandemics or earthquakes), and whether those arguments are defensible. I will begin by giving some background on the debate on the supreme emergency argument and its place in the just war tradition. Then I will outline its possible application to non-antagonistic threats. Finally, I will examine two rather different versions of the supreme emergency doctrine – those of Michael Walzer and Brian Orend. I will argue, first, that it is doubtful whether Walzer’s position is applicable to non-antagonistic threats, and that it is even more doubtful whether it is defensible. I will argue, secondly, that Orend’s position is applicable to non-antagonistic threats, but that it is not defensible – at least not in the way Orend wishes it to be.

READ ON 

Philosophia (Ramat Gan). 2009; 37(1): 153–167.

Published online 2008 Jul 26. doi: 10.1007/s11406-008-9145-5

PMCID: PMC7088582

PMID: 32214516