A Critical Evaluation to Just WAR Theory and Alternative Way

Abstract

This paper aims to provide a critical evaluation of the existing just war theories and its alternative direction to analyze the sharpest war in international relations from an ethical perspective. The theory of just war can be said to be an intermediate theory between realism and ideal pacifism. This paper tries to research the Eastern and Western theories about the just war theories, and show the future developments of just war theory. The existing theory of just war has been largely divided into Jus ad Bello(the justice of the war) itself and Jus in Bello(the justice of combat action). In recent years, Jus post- Bellum(the post-war justice) has also been discussed. This paper raises the limitation that the existing East-West just war theories, in particular, the western just war theories have been based on the Time-Sequenced Approach focused on the sequence of the war itself. This paper points out that each principle should not be considered differently over time. Still the procedure for moral judgment is similar, so it should be possible to analyze according to the same principle. Although the intensity and scope of war are very extraordinary, it should be understood in the range of the cultural act of human beings. This paper tries to suggest to look at war centering on human beings, the subject of moral judgment. War never flows in one direction apart from humans. It is initiated and performed by a series of moral judgments of people. This is the reason that war could be understood morally. Then we can wait that just war theory should follow, not the sequence of the war but the general ethics approaches.