Derek: 00:06

Welcome back to the Fourth Wave podcast. Today, we are continuing our discussion on the incoherence of just war theory by taking a look at the idea of reasonable success. And just a reminder that the audio quality of this recording may be a little bit, worse than than normal, so please excuse that and I hope to be able to return to normalcy soon. So reasonable success. It's one of the ideas of just word theory that you will oftentimes find as not being a part of it.

Derek: 00:39

It depends on on who you're looking at, but some people include it and some people don't. I'm just including it here because I think it's, I think it's something interesting to to think about, and depending on the formulation you're looking at, it might be something worthwhile to think about. And of course, my first question for this idea of reasonable success is how does this ethic not become consequentialist? How is it not the ends justify the means morality? It's basically saying don't sacrifice for what's right if you can't win.

Derek: 01:12

It's the opposite of that integrity poster I talk about having at my school as I was growing up, which says that we should do the right thing even if nobody's watching, even if it doesn't get us anything. The right thing is the right thing no matter what, but reasonable success says, no, the right thing is not the right thing is only the right thing if it has a chance of bringing about the results that benefit you or the results that you want. And this is going to touch on something we've talked about in a few of our other points which is it seems like The United States and I'm sure just about anybody, everybody who goes to war is never going to go to war for all the right reasons. They're going to go to war out of self interest. Right?

Derek: 02:04

I'm only going to go defend that country if I can get something out of it, if I have a chance of winning, if when I come out of it I'm not vulnerable to another nation, if right? We have all these these ifs. So we won't protect certain countries from genocides but we'll protect other countries where we have oil interests. And that seems to be a consequentialistic or self interested ethic that I think is problematic for Christian morality. Another question I have is how do you deal when when you talk about reasonable success, how do you define that?

Derek: 02:42

Now how do you deal with modern statistical science which shows that nonviolent action actually leads not only to more reasonable chances of success, but also towards more reasonable chances of a lasting success, of finality. How do you deal with the current empirical data that we have talking about this? Particularly speaking of of the research titled Why Civil Resistance Works. It seems to me that this idea of reasonable success really has a lot of assumptions hiding behind it. We're not talking about reasonable success here, we're talking about reasonable success which allows me to come out strong and with all the things I want without too much loss or cost to myself.

Derek: 03:35

Right? Isn't that the the Christian ethic? Sacrifice so long as it's not self sacrifice. And that brings up another issue which we talk about frequently and that is this idea that we're unwilling to help so many people. And so often, violent people, not violent people, people who adhere to the use of violence as legitimate will will say, Oh, so you would just stand by while an innocent person gets attacked, and you have a gun and you're able to intervene and stop them.

Derek: 04:09

And if you say no, I would not shoot that person, would not hurt that person, I would not kill the aggressor, then you are just absolutely unjust. But quite interestingly, when these same people advocate policy, you know, we can see a Rwandan genocide going on, and we see the aggressor, we've got the gun, we've got a reasonable chance to intervene, and we don't. So how is it my personal ethic on a on a the logic of violence? How is it my personal ethic that I ought to intervene on an individual level? But then when we get to a national level, I am not required to intervene when I know that I can win.

Derek: 04:54

Reasonable Success if you want to hold hold that as as important as well as all these other things, Just Cause and and whatnot. If you want to hold people's feet to the fire saying you're unjust if you don't intervene in an individual situation where an aggressor is going to harm a child, then how do you excuse our nation from not intervening when another government is massacring tens of thousands of children? How do you escape that? You don't. Another question, why doesn't reasonable access a success apply to outclass and outnumbered engagements of soldiers or individuals fighting in wars or to protect one's families?

Derek: 05:44

So if reasonable success is legitimate on a large scale, right, my country won't go to war unless we can win, then when we see this on a smaller scale, like let's say with a platoon, and they're given a suicide mission, why does that why does that rationale for what makes aggression moral, why does it all of a sudden dissipate? Because if my platoon is sent on a suicide mission, I can't invoke, well, but we don't have reasonable success of winning, so therefore it's not good for me to go to war. It seems like you're taking this morality that you are willing to apply on a broad scale, but then when specifically applied to individuals or even smaller groups and units, you say that it it doesn't apply and you can't think about reasonable success. Especially with somebody protecting their families, you would say, No, you protect to the end and, you know, whether you have a chance of being successful or not, you die trying because that's what's noble. So it seems like a double standard there.

Derek: 06:54

If what is noble is fighting for what is right, whether you're gonna win or not, then why are we as The United States not getting involved in all of these other areas of conflict where justice is in question, where we've got significant problems with justice. It's double standard because on the national scale we want our system to be preserved so that we can keep getting money, keep living comfortably. We don't want to extend ourself and protect the world at the cost of paying higher taxes, at the cost of losing sons and fathers and brothers. We don't want cost to ourselves, and that's what reasonable success essentially says. And we recognize that this logic dissipates when we're talking about protecting our families or these beautiful last stands of people who are in in hopeless situations because they're fighting for the right thing, yet we don't apply that when it would produce discomfort and sacrifice for us because we don't have integrity.

Derek: 08:07

If we do believe in reasonable success, another question, why doesn't reasonable success retroactively negate the honor that we give to certain actions like those in the Revolutionary War. Now if we can look back in history and say, Man, we won the Revolutionary War but we really didn't have a chance, like that was kind of crazy. Obviously it was logically possible because it did happen but on paper they should have known that this there was not reasonable success. So how do we uphold our forebears from from sin or dishonor or whatever you want to call it, how do we not critique them on this idea of reasonable success? Well, because we don't really believe that standard.

Derek: 09:01

We think actually, man, they were so brave for going and fighting for what was right, which we'll get to later and discuss whether that was right or not. But they were so brave for fighting what was right even though they knew they didn't have much of a chance. Yet we we think that reasonable success is something that should determine whether we fight for the right or not, whether we fight for the small countries who really can't pay us anything and which it might overextend us and might cause us to sacrifice. So what is it? Do do we honor people who have unreasonable success and fight for the right thing or not?

Derek: 09:45

Thinking about another specific battle or war, would reasonable success, would this ethic or this standard make Gideon's battle with the Midianites immoral? If it doesn't because you recognize that God was on his side and God's plan is invincible, why then can't you recognize the same justification for non violence as God demands it in the New Testament? So let me unpack that, excuse me, unpack that a little bit more. So if you say, well, Gideon was justified to go up against a hundred thousand Midianites with his group of 400 people because even though it was absolutely unreasonable, I mean the most unreasonable thing you can think of with jars and torches and and stuff and yelling at them, a group of a hundred thousand people with 400, I mean that was just suicide. That was stupid.

Derek: 10:37

If you recognize that Gideon was justified in doing that because we know that God those are the orders God gave him and that God's plan is invincible and perfect, then why can't we recognize that when God tells us not to avenge in the New Testament, when God tells us to love and feed our enemies in the New Testament, Why can't we say, hey, look, just like Gideon trusted in God's battle plan, just like Jesus trusted in God's battle plan, even when he said, take this cup from me, but not my will, your will be done, when we see as in Philippians two that he humbled himself and he didn't he he gave up his divinity in the sense that he gave up his control over to God and God's foolish means of suffering and death. If we've got Gideon and Jesus and so many other people who are recognizing that no matter how unreasonable the success is and how stupid the plan seems, if it's God's plan, it's what we need to be on board with. Then this seems once again like like a double standard. You're gonna recognize Gideon's holiness and the importance of his following God's plan, but then you're gonna critique non violence on on this idea that it's unreasonable and idealistic and something that's not gonna work.

Derek: 12:05

Even though science, statistics show that it does, and irregardless, if God commands it, we do it. Final final question here or point. It seems like in a nuclear world, it would be impossible to have reasonable success if you are going to be moral in the Just War theory. So if, let me explain how this is the case. If Just War says that I cannot kill indiscriminately and Just War, depending on your version of it, says that I need to fight with reasonable success because I'm not just going to waste everybody's life and not end up accomplishing the good.

Derek: 12:56

That would be a waste. So I I don't want to kill civilians indiscriminately and I also don't want to fight unreasonably. Well, if you don't want to kill civilians then that means that you should be unwilling to use the nuclear bomb indiscriminately, so on large cities and whatnot, or something that's gonna produce a lot of fallout to other countries and kill countries that you're not even at war with. But if let's say The United States fights Russia, we've got two nuclear powers here who can reach each other with their missiles, and let's say The United States actually does become a Christian nation and therefore adheres to full morality, perfect morality, and Russia says, hey, look, we're gonna go to war with you and if you don't give in, we're gonna fire our all our nuclear weapons at you. And The United States says, well Russia, we'll fight you but we can't, we can't use our nuclear weapons.

Derek: 14:01

And Russia says, alright, then we're just gonna nuke you. The United States has to say, Okay, fine, fine, we won't fight you because, we have no reasonable chance of success if you're willing to use nuclear weapons, but our morality prevents us from doing that. Right? And if The United States would be willing to use nuclear weapons, then they're willing to just decimate civilization, not only the Russians and all of the Russian citizenry, but also so many countries around them. And by allowance of Russia shooting nuclear weapons at them, killing Canadians and Mexicans and anybody else who's who's close to United States and however far far the fallout goes.

Derek: 14:46

So it's it's impossible for two nuclear nations or even as long as one combatant is a nuclear nation, it's impossible to have a just war because reasonable success and civilian, or discrimination and civilian deaths are just incompatible with each other there. Well, that's all for now. So peace. And because I'm a pacifist, when I say it, I mean it.