Supreme Emergencies Without the Bad Guys

Area of Science:

• Political Philosophy
• Ethics
• International Relations

Background:

• The supreme emergency doctrine, a core concept in just-war theory, traditionally addresses existential threats.
• Its applicability to non-antagonistic threats, such as systemic risks or widespread societal harms, remains underexplored.
• Existing frameworks may not adequately capture the nuances of modern, complex challenges.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the applicability of the supreme emergency doctrine to non-antagonistic threats.
• To critically evaluate the defensibility of two prominent versions: Michael Walzer's communitarian and Brian Orend's prudential.
• To determine if these doctrines offer a robust ethical framework for contemporary security challenges.

Main Methods:

• Conceptual analysis of just-war theory principles.
• Comparative examination of Walzer's communitarian and Orend's prudential versions of the supreme emergency doctrine.
• Application of these doctrines to hypothetical and real-world non-antagonistic threat scenarios.

Main Results:

• A version of Walzer's doctrine appears applicable to non-antagonistic threats, but its defensibility is highly questionable.
• Orend's prudential doctrine is also applicable to non-antagonistic threats.
• However, Orend's account is deemed indefensible, irrespective of the antagonistic nature of the threats.

Conclusions:

• The supreme emergency doctrine's applicability to non-antagonistic threats is plausible but requires significant refinement.
• Current formulations, including Walzer's and Orend's, present substantial ethical and practical challenges in their defensibility.
• Further theoretical development is needed to adapt just-war principles to the complexities of non-antagonistic threats.