War by Agreement A Contractarian Ethics of War

War by Agreement presents a new theory on the ethics of war. Benbaji and Statman argue that wars can be morally justified at both the ad bellum level (the political decision to go to war) and the in bello level (the actual conduct of the military) by accepting a contractarian account of the rules governing war. According to this account, the rules of war are anchored in a mutually beneficial and fair agreement between the relevant players—the purpose of which is to promote peace and to reduce the horrors of war. This account relies on the long social contract tradition and illustrates its fruitfulness in understanding and developing the morality and the law of war.

Yitzhak Benbaji, Professor of Philosophy, Tel-Aviv University,Daniel Statman, Professor of Philosophy, University of Haifa

Yitzhak Benbaji teaches philosophy at Tel-Aviv University Faculty of Law. He previously worked in the Department of Philosophy and in the Faculty of Law at Bar-Ilan University (2002-12). He has been a visiting scholar and professor at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, the University of Toronto, Northwestern University, Yale Law School, and the Institute for Advanced Study in Jerusalem. Among his publications are The View from Within (2011) and Reading Walzer (2013).

Daniel Statman teaches at the philosophy department at the University of Haifa and is former Chair of the Israeli Philosophical Association. He has been a visiting scholar and professor at various institutes, including the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, the University of Michigan, Oxford University, and the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften in Bad Homburg. He is the author and editor of many books and articles, including Moral Luck (1993), Moral Dilemmas (1995), Religion and Morality (1995), Virtue Ethics (1997), and State and Religion in Israel (2019).

Introduction: The Moral Standing of the War Agreement
1. The Challenge
2. Foundations of a Non-Individualist Morality
3. A Contractarian Account of the Crime of Aggression
4. The Aims of Just Wars and Jus Ex Bello
5. Contractarianism and the Moral Equality of Combatants
6. Contractarianism and the Moral Equality of Civilians
7. When the Agreement Collapses
8. Concluding Remarks