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Chapter Ten

Just War and the Indian Tradition

Arguments from the Battlefield

Shyam Ranganathan

INTRODUCTION

Jeff McMahan in his remarkable Killing in War

draws a distinction between

two senses of “war.” In the first sense, war stands for a conflict between

opposing parties. In the second sense, war is party relative, and some side

may have a right of war (jus ad bellum), whereas others lack justification for

war. In this sense, some parties fight a just war, whereas others fight an

unjust war. According to McMahan, there is no radical difference between

the moral considerations that operate outside of war and in war; the same

moral considerations apply in both cases. Those who violate moral consider-

ations fight an unjust war, whereas those who do not violate moral considera-

tions fight a just war. Whereas Michael Walzer defended the idea that there is

a logical independence between the considerations that justify going to war

and the considerations pertaining to just conduct in war

—and the related

idea that there is a moral equality among combatants such that fighting for

the wrong side does not entail wrongdoing in the conduct of war—he argues

that one’s conduct in war does not count as just (jus in bello) if one fights for

the wrong side and that one has no right to fight those whose cause is just.

The premise that produces McMahan’s powerful conclusions is that war

does not create a new set of moral standards; they are the same standards in

peace and war that allow us to distinguish those whose cause and conduct in

war are just and those whose cause and conduct are not just. If this is true,

then fighting a just war would entail no need to get one’s hands dirty—a

requirement that Michael Walzer claimed earlier arises from the expedience

of war and, later, only in cases of extreme emergency.

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While there are many notable contributions to just war theory from the

Indian tradition, in this chapter I will consider what may be the most famous

argument for just war defended in the Bhagavad Gītā (where the philoso-

pher–deity Krishna provides an extended pep talk on just war and moral

theory to his cousin Arjuna on the battlefield before the commencement of

war) and implicitly explored in the wider epic from which it is from, the

Mahābhārata.

This epic about a fratricidal war provides grounds for reject-

ing the idea that the justice of a war is elucidated by the fidelity of combat-

ants to conventional standards of morality. Rather, the need for war arises

from a breakdown of conventional morality, which identifies ethical consid-

erations with the good. Such conventional moral considerations break down

when they provide shelter for parties who endorse conventional morality as a

weapon to undermine the conventionally moral, the conventionally moral

whose cause is prima facie just must hence depart from conventional moral-

ity to rid themselves of this hostility and reset the moral order. Yet, according

to the alternative moral paradigm that resets the moral order, the Gītā entails

that we can agree with McMahan: the side of those whose cause is just have a

right to fight, and those whose cause is unjust have no such right and do

wrong by engaging in conflict. Those who fight for a just cause do not get

their hands dirty by way of transcendent conditions of justice, though they

get their hands dirty by conventional moral expectations. The point of con-

vergence between the argument from the Gītā and McMahan is noteworthy,

as is their divergence.

For McMahan, the conditions in war make no difference to what morality

permits and that the justifications for killing people are the same in war as

they are in other contexts, such as individual self-defense. On the approach

we find in the Gītā, the conditions of just war, namely, the breakdown of

conventional morality to mediate competing interests fairly by its conversion

into a tool of oppressing the good by the wicked, entails that certain activities

may be unjustified in peacetime, though just in war, if undertaken by those

whose cause is just. Such activities could include proactive killing, including

the killing of noncombatants providing material or emotional support to the

unjust (which would not be allowed by conventional standards of self-de-

fense); deceit; and the breaking of promises. I would suggest that this diver-

gence is instructive and that the scenarios that we find discussed in the

Mahābhārata that led to Krishna’s advocating the radical departure from

conventional morality should be taken seriously. In the Western tradition, it

is difficult to think of arguments that highlight how conventional morality

could be a tool of oppression. Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals is an excep-

tion, wherein he argues that conventional morals are the values of slaves,

conditioned by a context of oppression, and that the alternative is an ethics of

the aristocratic self. Nietzsche himself showed an interest in Indian philoso-

phy, and many of his ideas, such as the notion of eternal return and the

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superman Übermensch, who transcends the ordinary, have obvious Indian

roots.

Indeed, the argument from the Genealogy also seems like a caricature

of the argument in the Gītā. The main difference is that Krishna’s argument

in contrast does not require that we throw the baby out with the bath water;

conventional morality need not be a tool of oppression, but, when it is, the

alternative is the project of reestablishing a moral order, rid of moral para-

sites. Conventional moralists will object to such tactics by those whose cause

is just as debasing; it would seem as though the moral line between the just

and the unjust disappears. I think that the analysis of the breakdown of

conventional morality provided by the Gītā and modeled in the Mahābhārata

shows that this is mistaken; when it comes to such a just war, the convention-

al standards are now corrupt and cannot be used to judge the just. It would

hence be wrong to assume that, if the just adopt techniques of the unjust, they

hence fail at jus in bello. For instance, if Nazis attempt to use rights of free

expression afforded by conventional moralities to protect their own hate

speech or displays of racial hatred, by the display of fascist symbols, for

instance, to the effect of inciting fear in racial minorities or Jews, it would

not, on this argument, be wrong for antifascists to intimidate Nazis or punch

or silence Nazis at random, whereas it would be wrong for Nazis to engage in

such threatening behavior to attempt to defend themselves or even to be

Nazis. The tactics of antifascists find justification in the Gītā. Of course, on

standard conventional morality, including those of liberal societies, such tac-

tics would be ruled out of bounds.

The Mahābhārata and the Gītā as they relate to just war have been

discussed in the literature,

as have wider approaches to the question of just

war in Indian literature.

My approach is distinct from the standard approach

to talking about Indian thought in general.

I recommend that reading philos-

ophy is about isolating perspectives and that we treat each perspective P as

entailing a theory T about its controversial t claims and understanding the

concept t as what competing theories of T disagree about. For instance, to

read philosophy is to identify distinct perspectives in a dialectic or tract;

identify a perspective’s theory that entails all its claims about a topic, such as

ethics; and identify the common concept of ethics as what competing theo-

ries of ethics disagree about. This approach contrasts with interpretation,

which is explanation by way of what one takes to be true. In my preferred

approach, which I call explication, we can remain agnostic about all substan-

tive matters as we pursue research in philosophy.

One of the outcomes of explication is that we acknowledge that the vari-

ous uses of the term “dharma” in Indian thought serve to articulate theories

of dharma; the common concept of dharma is the Right or the Good; and,

moreover, if we apply this method to contemporary philosophy in the West-

ern tradition, we find that “ethics” has the same conceptual content. The

contrary unprincipled approach is to treat one’s perspective (and beliefs) as a

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frame to study Indian thought, and uses of terms, such as “dharma,” are

correlated with distinctions that we subjectively draw; this results in the

multiplication of meanings associated with “dharma” and the ubiquitous

claim that it is difficult to translate this term into English or any other lan-

guage.

In endorsing explication, we are in a position to understand the dialectic

of the Mahābhārata’s and the Gītā’s account of just war. The governing

moral theory is what we could call yoga (i.e., discipline) or bhakti (i.e.,

devotion). According to this theory, the right action is defined by a regulative

or procedural ideal (the Lord, defined by the characteristics of unconserva-

tism and self-governance, which in the story is the character Krishna), and

the good is the perfection of the practice of devotion to the ideal. Yoga not

only provides the moral standards and practice to reestablish a moral order

when conventional morality breaks down; it also reestablishes the moral

order by dissolving the distinction between jus ad bellum and jus in bello;

what justifies action is this approximation to the regulative or procedural

ideal, and what makes it right is the same approximation.

In the next section, “The Great War and Its Background,” I provide de-

tails about the Mahābhārata that are relevant to our inquiry into just war

theory. In the third section, “Krishna’s Response,” I explicate Krishna’ s ar-

gument, which outlines an approach to self-defense in troubled times. The

arguments here are frequently misunderstood. Krishna presents himself as

the procedural ideal of just action, and readers often are distracted by the

similarities between this case and theistic models of God offering advice and

commands. Yet Krishna in the Mahābhārata is not a disjointed voice from

the heavens, nor is Krishna merely a source of pithy, inspirational teachings.

Krishna, a character on the ground, provides strategic advice in light of

context-relative challenges in the Mahābhārata and systematic arguments in

the Gītā and plays the role as the protagonist’s charioteer, guiding the moral

heroes into battle. In the context of a work of literature, the Mahābhārata,

Krishna functions as the procedural ideal that allows us to navigate personal

interests in a world of hostility. The entire work is hence a literary explora-

tion of just war theory and yoga’s relevance in particular. One major distinc-

tion is that Krishna presents himself not as good (indeed, much of his argu-

ment is a criticism of goodness as morally explanatory, and Krishna explicit-

ly does bad things on purpose) but as right. Hence, following Krishna’s

example is not necessarily about doing what is good but rather a concern for

what is right. (Indeed, one of the outcomes of the just war under Krishna’s

guidance in the Mahābhārata is the open question of whether the outcome

was good, though it was right.) Because theology concerns the discourse on

theism and God, for the theist, is primarily good, Krishna’s proposed moral

significance cannot be reduced to theism or theology. Unlike dialogues of

Plato, where participants talk only philosophy, in this extended dialogue, we

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find characters acting out various parts of the story of just war. It is hence

relevant to a global study of just war theory. In this chapter, and the third

section, I only attempt to distil the argument; for the drama, one must read

the epic. In the fourth section, I consider and respond to objections, and, in

the fifth, I conclude.

Can all of this help us elucidate Hindu conceptions on ethics when enter-

ing war (jus ad bellum) and the rules when engaged in warfare (jus in bello)?

This question is loaded and wades into areas of scholarship that are slightly

beyond the scope of this chapter. For instance, the term “Hindu” was a term

coined by the British to label indigenous Indian religion, and it is coextensive

with the disagreements of philosophy.

With due caution not to overgeneral-

ize the importance of this one argument to Hinduism, as such, it would not be

an understatement to note that the argument from the Gītā may be the most

influential argument on just war theory in the Indian tradition because the

Gītā (and the Mahābhārata of which it is part) itself is one of the more

influential and popular books of the Indian tradition (of late) and one of the

very few on just war within this set.

THE GREAT WAR AND ITS BACKGROUND

The Mahābhārata (the “Great” war of the “Bhāratas”) focuses on the fratrici-

dal tensions and all-out war of two groups of cousins with a common ances-

tor, Bhārata: the Pāndavas, numbering five, the most famous of these broth-

ers being Arjuna, all sons of Pāṇḍu, and the Kauravas, numerous, led by the

oldest brother, Duryodhana, all sons of Dhṛtarāṣṭra. Dhṛtarāṣṭra, though older

than Pāṇḍu and hence first in line for the throne, was born blind and hence

sidelined in royal succession because it was reasoned that blindness would

prevent Dhṛtarāṣṭra from ruling. Pāṇḍu, it so happens, was the first to have a

son, Yudhiṣṭhira, rendering the throne all but certain to be passed down via

Pāṇḍu’s descendants. Yet Pāṇḍu dies prematurely, and Dhṛtarāṣṭra becomes

king as the only appropriate heir to the throne because the next generation are

still children.

As the sons of Pāṇḍu and Dhṛtarāṣṭra grow up, Pāṇḍu’s sons distinguish

themselves as excellent warriors and virtuous individuals, who are not with-

out their flaws. The Kauravas in contrast are less able in battle but mostly

without moral virtues or graces. The rivalry between the two sets of cousins

is ameliorated only by the Pāṇḍavas’ inclination to compromise and be defe-

rential to their cousins—this despite attempts on the Pāṇḍavas’ lives by the

Kauravas. Matters turn for the worse when the Pāndavas accept a challenge

to wager their freedom in a game of dice, rigged by the Kauravas. The

Pāṇḍavas seem unable to restrain themselves from participating in this fool-

ish exercise because it is consistent with conventional past times of the rich

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and famous. After losing everything and even wagering their common wife,

Draupadi, who is thereby publicly sexually harassed, their freedom is granted

back by the Dhṛtarāṣṭra (who cave into the lament of the Pāṇḍavas’ one

common wife, Draupadi). But, once the challenge of the wager—taking a

chance—is brought up again, the Pāṇḍavas lose everything (again) and must

subsequently spend fourteen years in exile and the final year incognito and, if

exposed, must repeat the fourteen years of exile. They complete the exile

successfully and return to reclaim their portion of the kingdom, at which

point the Kauravas refuse to allow the Pāṇḍavas any home area so that they

might eke out a livelihood as rulers. Despite repeated attempts by the

Pāṇḍavas at conciliation, mediated by their mutual cousin, Krishna, the Kau-

ravas adopt a position of hostility, forcing the Pāṇḍavas into a corner where

they have no choice but to fight. Alliances, loyalties, and obligations are

publicly reckoned and distinguished, and the two sides agree to fight it out on

a battlefield with their armies.

What is noteworthy about the scenario described in the Mahābhārata is

that the Pāṇḍavas, but for imprudent decisions, conform their actions to

standards of conventional moral expectations for people in their station and

caste—including rising to the occasion of risky public challenges, as is the

lot of warriors. Ever attempting both compromise and conciliation, their

imprudent decisions are not the reason for their predicament, but rather the

hostility of the Kauravas is the explanation. But for this hostility, exemplified

by the rigged game of dice and the high-stakes challenge the Kauravas set,

the Pāṇḍavas would have lived a peaceful existence and would never have

been the authors of their own misfortune.

With all attempts at conciliation dashed by the Kauravas’ greed and hos-

tility, war is a fait accompli. Krishna agrees to be Arjuna’s charioteer in the

faithful battle, which will not only pit the Pāṇḍavas against the Kauravas but

also the Pāṇḍavas against kin who fight on the side of the Kauravas for

reasons of professional loyalty and not because of any sympathy for the

Kauravas’ plight. Indeed, to all who have any sense, the calamity that is to

occur is a result of the Kauravas, who managed to pursue their program of

aggression in part because of the Pāṇḍavas’ commitment to moral standards

of conciliation and compromise.

Arjuna laments the conditions that have brought him to this point. The

details of the oncoming war are especially tragic. Arjuna and his four broth-

ers (all sons of Pāṇḍu and thereby called the “Pāṇḍavas”) were unjustly

cheated out of their kingdom by their sociopathic cousins (the Kauravas), and

the Pāṇḍavas had sought every diplomatic means of resolving the tension

that would allow them to live the remainder of their lives peacefully. They

initially sought the restoration of their entire wealth but later were willing to

settle for a modest five villages to eke out a living. War was made inevitable

not by the Pāṇḍavas’ refusal to compromise, lack of deference, and willing-

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ness to make peace but by the Kauravas’ tyrannical unwillingness to make

peace. What makes the impending war especially tragic is that the Pāṇḍavas

are faced with the challenge of fighting not only tyrannical relatives that they

could not care less for; they must also fight loved ones and well-wishers,

who, through obligations that arise out of patronage and professional loyalty

to the throne, must fight with the tyrants. Bhīṣma, the grand-uncle of the

Pāṇḍavas and the Kauravas and an invincible warrior (gifted or cursed with

the freedom to choose when he will die), is an example of one such well-

wisher. He repudiated the motives of the Kauravas and sympathized with the

Pāṇḍavas, but because of an oath that preceded the birth of his tyrannical

grandnephews (the Kauravas), he remained loyal to the throne on which the

Kauravas’ father, Dhṛtarāshtra, presided. Arjuna, who looked upon Bhīṣma

and others like him as loving elders, had to subsequently fight him. The

conflict and tender feelings between these parties was on display when,

before the war, Arjuna’s eldest brother, Yudhiṣṭhira, wanted the blessings of

Bhīṣma on the battlefield to commence the war and Bhīṣma, his enemy and

leader of the opposing army, blessed him with victory.

Before the commencement of the battle, on the very battlefield with ar-

mies lined up in opposition and with Krishna as his charioteer, Arjuna loses

heart and entertains three arguments against fighting.

First, if he were to fight the war, it would result in death and destruction

on both sides, including the death of loved ones. Even if he succeeds, there

would be no joy in victory because his family would largely have been

decimated as a function of the war.

This is a consequentialist and, more

specifically, utilitarian argument. Consequentialism is the theory that the

ends justify the means. Utilitarianism is the version of consequentialism that

holds that agent-neutral ends, such as the maximization of happiness or the

minimization of pain, justify our actions. In the Indian tradition, the source of

such arguments could be Buddhists, who are known for a consequentialist

ethics,

or perhaps proponents of the Nyāya tradition.

Regardless of the

cultural origins, according to utilitarianism, the right thing to do is justified

by some agent-neutral good (harm reduction or the maximization of happi-

ness), and, here, Arjuna’s reasoning is that he should skip fighting to ensure

the good of avoiding harm. It is worth noting that this argument on the basis

of utilitarianism pans out only if fighting ends up making things worse; if

war were the means to maximize happiness or minimize suffering, utilitar-

ianism would justify war. In the case of the Mahābhārata, luck has it that the

Pāṇḍavas are fewer in number than the Kauravas, and so it would seem that

giving into the Kauravas would make more people happy and simply avoid

the bloodshed and pain of war.

Second, if the battle is between good and evil, Arjuna’s character is not

that of the evil ones (the Kauravas), yet fighting a war would make him no

better than his adversaries.

This is a virtue ethical argument. According to

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such arguments, the right thing to do is the result of a good, the virtues, or

strength of character. In the Western tradition, virtue ethics is associated with

Plato and Aristotle, who did not reason that war was unnecessary, and Plato

in the Republic reasoned that a class of people in an ideal community are

needed to wage war, namely, the guardians. In the Indian tradition, the think-

ers who were the likely source of this virtue theoretic argument were the

Jains, who regarded all action, especially and including action in deference to

one’s own physical interests, as wrong because such action further buries

one’s own virtue in practical schemes that run counter to the innate benign

character of persons.

The idea that fighting evil renders oneself debased

and evil (and that passivism is the appropriate response to evil) has a firm

basis in Jain moral theory. The argument also resonates with the Christian

idea in the Gospel of Matthew that the proper alternative to a retaliatory

approach to offense is to turn the other cheek.

Third, war results in lawlessness, which undermines the virtue and safety

of women and children (Gītā, 1.41). This might be understood as an elabora-

tion of the first consequentialist argument: not only does war end in suffer-

ing, which should be avoided, but it also leads to undermining the personal

safety of women and children and, because their safety is good, we ought to

avoid war to protect it. But the argument can also be understood as a version

of Kantian-style deontology.

An essential feature of deontology is the identification of goods, whether

they are actions (i.e., duties) or freedoms (i.e., rights), as being what require

justification on procedural grounds. A duty is hence not only something that

is good to do and a right is not only something good to have, but one we have

reason to do or allow. Such goods, duties, and rights constitute the social

fabric and are justified (as Kant reasoned) in so far as they help us relate to

each other in a kingdom of ends. Deontology is hence the inverse of conse-

quentialism; whereas consequentialism holds that the good outcome justifies

the procedure, the deontologist holds that some good state of affairs (i.e.,

actions and freedoms) are justified by a procedural consideration. But what

consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics have in common is the idea

that the good (i.e., the valuable outcome) is an essential feature of making

sense of the right (thing to do). Morality defined or explained by way of the

good is something that can be established as an outcome of reality and hence

conventionalized. Thinking about morality by way of the good helps us

identify an area of moral reasoning we might call conventional morality:

actions motivated by good character (virtue ethics), good actions that we

have good reason to do (deontology), and actions that are justified in so far as

they promise to maximize the good as such (consequentialism).

What is surprising hence is that all of Arjuna’s arguments against war

make use of the good, and the theories he relies on fill out the content of what

we could call conventional morality. According to conventional morality, we

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should do what is inspired by the virtues, avoid causing harm, and affirm the

importance of good rules of interaction, whether they be characterized as

rights or duties. War disrupts conventional morality as Arjuna laments. And

this is indeed tragic in so far as conventional morality is organized around the

good.

But there is indeed another side to the story, which Arjuna does not see

and the Mahābhārata renders clear. It was conventional morality that made it

possible for the Kauravas to exercise their hostility against the Pāṇḍavas by

restricting and constraining the Pāṇḍavas. The Pāṇḍavas could have rid

themselves of the Kauravas by killing them at any number of earlier times

when they had the chance in times of peace, and everyone who survived

would have been better off for having been rid of moral parasites as rulers

and having the benevolent Pāṇḍavas instead. They could have accomplished

this most easily by assassinating the Kauravas in secret or perhaps openly in

public when they were not expecting it because the Kauravas never worried

about nor protected themselves from such a threat, owing to the virtue of the

Pāṇḍavas, whom they counted on. And yet the Pāṇḍavas’ fidelity to conven-

tional morality created a context for the Kauravas to ply their trade of deceit

and hostility. The game of dice that snared the Pāṇḍavas is a metaphor for

conventional morality itself: a social practice justified by prospects of a good

outcome (consequentialism), organized around good rules that make the par-

ticipation of all possible (deontology), and actions that follow from the cou-

rage and strength of its participants (virtue ethics).

The lesson of the Mahābhārata generalizes; conventional morality places

constraints on people who are conventionally moral, and this enables the

maleficence of those who act to undermine conventional morality by under-

mining those who bind themselves with it. Call the latter, who use conven-

tional morality as a weapon against the conventionally moral, moral para-

sites (Kauravas) and the former, who are happy to be bound by conventional

morality, moral conventionalists (Pāṇḍavas). The moral parasite is someone

who, for instance, wishes you to be honest and to abide by conventions of

transparency so they can steal from you. The moral parasite is someone who,

for instance, wishes for you to behave in a manner that is courteous, kind,

and accommodating so they can assault you, without resistance. The only

way to end this relationship of parasitism is for the conventionally moral to

give up on conventional morality and engage moral parasites in war. This

would be a just war—dharmyaṃ yuddham—and the essence of a just war

because the cause would be to rid the world of moral parasites. Yet, from the

perspective of conventional morality, which encourages mutually accommo-

dating behavior, this departure is wrong and bad. Indeed, relying purely on

conventional standards that encourage social interaction for the promise of a

good, an argument for pacifism is more easily constructed than an argument

for war.

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McMahan, from the perspective of the authors of the Gītā and

Mahābhārata, is correct for noting that there is an important moral distinc-

tion to be drawn between those who fight for a just cause and those who do

not. We might even note that the thrust of the argument from the Gītā agrees

that those who fight for a just cause do no wrong but those who fight for an

unjust cause are not morally equal to those who fight for a just cause—it is in

an important sense wrong for them to fight the war. The liability requirement

of discrimination, which holds that combatants must intentionally attack only

those who are legitimate targets, is often thought to mark out jus in bello for

all parties, and legitimate targets are often thought to be restricted to enemy

combatants, clearly marked out from third parties, such as civilians. As

McMahan notes, it is not at all clear how this applies to those who fight for

an unjust cause because the injustice of the cause should undermine the

propriety of attacking enemy (just) combatants. From the perspective of the

Gītā, we could also agree to his conclusion that “the traditional criterion of

liability to attack in war [from the West]—posing a threat to others—is

unacceptable.”

Everyone poses a threat to others in so far as we all stand in

each other’s way. He further elaborates:

As I have presented it, the alternative conception of innocence is that one is

innocent if one is neither morally responsible for nor guilty of a wrong. While

the classical just war theorists focused on guilt, I think we should focus instead

on moral responsibility. It is, I think, a mistake to suppose that noninnocence

in the sense of moral guilt or culpability is necessary for liability to attack in

war. Something less is sufficient: namely, moral responsibility for a wrong,

particularly an objectively unjustified threat of harm. . . . [P]osing an objec-

tively unjustified threat is not sufficient for liability in the absence of moral

responsibility for that threat. In short, the criterion of liability to attack in war

is moral responsibility for an objectively unjustified threat of harm.

What the Gītā and Mahābhārata show, however, is that this threshold is too

high. Moral parasites do something objectively wrong by being moral para-

sites, but the wrong is much less than a threat of harm; it is merely the

imposition of conventional moral standards on others as a means of hostility.

It is difficult to characterize this as an objectively unjustified threat of harm if

one endorses conventional morality because moral conventionalists are para-

doxically committed to agreeing to this imposition because they have their

own reasons for endorsing it. That a thief desires us to be honest, for in-

stance, does not undermine our reasons for being honest, and, for us, honesty

may continue to be the best policy, even though it is in the advantage of the

parasite.

In the Mahābhārata itself, it is most important that Krishna, the adviser of

the Pāṇḍavas, steps in as their representative when they return from their

exile and pursues peace and compromise to its logical extent. Krishna at-

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tempts to broker that the Pāṇḍavas should be given five villages for them to

live in so that they can each sustain themselves as professional rulers of these

communities. The Kauravas refuse, though they only took hold of the land in

trust while the Pāṇḍavas were in exile. But now a new set of conventions has

been created, with the Kauravas in charge of everything, and it is the imposi-

tion of this convention that constitutes the Kauravas’ final assault as moral

parasites. In this case, it is difficult for the Pāṇḍavas to see the move as an

imposition of conventional morality (because it excludes them), and perhaps

for this reason the Pāṇḍavas are inclined to fight. But the real reason war is

inevitable is not for lack of conciliation on the part of the Pāṇḍavas but by

virtue of the parasitism of the Kauravas.

KRISHNA’S RESPONSE

To recap, the Mahābhārata depicts just war as arising at the breakdown of

conventional morality, between those who would protect and abide by such

constraints and against those who would not. Before this breakdown, there is

indeed a clear line that separates the innocent from the evil; not only is one

side justified in its cause, but its conduct is creditable too, whereas the other

side is not justified in its cause, and its conduct is discreditable. But, after the

breakdown of conventional morality, when the virtuous are no longer willing

to be constrained by the virtues themselves and are willing to engage in

conduct outside the bounds of conventional morality and are hence motivated

to engage in war, it is paradoxical to draw lines in the sand between sides; the

Mahābhārata’s stress on the familial drama, which pits well-wishers against

well-wishers, illustrates this point.

War might be right and hence just, but it

is difficult to argue that it is good. The evil of war is shown by the desire of

combatants in a war not for endless war (something we wish to preserve or

maximize) but for victory, which is a good and also the cessation of war. So

those who are committed to engaging in battle are hence not committed to

the goodness of war but to its end. This shows that to transition from conven-

tional morality to war is to leave the good as an organizing principle and to

engage in an activity that is bad but also conventionally bad—with the dis-

tant hope of a good. In facilitating an understanding of the etiology of a just

war, the Mahābhārata at once allows us to understand the moral distinction

between those who fight justly (i.e., moral conventionalists) and those who

do not (i.e., moral parasites), and yet the war that ensues constitutes a depar-

ture from the standards that would allow us to draw sides. And, whereas

McMahan

argued that the moral considerations that exist before war are

exactly those that allow us to understand the justice of one side during war,

the Mahābhārata appears to deny this because the conventional moral con-

siderations are structured around the good and war is crucially a bad thing

Shyam Ranganathan184

DRAFT

characterized by several evils. Indeed, Arjuna’s three arguments against war

reviewed above—his consequentialist argument,

virtue ethical argument,

and deontological argument

—show the evil of war. Krishna’s argument in

response does not refute that war is bad: it trades on deflating the relevance

of the good to rational deliberation.

Krishna’s argument in the Gītā that concludes that Arjuna should fight his

war and that such a war would be just provides a purely procedural approach

to moral theorizing that does not involve or rely upon the good in any deep

way. This allows Krishna to mark out a different set of moral considerations

that survive the breakdown of conventional morality, which does depend on

the good. This approach allows us to distinguish whose conduct and cause is

just in war from those whose conduct and causes are unjust.

The first procedural ethic he defends is a form of deontology he calls

karma yoga, the discipline of action. Action is itself purposeful, and the

discipline of action is a practice of perfecting purposeful action. The argu-

ment is delivered generally as an argument for correct action in the face of

uncertainty: no matter who you are, something counts as your duty, and the

perfection of this duty is itself a good that relieves one from trouble.

More-

over, all people who uphold a transcendental moral order (including Krishna,

who is depicted here as the Lord—the procedural ideal of right action, which

in its essence is both unconservatism and self-governance) participate in this

moral order by doing their duty. Krishna too, the procedural ideal, must

participate in dutiful behavior, and the Lord’s duties include lokasaṃgraha

(the maintenance of the welfare of the world)

and to reestablish the moral

order when it declines.

Whereas deontology can be part of a conventional-

ized picture of morality, karma yoga abstracts from conventional morality.

One’s duty can continue even at the breakdown of conventional moral expec-

tations structured around the good because it is justified not by the good but

by procedural considerations. But, as the reward of such behavior is duty

itself, moral parasitism is limited in its capacity to treat one’s own conscien-

tious behavior as a tool of its hostility.

The next step is bhakti yoga, the discipline of devotion. Here, right action

is defined by its conformity to a regulative ideal—Krishna himself—and, in

doing what is right, we sacrifice a concern for the outcome as a means of

worshipping the procedural ideal. This same theory is found elsewhere, artic-

ulated more clearly in the Yoga Sūtra; it is the moral theory of yoga (disci-

pline) or bhakti.

According to this account, right action is defined by a

procedural ideal—unconservatism and self-governance—and perfecting our

practice of the right is the good. This theory differs from deontology in an

important respect. Whereas deontology treats our duty as itself a good, jus-

tified by procedural considerations only, in yoga/bhakti, the right is defined

by a procedural ideal, and hence we do not need to understand our moral

practice in terms of the good.

In contrast to virtue ethics, consequentialism,

Just War and the Indian Tradition 185

DRAFT

and deontology, it alone accounts for morality without recourse to the good.

The good is not a primitive notion, here, but one definable by way of the

perfection of the right. So, whereas conventional morality is structured

around the good, bhakti dispenses with the good.

A third moral practice that Krishna recommends is jñāna yoga: the disci-

pline of thoughtfulness or knowledge. Jñāna yoga is the critical appreciation

of the framework of moral action, which complements karma yoga’s dis-

interest in trying to understand action as justified by outcome. It is the meta-

ethical component of the shift away from conventional morality to a fully

procedural approach to ethics. The essential element in this recipe is a move

to thinking about morality in purely procedural terms, which cuts out the

good as a primitive concept. This allows those who engage in just war,

against moral parasites, to have a moral compass that is not that of conven-

tional morality, which they had to leave behind to fight. Moreover, the moral

compass of yoga—discipline, or proceduralism—is timeless in so far as we

can understand its importance, even within the context of the breakdown of

conventional morality.

In the moral framework of yoga, there is a way to clearly identify the jus

ad bellum of just war. Previously we identified the just cause as the cause of

ridding the world of moral parasites. This is reworked into a positive doctrine

with yoga: our cause is just when we are devoted to the regulative ideal of

unconservatism and self-governance and our conduct is thereby just; it is

thereby not possible to have just conduct without a just cause. But this is a

winning strategy in war because it involves giving up on conventional moral-

ity and engaging in belligerent action outside of the scope of convention but

is also contrary to those who would attempt to constrain our potential. Moral

parasites are deprived of their favored weapon, but this is a side effect of our

own devotion to the Lord: unconservatism and self-governance. This re-

quires that we follow the dialectic of Krishna, which begins with deontology

but ends with the recommendation that we do not worry about morality,

merely devotion to the procedural ideal (Gītā, 18:66). This seems paradoxi-

cal, but the paradox disappears when we appreciate that the moral standards

we give up are conventional, tied to the good, and the one we embrace is

ideal, tied to the regulative ideal.

The argument we find in the Gītā provides us a way to understand the

logic of self-defense. The idea that we have a right to defend ourselves

against aggression is widely acknowledged. But for pacifists, who take the

stand that we should turn the other cheek, most would regard it as within our

rights and perhaps even a requirement of justice that we defend ourselves

against aggression, especially if this aggression is itself a departure from

conventional morality, unprovoked or unjustified. Yet it is difficult to square

with conventional moral expectation. Harming others does not follow from

the conventional moral virtues; it is not a good end that could justify morality

Shyam Ranganathan186

DRAFT

(unless one’s idea of morality is sadism), and harming others is not a conven-

tional moral duty. Yet this is what self-defense entails. It would seem that

one’s aggressor’s departure from conventional morality, by adopting an ag-

gressive or threatening posture, is what apparently justifies one’s own depar-

ture from conventional expectations. And yet, so described, the right that we

have to meet such hostility in kind assumes that we have departed the moral

parameters of conventional morality. But now it appears that we have left

behind the tools we would need to justify our actions. This is the predicament

of the Pāṇḍavas against the Kauravas. Krishna’s arguments for devotion

provide the matrix for making sense of self-defense: it is a mere function of

our devotion to unconservatism and self-governance and requires no permis-

sion or blessing from conventional morality. To talk about it as a right—a

good freedom that we should protect—is to use the language of convention

to capture something whose justification transcends the good. However, this

procedural ideal—the Lord—is not proprietary but something we share as a

governing interest as people who have an interest in their own unconserva-

tism and self-governance. The ideal is something that we can organize and

rally around as common cause. Parasites concerned only with their own good

do not aspire to this common just cause and are instead tied to their vision of

the good.

OBJECTIONS

One objection to the argument for a procedural approach to just war theory is

that it not only licenses self-defense but apparently also preemptive meas-

ures. If we were to appreciate the motive of a party as moral parasitism, it

would apparently be proper for us to confront, intimidate, or do away with

such parasites, even if they had yet to break a moral convention and especial-

ly to prevent them from violating moral expectations. This seems like a

problem if we understand just war by way of conventional morality. But, as

noted, war does away with that. Moreover, intimidating and marginalizing

moral parasites is part of the very moral procedure of devotion to unconser-

vatism and self-governance, and, in so far as this can allow us to identify the

just side in a conflict and to distinguish it from the moral parasites, we have

no reason to object. The moral parasites, unlike the moral conventionalists,

are motivated by the subjective goods of their hostility: their advantage. The

moral conventionalist who takes up a procedural ethic is instead devoted in

general to procedural considerations in morality. This suggests hence that the

best just war is one where there is virtually little or no fighting; as in matters

of health, the best measures would be preventive. This too seems strange if

we adopt the posture of conventional morality but proper if we are procedu-

ralists.

Just War and the Indian Tradition 187

DRAFT

Consider also the case of anticolonial freedom fighters, who in the case of

India or perhaps the civil rights movement in the United States, adopted

tactics of unconservatism and self-governance that crippled conventional

moral expectations as a means of deflating the power of moral parasites, such

as British imperialists and racist policymakers of the United States. Gandhi is

famous for his reliance on the Bhagavad Gītā for inspiration for his struggle.

What is often not noted is that he drew inspiration and theory from the Yoga

Sūtra,

which not only articulates the radical procedural approach to moral-

ity (yoga and bhakti) but also prescribes civil disobedience as a means of

dealing with moral parasites.

M. L. King for his part was deeply influenced

by the political theorizing of Gandhi, and he applied the same strategy in the

US context. In the literature, citizen protests against hate groups and progres-

sive political movements of liberation against colonialist or racist oppression

are not treated as cases of war. Consider for instance Virginia Held’s list of

differing kinds of war: “world wars, small wars, civil wars, revolutions, and

wars of liberation.” Her comment that “terrorism resembles a small war”

a characterization that excludes bloodless, nonviolent social confrontation.

For any of these to be just, according to the considerations of the Gītā, they

must involve a devotion to the regulative ideal, but then the justice of war is

not to be measured in terms of casualties but in terms of the cause.

A second objection might be that the yogic or procedural approach to just

war theory cannot explain the continuity of conflict in many areas of the

world because surely some sides in these conflicts are just, and they should

be far more successful if they manage to uproot the target of just war—moral

parasites—by leaving aside conventional morality. The obvious response is

that in most cases of sustained and perpetual conflict it is not clear whether

any side has an uncontroversially just cause because all sides are tied to

conventional morality to some measure. Each wishes their vision of the

goods of morality to be imposed on the other, and this desire to impose such

standards is an act of aggression. Such a mutual imposition might character-

ize a cold war or an active war of violence. Such wars are difficult to termi-

nate because no side is motivated to revise the moral order but merely to

sustain their vision of it.

A third objection is that just war understood as a procedural affair, as the

Gītā describes it, licenses preemptive strikes that are unjustified. We might

consider George W. Bush’s bombing and takeover of Iraq on the (fabricated)

supposed threat of weapons of mass destruction. Saddam Hussein could be

described as a moral parasite who wanted to inflict a certain conventionalized

vision on others for personal gain, and so it would have seemed just for the

United States to attack Iraq. Yet this is widely regarded as a failure and

hardly the paradigm case of a just war. Such scenarios of unjust preemptive

strikes fail an important procedural test: unconservatism and self-governance

as a procedural ideal that defines the right prevents us from thinking about

Shyam Ranganathan188

DRAFT

campaigns as motivated by some good (say getting rid of Saddam Hussain)

but rather fidelity to the regulative ideal. Hence, unjust preemptive strikes

will fail to be just because they are motivated by some perceived good, such

as the imposition of democracy, riddance of a perceived threat, or the rooting

out of a dictator. The just cause is one that we can make sense of independent

of threats. The Allied campaign against the Axis powers in WWII stands in

sharp contrast. Here, the war was a function of the Allies’ practice of reestab-

lishing their own unconservatism and self-governance and thereby was just.

In this case, the Axis powers had assumed a hostile position not only with

respect to their own citizens (as in the case of Germany’s persecution of its

own minorities) but also with respect to their neighbors. The Allied interven-

tion to disarm this hostility and put an end to the persecution of minorities

was hence required to reestablish unconservatism and self-governance in

general and the unconservatism and self-governance of the Allies. In the case

of the Triple Entente versus the Triple Alliance in WWI, the origins of the

war and cause of justice is murkier. Had either side sought to inculcate

unconservatism and self-governance among all combatants, their cause

would be just. The harsh conditions of the Treaty of Versailles that the

French and British (of the Triple Entente) imposed on Germany (of the

Triple Alliance) were punitive; they demanded an admission of German guilt

for the war, and reparations undermined the cause of the Triple Entente

because it rendered punishing the Germans the goal of the war, not the

reestablishment of unconservatism and self-governance. That German resent-

ment could lead to another world war is unsurprising; it was a function of a

failure to resolve the war justly. The earlier annexation of the Balkan states

of Bosnia and Herzegovina by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, thought to

have motivated the Serbian nationalists to assassinate the Austro-Hungarian

Archduke Ferdinand and commonly thought to be the start of WWI, consti-

tuted the imposition of a moral convention on a population that did not ask

for it. This was an unjust action that tainted the cause of the Triple Alliance.

India’s forceful reclamation of Goa from Portuguese rule (1961) was just;

the Portuguese as colonizers were participating in the breakdown of conven-

tional morality by the imposition of their laws as a means of controlling the

local population. Portuguese control of Goa was hence unjust, and the Portu-

guese were hence not justified in resisting Indian takeover, which had the

effect of returning local South Asian control to Goa. India’s military interces-

sion in Bangladesh’s liberation from Pakistan (1971) was similarly justified;

West Pakistan’s violent attempt to wrest control of East Bengal, after a

history of marginalization and imperial rule from the west, not only justified

Bangladesh’s break but also India’s intercession on behalf of the breakaway

East Bengal to establish unconservatism and self-governance for all con-

cerned.

Just War and the Indian Tradition 189

DRAFT

CONCLUSION

A famous Indian argument for jus ad bellum and jus in bello is presented in

literary form in the Mahābhārata; it involves events and dynamics between

two groups, moral conventionalists and moral parasites, that come to a head

in the fateful battle, which the Bhagavad Gītā precedes. Arjuna’s own lament

is an internalization of the logic of conventional moral expectations that

allowed moral parasitism, and Krishna’s push for a purely procedural ap-

proach to moral reasoning that, in its radical form, does away with the good

as a primitive of explanation provides the moral considerations that allow us

to see that the jus ad bellum and jus in bello coincide. The just cause is the

approximation to the procedural ideal, which is also just conduct. Hence,

McMahan

would be correct in claiming that it is wrong for the unjust to

attack the just. But it is also not obviously correct that it is the same set of

moral considerations in war and peace that mark out the sides because peace

is largely characterizable by conventional morality, which all are forced to

abandon in war. Walzer

is correct that there are different sets of standards

at play at war and peace and that getting hands dirty in immorality is a price

worth paying in war,

but Walzer is thereby incorrect for a subtle reason:

conventional standards by way of which jus ad bellum and jus in bello appear

corrupt are themselves actually corrupt when the need for a just war arises. It

is because moral parasites use conventional morality as a means of hostility

and not as a means of fair, inclusive social interaction that conventional

morality is corrupted and turned into a tool of the unjust. It is hence unjust to

employ these standards to judge those whose cause is just, though such a

judgment is conventional. In no way does jus in bello that breaks convention-

al moral standards lessen jus ad bellum. And indeed, the departure from

conventional morality by those whose cause is just is decisive in undermin-

ing the cause of the unjust. Certainly, those who fight for a just cause thereby

justly get their hands dirty by departing from conventional moral standards.

But this is to the disadvantage of parasites who can function only in a climate

where the conventionally good are constrained by conventional morality.

Just war so understood deprives parasites of their weapon of choice. Just war

thereby succeeds by the just imposing on the unjust the cruelties, disadvan-

tages, or inconveniences rendered impossible by conventional morality.

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