Conventional wisdom holds that realists support the recourse to war more than just war theorists. I argue that the opposite is true: just war theory produces a more bellicose orientation than realism. Although the two traditions share a set of assumptions about the international system, as well as several underlying logics, the just war tradition's concern with justice leads it to permit many more kinds of war than realism. Thus, if just war theorists wish to restrain violence, they must approach the possibility of achieving justice through war with more skepticism.
Just war thinking serves a social and psychological role that international law cannot fill. Law is dispassionate and objective, while just war thinking accounts for emotions and the situatedness of individuals. While law works on us externally, making us accountable to certain people and institutions, just war thinking affects us internally, making us accountable to ourselves. Psychologically, an external focus leads to feelings of shame, while an inward focus generates feelings of guilt. Philosophers have long recognized the importance of these two moral emotions. Recently, psychologists have found that feelings of guilt are linked to positive social outcomes, such as the desire for reconciliation and reparation, while shame generates anger and hostility. Just war thinking, as an inward-looking tradition, has a special relationship with guilt. By focusing on moral emotions, just war thinking can move beyond the law in four ways, by developing an ethic of accountability, by providing a foundation for addressing moral injury, by providing a common language for discussing the costs of war, and for identifying ethical problems in radically new contexts.
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