A Critical Assessment of the Prescriptive Realism of War from a Moral Perspective

Document Type : Original Article

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Faculty member of the Institute of Islamic Sciences and Culture

Abstract

 A human serious concern throughout history and especially during the present
epoch is war and its potential damages. Theorists have always attempted to
examine war in many respects and weighed up its legitimacy legally and morally.
Since ancient Greece, moral philosophers have concerned themselves about the
moral assessment of war. There are three known theories regarding the ethics of
war: realism, pacifism, and just war theory. Realism as a common view is divided
into two kinds: descriptive and prescriptive, and prescriptive realism is classified
into two parts: moralized and cautionary. According to cautionary prescriptive
realism, the only way for states to promote interests inexpensively is by
abandoning moral principles and taking precautionary measures to protect
interests. This theory holds that accepting realism helps promote peace among
states while accepting just war theory may lead to war expansion. In this paper,
arguments for cautionary prescriptive realism will be critically explored

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