Abstract
The first important steps towards the modern era’s characterization of the combatant were taken by two Spanish theologians who lived in the time of the Renaissance but who continued to write in the manner of Scholasticism. It was they who took the significant (though faltering) step along the route the Angelic Doctor feared to tread, by breaking the connection between objective legal guilt and subjective moral guilt. It was this innovation which began the journey of ‘just war’ thought from its Christian origins in Augustine’s guilt-based model towards the basis in natural law that was to underpin modern international law. This step also had profound implications for the characterization of the combatant and for the justification for his killing in war.
How often misused words generate misleading thoughts.
Herbert Spencer1
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Notes
Herbert Spencer, Principles of Ethics (London, 1892), Book 1 Part 2 Ch. 8 Section 152.
Francisco de Vitoria, Political Writings, ed. Anthony Pagden and Jeremy Lawrance (Cambridge, 1994); Bernice Hamilton, Political Thought in the Sixteenth Century (Oxford, 1963).
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© 2002 Colm McKeogh
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McKeogh, C. (2002). Innocence and Modern War. In: Innocent Civilians. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403907462_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403907462_5
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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