Weighing Lives in War

The chief means to limit and calculate the costs of war are the philosophical and legal concepts of proportionality and necessity. Both categories are meant to restrain the most horrific potential of war. The volume explores the moral and legal issues in the modern law of war in three major categories. In so doing, the contributions will look for new and innovative approaches to understanding the process of weighing lives implicit in all theories of jus in bello: who counts in war, understanding proportionality, and weighing lives in asymmetric conflicts. These questions arise on multiple levels and require interdisciplinary consideration of both philosophical and legal themes.

Jens David Ohlin, Professor of Law, Cornell Law School,Larry May, W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy, Professor of Law, and Professor of Political Science, Vanderbilt University, ,Claire Finkelstein, Algernon Biddle Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy, Director, Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law, University of Pennsylvania Law School,

Jens David Ohlin is Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at Cornell Law School. He specializes in international law and criminal law. He specifically focuses on the laws of war with special emphasis on the effects of new technology on the waging of warfare, including unmanned drones in the strategy of targeted killings, cyber-warfare, and the role of non-state actors in armed conflicts. He authored The Assault on International Law (Oxford, 2015).

Larry May is the W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy, Professor of Law, and Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt University. He has published over thirty books, including book length studies of each of the four crimes under the ICC's jurisdiction. These books have won awards in philosophy, law, and international relations. He has also published extensively on the history of the just war tradition, especially on the work of Grotius and Hobbes. He co-authored Proportionality in International Law (with Michael Newton, Oxford, 2014), and Limiting Leviathan: Hobbes on Law and International Affairs (Oxford, 2013).

Claire Finkelstein is the Algernon Biddle Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, and a co-Director of the University of Pennsylvania Institute of Law and Philosophy. She writes in the areas of criminal law theory, moral and political philosophy, philosophy of law, international law, and rational choice theory. A particular focus of her work is bringing philosophical rational choice theory to bear on legal theory, and she is particularly interested in tracing the implications of Hobbes' political theory for substantive legal questions. Recently she has also been writing on the moral and legal aspects of government-sponsored torture as part of the U.S. national security program. In 2008 Finkelstein was a Siemens Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin, during which time she presented papers in Berlin, Leipzig, and Heidelberg.

Introduction, Jens David Ohlin, Larry May, and Claire Finkelstein
Part I: Necessity & The Lives of Combatants
1. The Dispensable Lives of Soldiers, Gabriella Blum
2. Sharp Wars are Brief, Jens David Ohlin
3. Humanity, Necessity, and the Rights of Soldiers, Larry May
4. The Deaths of Combatants, Michael L. Gross
Part II: Proportionality, Civilian Harm, & Soldiers
5. Proportionate Defense, Jeff McMahan
6. Justification and Proportionality in War, Jovana Davidovic
7. Compensation and Proportionality in War, Saba Bazargan-Forward
8. A Theory of Jus in Bello Proportionality, Adil Haque
9. 4 Proportionality in Warfare as a Political Norm, Ariel Colonomos
Part III: Combatancy & The Value of Lives in Asymmetric Conflict
10. The Equality of Lives in War and the Principle of Distinction, Claire Finkelstein
11. Guiding Executive Decisions on Combatancy in War, Jon Todd
12. Weighing Unjust Lives, Andrew Forcehimes
13. 4 Joint and Combined Targeting: Structure and Process, Michael Schmitt, Jeffrey Biller, Sean C. Fahey, David S. Goddard, & Chad Highfill