Rightful intention

Rightful intention

Good intention

A war is only a Just War if it is waged from the right motives.

Good intentions could include:

• creating, restoring or keeping a just peace
• righting a wrong
• assisting the innocent

Bad intentions could include:

• seeking power
• demonstrating the power of a state
• grabbing land or goods, or enslaving people
• hatred of the enemy
• genocide
• personal or national glory
• revenge
• preserving colonial power

Bad intentions and atrocities

If a war is motivated by hatred of the enemy or revenge or some of the other motives above it becomes easy to regard the enemy as less than human and this makes it much more likely that atrocities and war crimes will be committed.

Problems

In real life a good intention may be bound up with a bad one!

If the only way to secure peace, or the only way to pay for a war to help the innocent is to capture some of the enemy's territory, does a country's intention to capture territory make the war an unjust one?

Origins

This is one of the Just War conditions that is primarily religious in origin. If a person (or the people making up a state) wages war from the wrong motives they endanger their soul, because God will know that they've done wrong and will punish them appropriately.

The good intentions condition survives in secular argument for two reasons:

• most people think motives are relevant to the moral quality of an action
• wars fought from bad motives often lead to an unjust peace which leads to further conflict