Seattle University - Aegis Yearbook (Seattle, WA)

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24 T II E V A L K S T H A merous controversies. But the principle of indirect killing: is one which the police officer applies on his beat, the traveler on a highway, and the statesman in his cabinet. It merely signifies the stopping of a transgressor in his violation of a right sanctioned by the natural law. Civil governments, therefore, ethics invest with the faculty to resist an unjust attack on the part of any foreign power. The justice here referred to, however, is neither distributive nor retributive nor retrospective nor vindictive. War is waged between equals only, i. e., states are on a footing of equality, at least to the extent of being mutually independent. It is within the province of no country, therefore, to wreak vengeance on another. Punitive expeditions, as we call them, can be lawfully undertaken no otherwise than by a legitimate government against its own subjects in revolt. Rebels have no belligerent rights. Against them alone may the rigors of vindictive justice be exercised. The state, therefore, possesses the moral competency to vindicate its rights by physical force, and what’s more to do so on its own initiative. When the relations between two governments arc “strained”, as diplomats express it, and no compromise agreeable to both can be brought about, there is no tribunal of last resort to adjudicate or settle the contention. In such cases, the final argument is an appeal to arms. Such an appeal, moreover, may Ik- not only a right, but even a duty in the strictest sense. What is the scope and intrinsic aim of civil government? Is it not the temporal welfare of the citizens as citizens, or as Suarez puts it, “the natural happiness of the perfect human community, whereof the civil legislature has the care and the happiness of individuals as they arc members of such a community?” Consequently, that good which citizens as such may lay claim to, in their social and political capacity, the state is rigorously obliged to secure, protect, guarantee and safeguard. Only one idea here remains to lx insisted on, viz., the absolute immutability of primary moral principles. Their meaning nothing can adjust to the requirements of utilitarianism as expediency. One and the same set of laws binds people and individuals, the great and the lowly, statesmen and private citizens. The safest code by which to regulate quarrels among the nations of the world is the commandments of God. Of course no drollery can in any wise approach the humor of present day international ethics. Listen to the pragmatic announcement of 0:1c distinguished oracle, whose renown the world has been celebrating for nearly a twelve-month. “Might”, he writes, “is at once the supreme right, and the dispute as to what is right, the arbitrament of war decides.” Of course, it decides nothing of the kind. “War”, he continues, —and the man seems to take himself quite seriously,- -“war gives a biological just decision, since its decision rests on the very nature of things.” Biologically, it is in the nature of things that a murdered man should stay dead. But it is likewise in the nature of things that the fifth commandment should continue after the dead man’s demise, to retain the totality of its binding force. In the opinion of grand juries the murdered should be looked upon as furnishing anything like a fair sample of biological justice. Again, by itself, assassination gives the murderer no right, for instance, to his victim’s property. It changes nothing in the matter of principles or of rights, not even in the case of those who throne on the seats of the mighty. To them, no les than to the commonest plebeian, applies the command: “Thou slialt not steal.” “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods”. Moses never intended that the Decalogue should be a perfectible rough draft, a species of protocol thatwould be leisurely codified, as occasion might require, in international courts. A good deal of the confusion about ethics in warfare one may trace to the leviathan a vl

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S E A T T L E C () L L E G E A N N U A L 23 iEtljira nf War THE “man on the street” will tell you that war is a disgrace to civilization. Perhaps it is. In the minds of nearly all it excites horror. Nowadays “the proud pomp and circumstance” of it is seldom alluded to. Men have come to look upon deadly strife as an evil. The atrocities of it, poets have lamented over pathetically, in rhythmic cadences. According to some of their predictions the future has in store for our befretted race a blessed time of permanent peace: mankind’s common sense, its increased largeness of view, the public conscience and the world’s statesmanship must one day elaborate an universal peace-pact,—and that binding agreement shall be more lasting than a monument of bronze. Meanwhile eleven different peoples are patriotically slaughtering one another in the European shambles. Thus are men unceremoniously undeceived, made to realize the inadvisability of changing their swords into ploughshares. However mighty the pen, disputes will most likely continue to be settled by the arbitrament of the “shotted gun”. Philosophers, politicians, thinkers of high and low degree, have all reasoned out pretentious schemes for the suppression of war. Some have condemned an appeal to arms as intrinsically immoral. Others of opinions less radical would nevertheless maintain peace at any cost. Hut a judgment as to war’s why and wherefore we can hardly trust to poetic dreams and political speculations. “Cuique in sua arte credcndum”. To the moralist, to the moral philosopher rather, must we have recourse for a final decision. Nobody can pronounce war intrinsically wrong without giving proof of defective judgment. A right,—viz., that in virtue of which a person calls anything his own,—and the obligation all others arc under to respect it, arc correlative. Coercion of some kind, therefore, is intrinsic to a right. Neither must that coercion be limited to moral suasion. Because “man calls himself his own”, Rickaby writes, “and calls his powers his own, and they are his own by the very fact of his calling them so by a natural act. And as justice is to give to another his own, others are bound in justice to leave him free to dispose of himself and his powers, at least within certain limits. Hut this would be for man a barren freedom, were he not empowered to lay hold of and make his own some things, nay many things, outside of himself, for man is not self-sufficient, but has many natural necessities. Hut the power to lay hold of and make some things his own would be futile and derisive without the right to forcibly debar others therefrom. Perfect rights, therefore, viz., those that arc backed up by law, natural or positive, may be vindicated by physical force. Wherefore, according to civil or canon law, one is allowed to repel force by force with the moderation of a blameless defence. That doctrine exactly coincides with and is fully justified by universal practice. Now, what is here said of the private citizen, may be said of the portion of the state: clearly, the corporate rights of the one may be. defended bv violent means with as much justice as the individual rights of the other. War is purely an instance of self-defense on a grand scale, and self-defense even when offered merely to repel a personal attack may go to the extreme of bloodshed in a proportionately serious cause. The killing we suppose to be indirect, although Card, dc Lugo and others justify direct killing. Whether or not homicide may be intended directly as a means of defense, moralists have been unable to decide. That is one of their nu-

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SEATTLE COLLEGE ANNUAL 25 the social contract. In both systems, the state becomes a sort of deity, an aggregated idol or collective monster. To that new divinity, mankind is called upon to offer undivided homage. Here we have the cult of the state. Great men, viz., the leaders, who arc to disport themselves at everybody elsc’s expense, and the plebeians, nature’s misfits and botches, must all sweat and bleed for the state’s advancement. Naturally from such bewildering premises, we may deduct strange conclusions about war. But the abstruse speculations of Hobbes and Rousseau and the teachings of Catholicism are incompatible; theirs is a comfortless creed, a philosophy which conflicts with the consoling truths that buoy men up in their struggle to merely live, a system halting, narrow and shortsighted that seems to overlook or ignore man’s brotherhood and thr fatherhood of God. J. McKenna, ’15. CLOUDLAND Those fathomless depths of sky so blue, So near, so far, so fair to view. Were made by Him, whose power they show, Were made by Him for me and you; And they His handiwork declare, And to His greatness witness bear.— Thus human minds tho much they dare, Can never pierce those depths so fair. N.