International law; Natural law; War (International law)
III. In the second place, it is generally known that it is not the
ORIGIN only of a just war which is to be viewed as the principal source
of many of our rights, but there may be causes growing out of that war
which may give birth to additional rights. As in proceedings at law,
the sentence of the court may give to the successful litigant other
rights besides those belonging to the original matter of dispute. So
those who join our enemies, either as allies or subjects, give us
a right of defending ourselves against THEM also. So too a nation
engaging in an unjust war, the injustice of which she knows and ought
to know, becomes liable to make good all the expences and losses
incurred, because she has been guilty of occasioning them. In the
same manner those powers, who become auxiliaries in wars undertaken
without any reasonable grounds, contract a degree of guilt and render
themselves liable to punishment in proportion to the injustice of their
measures. Plato approves of war conducted so far, as to compel the
aggressor to indemnify the injured and the innocent.
IV. In the third place, an individual or belligerent power may, in the
prosecution of a lawful object, do many things, which were not in the
contemplation of the original design, and which in THEMSELVES it would
not be lawful to do. Thus in order to obtain what belongs to us, when
it is impossible to recover the specific thing, we may take more than
our due, under condition of repaying whatever is above the real value.
For the same reason it is lawful to attack a ship manned by pirates, or
a house occupied by robbers, although in that ship, or that house there
may be many innocent persons, whose lives are endangered by such attack.
But we have had frequent occasion to remark, that what is conformable
to right taken in its strictest sense is not always lawful in a moral
point of view. For there are many instances, in which the law of
charity will not allow us to insist upon our right with the utmost
rigour. A reason for which it will be necessary to guard against
things, which fall not within the original purpose of an action, and
the happening of which might be foreseen: unless indeed the action
has a tendency to produce advantages, that will far outweigh the
consequences of any accidental calamity, and the apprehensions of evil
are by no means to be put in competition with the sure hopes of a
successful issue. But to determine in such cases requires no ordinary
penetration and discretion. But wherever there is any doubt, it is
always the safer way to decide in favour of another's interest, than
to follow the bent of our own inclination. "Suffer the tares to grow,
_says our divine teacher_, least in rooting up the tares you root up
the wheat also."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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