Misunderstanding the “just cause” condition of just war doctrine

In a recent article at First Things, I argued that the just war tradition holds that for a war to be justifiable, it must be morally certain that it meets just war conditions (not merely arguable or even probable that it meets them).  Some readers have objected that some of the sources I cited require moral certainty only with respect to the “just cause” condition, not the other conditions.  If so, then it might seem that we can (contrary to what I claimed in the article) be morally certain that the Iran war meets the “just cause” condition.  For war aims like liberating the Iranian people or preventing an oppressive government from acquiring nuclear weapons are (so the argument goes) surely manifestly just.

Just war doctrine and moral certainty

In an article at First Things, I show that the standard view in the Catholic just war tradition is that for a war to be just, it is not enough that it be merely arguable or even probable that it meets all just war criteria. We must be morally certain that it meets them.

The Journal of Natural Law

The first issue of The Journal of Natural Law has now been published.  Among other things, it includes my review of Stephen Boulter’s book Natural Law Liberalism and the Malaise of Modernity.

Caught in the web

At The Telegraph, John Haldane remembers the late Dominican theologian Fr. Fergus Kerr.

At UnHerd, Sohrab Ahmari has had enough with Donald Trump’s “mad king” governing style, and sides with Pope Leo in his feud with the president.

James Franklin’s new book The Necessities Underlying Reality: Connecting Philosophy of Mathematics, Ethics and Probability is available by Open Access.

American Songwriter reports that Donald Fagen has retired from touring with Steely Dan.  More details at Vulture.

The New Neo-Scholasticism

My article “The New Neo-Scholasticism” appears in the Winter 2026 issue of the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly.  It is available for free download here.  Here is the abstract: “The last quarter of a century has seen the rise of what can aptly be labeled a new Neo-Scholastic trend in philosophy and theology. After explaining what Scholasticism and Neo-Scholasticism are, the article describes the origins, themes, and key thinkers of this latest iteration of Scholasticism that is taking up the mantle of the old.”

Rational social animals and addiction

Roger Scruton’s book Beauty contains an interesting brief treatment of addiction.  Too much discussion of this topic today overemphasizes neurochemistry.  That is by no means to deny that that aspect of the issue is real and important.  But it addresses only what Aristotelians would call the material and efficient causes of habituation, and not the formal and final causes.  The latter concern our nature as rational social animals, and as Scruton’s discussion indicates, addiction involves disorders related to both the social and rational aspects of that nature.

Of the connection between addiction and pleasure, Scruton writes:

Addiction arises when the subject has full control over a pleasure and can produce it at will.  It is primarily a matter of sensory pleasure, and involves a kind of short-circuiting of the pleasure network.  Addiction is characterized by loss of the emotional dynamic that would otherwise govern an outward-directed, cognitively creative life.  Sex addiction is no different in this respect from drug addiction; and it wars against true sexual interest – interest in the other, the individual object of desire.  Why go to all the trouble of mutual recognition and shared arousal, when this short cut is available to the same sensory goal? (p. 186)

Will “a whole civilization die tonight”?

From Twitter/X, on the president’s deranged post of this morning (which managed to top even his deranged Easter post):

Contra White and Graham

From Twitter/X, on the comments made at the White House yesterday by Paula White and Franklin Graham: