Between Traditionalism and Revisionism: Estlund and Renzo on the Obligation to Obey Orders to Fight in Unjust Wars

• Published date: 01 December 2023
• Author: Luciano Venezia,Rodrigo E. Sánchez Brígido
• Date: 01 December 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/raju.12393

© 2023 University of Bologna and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Ratio Juris. Vol. 36 No. 4 December (350–365)

Between Traditionalism and

Revisionism: Estlund and Renzo

on the Obligation to Obey Orders to

Fight in Unjust Wars

LUCIANO VENEZIA and RODRIGO E. SÁNCHEZ BRÍGIDO*

Abstract. David Estlund and Massimo Renzo argue that, given the right background conditions,

combatants are obligated to obey orders to fight in unjust wars, a thesis they put forward even as

they recognize that this involves committing serious moral wrongs. Their views, then, fall between

traditionalism and revisionism in the theory of just war. We argue that both Estlund and Renzo

fail to adequately distinguish between binding and nonbinding serious morally wrong orders,

that their views are incompatible with their assumed fact- relative understanding of morality, and

that they fail to establish that combatants are obligated to obey orders to fight in unjust wars. We

conclude that just as untenable as these two middle- ground positions is the traditionalist view.

1. Introduction

It is uncontroversial that combatants are permitted to fight in just wars. There is no

agreement, however, as to whether they are also permitted to fight in wars that are

unjust, especially by virtue of lacking a just cause. This dispute is usually framed

in terms of whether combatants who fight in just wars and combatants who fight

in unjust wars are moral equals in the sense that they are permitted to kill one

another. There are basically two positions in this debate. On the one hand, the tra-

ditional view— best represented by Michael Walzer(2006) and recently defended

by Yitzhak Benbaji and Daniel Statman(2019)— states that jus ad bellum and jus in

bello principles are logically independent, which implies that combatants are per-

mitted to kill their enemies, even if they are fighting in an unjust war, because their

acts are not wrongful. On the other hand, the revisionist position— powerfully

developed by Jeff McMahan(2009), among many others— claims that whether jus

ad bellum considerations are met is crucial for the question of whether combatants

are permitted to fight, and so kill, their enemies. Thus, the revisionist view is that

combatants fighting in unjust wars are not permitted to kill their enemies, because

* We thank Hernán Bouvier, Alejandro Chehtman, Adil Ahmad Haque, David Lefkowitz,

Jonathan Parry, Massimo Renzo, Eduardo Rivera López, and an anonymous reviewer for Ratio

Juris for useful comments and suggestions. We both contributed equally. Any errors are our

own.

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Ratio Juris, Vol. 36, No. 4© 2023 University of Bologna and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

On the Obligation to Fight in Unjust Wars

their acts are wrongful, to the extent that they are often described as on a par mor-

ally with murder.

As is clear, combatants do not fight as private agents but as members of polit-

ical bodies (Renzo2019, 338), and they are also members of institutions organized

hierarchically with a chain of command. The traditionalist and revisionist posi-

tions, then, implicitly or explicitly develop different views on the issue of whether

combatants at lower levels of that chain are obligated to obey orders to fight in

unjust wars— assuming that their orders satisfy relevant in bello norms. The tradi-

tionalist view is that combatants are obligated to obey orders to fight that meet

the in bello requirements of distinction, proportionality, and necessity, even if they

are fighting in an unjust war, while the revisionist view is that these combatants

are not so obligated, even if their orders presumably satisfy relevant jus in bello

norms.1

Yet some philosophers argue that the correct view on the question of whether

combatants are obligated to obey orders to fight in unjust wars lies somewhere in

between these two extremes. The most important middle- ground account is the

one put forward by David Estlund(2007). According to his view, combatants are

obligated to obey orders to fight in unjust wars if and only if two background

conditions are met:2 (i) The combatants are citizens of a democratic state whose

norms (laws, edicts, policies, and so on) tend to track what ought to be done and

(ii) the orders to fight are the result of an honest mistake regarding the justice of

the war.3

Another sophisticated middle- ground view has recently been put forward by

Massimo Renzo(2019). Interestingly, Renzo explicitly grants that whether jus ad

bellum principles are respected is normally relevant to establishing whether com-

batants can be obligated to obey orders to fight. But even if these norms are not

met, he argues, combatants can sometimes be obligated to fight in unjust wars. His

view is that combatants are so obligated if and only if two slightly different back-

ground conditions are met: (i) The combatants are citizens of a legitimate state

whose norms (laws, edicts, policies, and so on) are generally reasonably just and

(ii) the orders to fight are the result of a mistake made in good faith regarding the

justice of the war.4

However much in different ways, then, both Estlund and Renzo argue that com-

batants can be obligated to obey orders to fight in unjust wars, although they admit

that, even in those circumstances, combatants commit serious moral wrongs. This

1 “Presumably” because, for revisionists, orders to fight in unjust wars can satisfy relevant in

bello norms only in exceptional circumstances. For an illuminating discussion, see McMahan2009,

15– 32.

2To make things easier, we will just assume that the orders meet relevant in bello principles.

However, Estlund(2007, 230– 1) argues that combatants are sometimes obligated to obey orders

which violate these norms.

3 Notice that these conditions are very demanding, which implies that it is unlikely that actual

democracies meet them. McMahan(2009, 68– 70) criticizes Estlund’s view for relying on consid-

erations of this sort. But for Estlund at least, this is a feature, indeed a virtue, of his view, not a

bug.

4 As the first condition does not require that the state be a democracy of the sort that Estlund

has in mind, Renzo(2019, 354 n. 46) argues that his view is more palatable than Estlund’s, espe-

cially because it is more in line with international law.