A Richer Jus Ad Bellum

This chapter argues for greatly expanding the scope of just war theorizing. Once one realizes that institutions matter to the morality of war, the list of issues that just war theory should address expands greatly beyond the question of what are the criteria for the rightness of war-making acts. These issues include the moral evaluation of social practices regarding what is considered to be a legitimate justification for going to war, the moral evaluation of decision-makers, the moral evaluation of institutions within which decisions to go to war are made, the moral evaluation of norm/institution packages, and the proper role of heuristics versus directly action-guiding norms.