My answer to question 4018 may be relevant. See www.askphilosophers.org/question/4018

Transpose the case to one where you come across a body by the side of a rural road in your own country. You stop your car, find that the person is dead, then take her valuables and drive off. You are in no position to know whether the person has made a will or who the items should be returned to. Is your conduct then alright? I would think not. Though you don't know who this person's friends and relatives are, its quite likely that she had friends and relatives, and it's quite possible that some of them would appreciate something to remember her by. Likewise, though you don't know whether or not she has made a will, she may well have done so and, in any case, will have legal heirs under the law. (One reason she may not have made a will is that she was content for her property to go to those the laws says it should go to if she dies intestate.) It's not your job to find the heirs, friends, relatives. But this does not mean you can just walk off with her stuff. This reaction to the domestic case...

I am not so sure that you can get out of your military service simply by saying that you wish to preserve your liberty and don't wish to harm other people. You may know the present situation better than I do, but I know of a number of young Israelis who ended up in jail for refusing to serve in the IDF. I see your justice point: The IDF is protecting the physical security of Israeli citizens (or at least of a large majority of the Israeli population to which you belong), and so it seems unjust for you to enjoy this protection but then also to refuse to contribute to it. You say that there is nothing you can do to avoid being protected by the IDF. If this were true, then this would weaken your reasons to serve. To illustrate, suppose you have a fan who, unprompted by you, greatly improves your reputation by posting admiring stories about you on Facebook, by very effectively singing your praises to important people in your social environment whose support will greatly help your career, etc....

I think Leaman is right that, in war and elsewhere, one must often choose between morally unpalatable alternatives. For example, the only way to protect innocent people from being massacred may be an intervention that risks killing other innocent people. And then your question (how would you feel if one of your loved ones were killed as collateral?) would be balanced by a similar question on the other side (how would you feel if one of your loved ones were massacred because we decided not to intervene?). Having said this, I also feel I understand what upset you in Leaman's answer. There are two relevant passages. One says that "try[ing] to distinguish as far as possible between civilians and insurgents .. is a pretty empty policy once the bullets start flying. Right now the US and British military in Afghanistan have responded to pressure from the Afghan government to unleash less remote bombing operations to cut down on civilian deaths, and this has resulted predictably in increased military...

There are various potentially relevant differences. First, interventions abroad are often more likely to be counterproductive. The foreign government committing or condoning the human rights violations may be so powerful that the attempt to stop it will cause much more death and destruction than is now occurring. By contrast, we can bring overwhelming force to bear domestically and thereby crush even well-armed crime gangs.Second, internationally we do not have unique authority to judge and to act. We are just one of many similarly placed agents possibly able to do something. These agents (the governments of powerful states) are likely to see things differently -- e.g. may support different factions in a country that's facing a violent power struggle. For example, some potential interveners may believe that the Sri Lankan all-out assault upon the Tamil Tigers was a crime that had to be stopped (because so many civilians were also hurt and killed). Other potential interveners may believe that the assault...

This question cannot be answered in general terms. Some killings that you may be required to perform may be justifiable, others not. Generally, killings in war are thought to be justifiable when two conditions are both fulfilled: Your country must have a just cause for being involved in the war in the first place. And each potentially lethal action within the war must be aimed at a legitimate target while taking great care to spare others who are not a threat. You must reassure yourself on both counts before you start killing people on the orders of others. This can be quite straightforward when you are ordered to defend your country against invading soldiers. But it can be far more difficult, if not impossible, when you are ordered to participate in an attack upon, and occupation of, another country. Taking the U.S. invasion of Iraq as an example, there is considerable doubt about the first condition. The U.S. sought but failed to obtain UN Security Council authorization. The weapons of mass...

There is nothing incoherent about the ideal of world peace, even when we hold fixed that human beings have conflicts and disagreements as well as greed, pride, and a desire for power. Nonetheless, world peace may be empirically highly unlikely in a system of states like the one we have been having for the last few centuries. One might argue for this pessimistic conclusion as follows. Some people strive for power, and such people are likely to be substantially overrepresented in politics (as those who like power are more likely to go into politics and as those in politics acquire a taste for power). The domestic power of politicians tends to increase in times of tension and hostility as a frightened public is willing to cede to politicians greater authority. The international power of politicians may be increased or decreased by heightened tension and hostility. Which it is depends on what their country's power is mainly based on. There are three main components of a country's political power:...