The Justifications Of War : The Theory Of Just War?

The Crusades were the first tactical mission by Western Christianity in order to recapture the Muslim conquered Holy Lands. Several people have been accredited with the launch of the crusades including Peter the Hermit however it is now understood that this responsibility rested primarily with Pope Urban II . The main goal of the Crusades was the results of an appeal from Alexius II, who had pleaded for Western Volunteers help with the prevention of any further invasions. The Pope’s actions are viewed as him answering the pleas of help of another in need, fulfilling his Christian right. However, from reading the documents it is apparent that Pope Urban had ulterior motives for encouraging engagement in the war against the Turks. The

“For war, as a grave act of killing, needs to be justified.” These words were written by Murray N. Rothbard, dean of the Austrian School and founder of modern libertarianism, who spent much of his academic career trying to determine what, exactly, defined a “just war”. In fact, for as long as humans have been fighting wars, there have been quotations referring to the justification and moralities of wars and how warfare can be considered fair and acceptable to each society’s individual standards. While the time and place of each war differs, the reality of the devastation of battle may be found warranted by those fighting using these just war standards to vindicate their actions.

Just war encourages peace for all people and indicates that even though it isn’t the best solution, it is still required. Everyone has the duty to stop a potentially fatal or unjust attack against someone else, even if it meant using violence against the attacker. Plus, all states have some important rights that must not be violated by either people or states, so when they’re violated or potentially getting violated, that state is entitled to defend itself through whatever means necessary. Also, the state that did the violating lost their privilege to not have their own rights violated through means of violence. Therefore, just war is ethically permissible.

In the case of the Crusades, the true jurisdictional limitation of the Church of Rome’s authoritative order was infinite beyond that of state or feudal control. It would seem that an “infinite jurisdiction” by any entity is unjust! The only possible rationale for having such unlimited authority would be an innate belief in “entitlement” or “unrestricted sovereignty.”

Lastly, the notion to hurt one’s enemy peoples to force their government into a complete surrender and to minimize the general loss of one’s own troops is immoral. Naturally, the typical ethical standards of war would not justify any use of dehumanization in order for a nation to supersede the other. The Japanese became dehumanized in the minds of American combatants and civilians. The process enabled greater cultural and physical differences between white Americans and Japanese than between the former and their European foes. In Michael Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars (1977), he defines “ the use of force by one nation against another is always wrong unless the latter has already forfeited its basic rights.” Walzer is clearly stating that wars; especially nuclear wars are unjust if they strip away basic civilian rights. In other words, they are ponds in a game of political and nuclear warfare.

On November 27, 1095, Pope Urban II gave a supposedly important speech at the end of a church meeting in Clermont, France. In it he had called upon the nobleness of the Franks, to go to the East and assist their Christian “brothers”, the Byzantines, against the attacks of the Muslim Turks. He also apparently encouraged them to liberate Jerusalem, the most sacred and holy city in Christendom, for the Muslims had ruled it since taking it from the Christian Byzantines in A.D. 638. The Crusades were a series of wars between Christians and others to take back Jerusalem.

According to Baldric's version of Pope Urban II's speech calling for holy war, the Pope's chief motive was to rescue or liberate Jerusalem from Muslim control, for the purpose of spreading Christianity (namely, Roman Catholicism.) Baldric wrote about the speech favorably, from a post-crusade perspective, biased by his support of the crusades and his knowledge of the victories achieved.

The Crusades, a series of wars, are an extremely important part of history in the 12th century, occurring during the Middle Ages. The Middle East or the Holy Land was always a place that Christians traveled to to make pilgrimages. The Seljuk Turks eventually took control of Jerusalem and all Christians were not allowed in the Holy City. As the Turks power grew, they threatened to take over the Byzantine Empire and Constantinople. The Byzantine Emperor, Alexius I, asked Pope Urban II for help and Pope agreed, hoping to strengthen his own power. He He united the Christians in Europe and In 1095, Pope Urban II waged waged war against muslims in order to “reclaim the holy land.”

Going against modern day religious beliefs, in 1095AD the Christians went to war to claim the holy city of Jerusalem, massacring the Muslims in a bloody attempt to worship their God. Pope Urban II’s speech at Clermont inspired by claims made by the Byzantium Emperor encouraged the Christians to partake in the First Crusade in an attempt to liberate Jerusalem. The religious and economic factors were the most relevant to cause this crusade, with some influence from desired political gain and little from social factors unrelated to religion. The immediate consequences were positive for the Christians and negative for the Muslims, but the First Crusade launched an ongoing conflict between the Christians and Muslims which had positive and negative consequences for both sides. There are a number of relevant modern sources which examine the causes and consequences of the First Crusade, but, while there are many medieval sources, they do not explicitly discuss the causes and consequences of the war. In order to fully comprehend the First Crusade, it is necessary to analyse the religious, economic, and political factors, as well as the short-term, long-term, and modern consequences.

L. The main reason the crusades started was to take Jerusalem from the Turks. Before 1087, Christian pilgrims frequently traveled to Jerusalem, “the holy land”. However, according to document 6, “from 1087 onwards, turks stopped christian pilgrims from entering Jerusalem.” Basically, the Turks claimed Jerusalem as their own, and prevented any pilgrimages. Pope Urban II was not happy about this. He called European Christians to war in 1095 to recapture Jerusalem. According to Document 1, he says, “I, or rather, the Lord, beseech you as christ's heralds to publish this everywhere and persuade all people of whatever rank, foot-soldiers and knights, poor and rich….to destroy that vile race from the lands of our friends.” Basically, Pope Urban II is urging the people to fight the Turks, and win back Jerusalem.

In Document 1 the pope wrote, “ On whom therefore is the labor of avenging these wrongs and of recovering this territory incumbent, if not upon you?” This shows how the pope made the task to fight to win back the holy land up to all the christians. The pope used a certain zealousness to make the Christians excited about fighting in the Crusades. The Pope also went on to say “Accordingly undertake this journey for the remission of your sins, with the assurance of the imperishable glory of the kingdom of heaven.” The Pope told the christians that all their sins would be forgiven and they would go to heaven if they fought against the muslims to take back the holy land. This persuaded the christians to fight because they thought it was what god wanted them to do . The pope knew that by telling people this he would encourage them although some might’ve believed that it was what god really wanted them to do enough do that they would put their own life at risk to follow what god or the pope thought was

The age leading up to the first crusade is detailed by many current historians, as well as Pope Urban II, as a time period where inhabitants "rage[d] against [their own] brothers and cut each other [to] pieces" (Peters, Baldric of Dol, 31) for economic and social advancement. In spite of these references, many people today believe that the Pope instigated the crusades for the sole reason of reclaiming Jerusalem. However, other motivations such as supplementary religious factors and the chance for economic, social, and political gain also played major roles. These motivations were not experienced supremely by the Pope; in fact he needed to instill these inspirations in all Christians to evoke their will to fight. The holy land had long

In the year of 1095, Pope Urban ii called a meeting in the city of Clermont. His discussion creating a deadly manor of war called the “Crusades” to take back the “Holy Land” for the greedy Christians, “deus vult!” or “God wills it!” which was said by Pope Urban ii. Crusaders were more bloody and wicked than you’d think they were after you read this report. They’ve caused such horror to the Muslims and Jews that you’d cringe until you’d forget about the whole thing. This is why I will be creating an argument about this report.

The ultimate goal of a just war is to re-establish peace and safety. The just war can only be waged as a last resort requiring that all reasonable non-violent options must be exhausted before the use of force can be justified. A war can be just when it is fought with a reasonable chance of success. The Just War tradition is a set of mutually agreed rules of combat may be said to commonly evolve between two culturally similar enemies. An array of values are shared between two warring peoples, we often find that they implicitly or explicitly agree upon limits to their warfare.

The Just War Theory is a doctrine founded by Saint Augustine which has helped bring much discussion and debate to wars and the morality to fight in them. Wars and fights between people have gone on forever and are not perceived to stop anytime soon so it is important that some people thought about when and why they should ever fight. For many years Christians never part toke in this fighting due to teachings of the Bible and Jesus' teaching on 'turning the other cheek' and 'live by the sword, die by the sword'. Saint Augustine would be one of the first to talk about how a Christian could be a soldier and serve God at the same time. Through this thought we would receive the Just War Theory which gave a set of requirements for someone to partake