Natural Right, Natural Law, and Positive Law: Aristotle’s Influence on St. Thomas Aquinas

Introduction

Since Thomas Aquinas, most arguments concerning natural right and natural law find their way back to Aristotle. Indeed, Aristotle pioneered a new concept of rights that were never discussed before his time. Whereas Plato bound the individual to his duty within the organ of the state, Aristotle argued that the individual deserved the right to enjoy an equality based society (Miller 87). Each individual had rights that existed within nature by definition (natural law). In addition to the discussion of natural law, Aristotle is credited for giving a detailed account of positive law as well.

Many common interpretations of Aristotle’s theory on natural right, natural law, and positive law are seen through the eyes of Aquinas; however, this approach has drawn much criticism. There is no question that Aquinas was heavily influenced by Aristotle, but there are several convincing arguments that question whether an accurate view of Aristotle is seen through the lens of Aquinas’ interpretation; in other words, “we must be wary of reading back into Aristotle Aquinean doctrines” (Shiner 188).

In this paper I intend to examine whether the Aquinean interpretation of Aristotle’s concept of natural right, natural law, and positive law is adequate to quell harsh criticism. I will do this by first addressing Aristotle’s concepts of natural right, natural law, and positive law. Second, I will explain how Aquinas defined natural right, natural law, and positive law. Third, I will show how Aquinas was influenced by Aristotle, and how – although Aquinas was influenced by Aristotle – he varied from Aristotle’s idea. I will conclude that while Aristotle is credited for helping to form the foundation of natural right, natural law, and positive law, these legal ideas cannot fit perfectly into the Aquinean interpretation without some adaptation.
Aristotle: Natural right, natural law, and positive law.

While the difference between natural law and positive law is a relatively easy distinction, there are often common misunderstandings between Aristotle’s concept of natural rights and natural law. The differences are often subtle, but there are differences nonetheless. To understand these I will include a variety of definitions that are associated to Aristotle’s understanding of natural right, natural law, and positive law, and then I will show how these theories fit together.

Natural Right

There are many competing theories concerning what Aristotle meant by natural rights. While some claim that Aristotle argues that a natural right is a type of inherent or “inalienable right” (as expressed in the American Declaration of Independence), others argue that a natural right comes into existence through the state. There is even a third theory that defines natural rights through an interpretation of natural justice and says that rights are “‘founded on the nature of man’, in distinction from merely conventional rights” (Miller 88). Bernard Yack defines Aristotle’s concept of natural right as “the idea that for every particular situation there exists one inherently just state of affairs against which we can measure the justice of our actions and opinions” (Yack 216).

While one argument denies that Aristotle has a distinct theory for natural rights and another argues that Aristotle has a working theory of natural rights – neither side disagrees on any substantive issue of interpretation (Miller 88-9). This said, I will argue that Aristotle had no concept of a natural right in connection with an “inalienable right,” but that, for Aristotle, the state, as a natural entity, determines men’s natural rights in establishing justice: “But justice is the bond of men in states, for the administration of justice, which is the determination for what is just, is the principle of order in political society” (Pol. 1253a37-9). Through just action, the state determines the natural right of the individual in maintaining order in political society. Because man is given natural rights through the state, this does not contradict Aristotle’s claim that man has rights that exist by nature – for the polis itself is a natural entity.

Natural Law

To Aristotle, the law is a type of justice (Pol. 1255a21-3). In defining natural law, Aristotle wrote that the “Universal law is the law of nature. For there really is, as every one to some extent divines, a natural justice and injustice that is binding on all men, even on those who have no association or covenant with each other” (Rhet 1373b6-9). The natural law is that which defines what is inherently just. However, in saying this, we encounter another problem. Bernard Yack argues that
Nature provides us with a standard to determine which individuals should participate in political communities. It has equipped human beings (or at least some human beings) with capacities that lead them to develop communities in which they rely on one another’s judgments bout the intrinsic merits of their actions. It has not, however, equipped them with a final standard against which to measure those judgments (Yack 217).

In one sense, it appears that Aristotle argues that nature itself directs the individual toward a moral imperative; however, Yack argues instead that Aristotle is not defending the existence of natural, inherently correct standards of justice. “[Aristotle] is, instead, arguing that the need for citizens to make and argue about judgments of the intrinsic justice of their actions is something that develops naturally within political communities” (Yack 216). Therefore, to Yack, natural law is the naturally occurring principle that originates within the polis, when the state inherently questions the intrinsic justice of its actions in the political community.

Positive Law

Aristotle argues that it is necessary to make a complete classification of just and unjust actions, and we do this “by observing that [actions] have been defined relatively to two kinds of law” (Rhet. 1373b1-3). We already know that one of these kinds of law is the natural law, but Aristotle will now define his positive (particular) law. “Particular law is that which each community lays down and applies to its own members: this is partly written and partly unwritten” (Rhet. 1373b4-6). The positive, or ‘particular’, law is that law that is expressly defined by the community. This law may be a written rule, or it may be a social expectation.

Everything Together

I have already argued that the state determines the natural right of the individual in maintaining order in political society, but is this accurate? Is this Aristotle’s intended argument? If man is by nature a political (social) animal (Pol. 1253a1-2), then what else comes to man by nature? As Yack argued above, nature provides a standard for determining how individuals should participate in political communities, and nature has equipped some human beings to develop communities; however, nature has not provided a final standard of moral judgment (Yack 217).
As the state defines the ultimate standards of just judgment (natural right), the state will continue to establish justice through law (natural law). However, not all social questions are answerable through an appeal to justice. Natural justice, for instance, cannot answer whether it is more just to drive on one side of the road than another, such an instance is a matter of conventional law – or, rather, positive law. Customs, traditions, and other written rules that are not specifically identified with natural law or justice are matters of positive (conventional) law and justice.

Aquinas and Natural Right, Natural Law, and Positive Law

Natural Right

Rather than considering the topic of a ‘right’, Aquinas wrote primarily concerning the term jus. A person can translate jus through Latin to mean a ‘right’; however, the political concept and use of ‘right’ was not in Aquinas’s lexicon (Lisska 228).
The Aquinean version of natural right – as contrasted with the modern philosophical concept of rights – is given through an objective/subjective distinction. “Aquinas’s account of jus entailed that a matter of fact was determined to hold; from that factual situation, moreover, a certain relation in terms of justice comes about”; in other words, “jus means, so Aquinas suggests, ‘that which is right’, which in turn means ‘that which is just’. Thus, jus refers to an objective state of affairs” (Lisska 229). This is distinguished from the modern concept of a right that “refers to a subjective ‘claim’ which a person might assert regarding something due to the person” (Lisska 229).

In Aquinas’s own words he explains that “jus – which is the same as the just – is a certain work which is proportionate to another according to some method or mode of equality” (Summa Theologiae, I-II q. 57, a.2). In short, Aquinas’s use of jus was not an external relation of two or more persons on the basis of things, but is the basis of external relations (Lisska 231).

Natural Law

According to Aquinas, every creature that has an end also has a nature whose fulfillment is in their nature. This is to say, for example, that man, who is made to find the good, finds happiness in the fulfillment of his nature. Man makes moral judgments to naturally achieve an overall good. Aquinas repeats Aristotle’s concept that man is a social animal; however, Aquinas did not speak of a social contract, but that we are born into social networks and political systems. The moral rule – or natural law – consists in behaving well in these networks and systems (McInerny).

Positive Law

For Aquinas, the positive law is the human law. The positive law must find some root within the natural and justified law; otherwise, Aquinas harkens back to Augustine who argues in De Libero Arbitrio (1.5): “It is the case that a law, which is not just, is not a law at all” (lex inuista non est lex). Man may admonish each other and establish rules of conduct to maximize justice according to the rules of reason; however, once a positive law is found in contradiction to justice (natural law), then that human law is null-and-void.

Aristotle’s Influence on Aquinas and Their Differences

Christopher Martin once noted concerning Aristotle’s influence on Aquinas that “St. Thomas is an Aristotelian. His basic concepts and categories are those of Aristotle, and when they are developed beyond the point at which Aristotle left them, they are developed in an Aristotelian manner” (Martin 4). There are many similarities between Aristotle’s concepts of natural right, natural law, and positive law; however, it is important to acknowledge the differences. Wrote Paul E. Sigmound,

In this description of the natural law Aquinas takes a number of Aristotelian concepts and combines them in a way which is different from the way that Aristotle himself used them. Whether or not he was faithful to the spirit of Aristotle may be argued, but a comparison of Aquinas discussion of natural law with the relevant passages in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and Politics reveals that Aquinas has combined quite disparate elements in Aristotle… into a new synthesis that makes the determination of natural ends a central consideration in the development of Aquinas’s theory of natural law (Sigmound 69).

Differences in Aristotle and Aquinas

Between the two philosophers, Aristotle is more positive than Aquinas. Whereas, for Aquinas, the moral imperative and sense of justice within natural right and natural law exists in a universal ethereal realm, Aristotle’s concepts of natural right and natural law are rooted in a systematic process naturally dictated from the governing body. Whereas Aquinas’s version of positive law requires a strict adherence to an ethereal moral and just code in natural law, Aristotle’s sense of justice is lawfulness.

For Aristotle, there is no sense of an unjust law that is not a law (lex inuista non est lex), for the just person is lawful – even if the law he is following is unjust. To Aristotle, “there are such things as unjust laws, and so lawfulness cannot provide a standard of what is just. Even if we obey the law, we may be doing what is unjust, because the law itself may be unjust” (Kraut103). This interpretation of Aristotle’s rejects the non-est-lex concept behind Aquinas’ relationship between natural law and positive law – for Aquinas believes that once the moral law is known, any human laws in violation of the natural moral law are invalid and non-binding (as though they never existed).

Conclusion

While it is tempting to interpret Aristotle in terms of “natural law” and “positive law” – because of Aristotle’s talk concerning the “unwritten law” and “natural justice” – these concepts are not the same types of reason. Natural law and positive law are concepts born out of medieval legal theory – namely, these concepts find philosophical refuge in the words of Thomas Aquinas. While Aquinas was unarguably influenced by Aristotle, we cannot juxtapose Aquinean natural law with Aristotle’s natural justice (Shiner 188).

This paper has superficially covered certain necessary points to show that Aristotle’s connection between ‘law’, ‘convention’, and ‘nature’, are not synonymous with Aquinas’s concept of natural law and positive law. Aristotle’s views on ethics, law, and politics are primarily organic – with the citizens and state, and their enacted laws and social decisions – and are a part of the “natural” world (Shiner 189).


Works Cited

Finnis, John. Natural Law and Natural Rights. Oxford: Clarendon, 1986. Print.

Kraut, Richard. Aristotle: Political Philosophy. Oxford England: Oxford UP, 2002. Print.

Lisska, Anthony J. Aquinas's Theory of Natural Law: an Analytic Reconstruction. Oxford:
Clarendon, 1996. Print.

Martin, Christopher. The Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. London: Routledge, 1988. Print.

McInerny, Ralph. "Aquinas, Saint Thomas." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Web. 06 Apr. 2010. .

Miller, Fred D. Nature, Justice, and Rights in Aristotle's Politics. Oxford: Clarendon, 1995. Print.

Sigmound, Paul E. "Thomistic Natural Law and Social Theory." Calgary Aquinas Studies (1978). Print.

Yack, Bernard. "Natural Right and Aristotle's Understanding of Justice." Political Theory 3rd ser. 18 (1990): 216-37. JSTOR. Web. 2 Mar. 2010. .

"Power that does not come from the barrel of a gun."

Introduction

Of the many atrocities committed and the genocides performed throughout the 20^th Century, few cases rival the stories that have come from of the Cambodian “killing fields”. Between 1970 and 1979, an estimated 1.2 – 2.2 million Cambodians were killed by the Khmer Rouge (Genocide). The barbaric nature of slaughter, the torture committed on innocent civilians, and the beliefs that fueled this genocide is a surprising combination of the accidents of history, ideological extremism, blundered US foreign policy, and clandestine US militarism. In reviewing the history of Cambodia, the horror of this mass-genocide appears to establish a universal and moral mandate on mankind to ensure that something like this will never take place again. An important question to ask is concerning how the United States may have failed to keep the killing fields from happening.

Today, college classrooms still discuss the killing fields to determine the ethical dilemmas of foreign interventionism. Questions seek to determine the ethical nature of a call-to-action, and it is becoming more consistently apparent that good questions are necessary to extract good answers. Today’s questions of an international moral ethic must necessarily root themselves in an international understanding of political, economic and social history, and within the social context of cultural diversity; otherwise, the wrong questions will be asked, and the solutions will only serve to fester in the wound of international tragedy and turmoil.

In the philosophies regarding international ethics are two prominent and competing political theories that fight for the international limelight of political policy. These theories are idealism and realism. From these theories, states have waged and deflected wars, established international courts and laws, and have seen the emergence of a new global community. These two philosophies have had an interesting courtship, as both have tried to take the lead in the dance of political power and policy; however, since it appears that it “takes two to tango”, we may assume that it takes both a realist and ideological philosophy to cover all the necessary grounds to make an appropriate policy.

Outline of Paper and Thesis

This paper is written in four sections. Each section is quite different in content from the next, but these seemingly unrelated sections are necessarily interrelated (as will be shown). The first section of this paper will address the short but necessary problems in the history of Cambodia that led to the travesties of the killing fields. The second section of the paper will give a short synopsis of idealism and realism in the 20^th Century, and it will discuss various elements of these theories in matters pertaining to international ethics. The third section will address certain natural laws theories of international politics concerning just war and interventionism, as proposed by St. Thomas Aquinas and Samuel von Pufendorf. We will use these philosophers to lay a foundational ethic for moral action.

The pendulum of political policy swings between realism and idealism. When the harsh reality of power politics is too much to bear, then political policy returns to a more gentle and thoughtful sense of idealism. On the same token, when idealism has made the state too soft and complacent, then realism is eager to establish a common sense approach to political policy. Whereas, in the 20^th Century, there were a small handful of follows after a type of ‘pragmatic-idealism’, the realist doctrine of power-politics gained the lead in the dance of political policy. It is reported that Mao Zedong once said that "Power comes from the barrel of a gun”; however, this paper will address an alternative theory of idealism in coping with the issues of international ethics. Finally, this paper will show that in its rejection of a moral idealism, an extreme American realism helped billow the fire of the communist revolution in Cambodia, and that moderate realism helped perpetuate the burning atrocities that were committed in the killing fields of Cambodia.

History of Cambodia and Conflicts to Solve

The last 100 years of history in Cambodia is replete with European colonialism and domestic struggles for independence. France formally colonized Cambodia in 1863, and it was a protectorate of Cambodia until 1953 (History). The French had assumed nearly all but ceremonial powers from the Cambodian monarchy, until Norodom Sihanouk came to power in 1941. France was reluctant to give up influence of Cambodia; however, coupled with the national stresses caused by the Japanese occupation during World War II and Sihanouk’s work to free Cambodia from any outside influences, Cambodia gained its independence from France in 1949. After taking control of Cambodia, Sihanouk took advantage of the French-Indochinese War, and he gained military control of the country. He later abdicated military power to his own father, but he remained in control of the government until 1960 when he became the chief of state without ever returning to his thrown (Cambodia).

Sihanouk took an expected anti-western approach to politics. After nearly three quarters of a century under western colonization, Cambodia was in no hurry to align itself with its perceived foreign aggressors. As such, through the 1960’s, Cambodia took a strict neutral stance to all parties involved in America’s Vietnam War. However, during this time, North Vietnam used parts of Cambodia (along the Ho Chi Minh Trail) as a place of refuge from American forces, and a communist group in Cambodia, called the Khmer Rouge, became increasingly troublesome to the neutral Sihanouk.

In addition to perceived American military aggression, the Khmer Rouge charged the United States for overthrowing Sihanouk from power. In 1970, Lon Nol took control of Phnom Penh through a military coup while Sihanouk was in China. The United States backed the Sihanouk’s overthrow because of Lon Nol’s adamant stance against Communism – even though it was known that Lon Nol governed with an iron fist. This perceived use of naked aggression gave the Khmer Rouge more fuel for the fire, as the Khmer easily recruited country peasants to their war against the west; after all, what loyal citizen would not join a locally established resistance group to fight against the same perceived colonial-type powers that were just rejected nearly two decades before (Talbott)?

Khmer Rouge

While the Khmer Rouge is often touted as a group of ideologically driven Communist extremists, current evidence shows that this is probably not as true as initially reported. While many leaders of the Khmer Rouge were ideologically driven, most of the initial sparks and recruiting power came from uneducated peasant workers who experienced a collateral effect from the Vietnam War (Johnson 12-3). This is to say that the individual recruiting efforts were anti-American, as opposed to pro-Communist. The borders of the Vietnam War were not as neatly drawn as we like to think they were. After months of American airstrikes and carpet bombing of the Cambodian portion Ho Chi Minh Trail (in search of hiding Viet Cong), innocent Cambodian casualties started adding up. It did not take much effort for the Khmer’s to convert the poor and uneducated people to a cause that was strictly anti-western. The political hydra was at work – for every Viet Cong communist the Americans would kill along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Cambodia, two Cambodian peasants would take up the banner of Communism with the Khmer Rouge.

Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge, was a French educated Cambodian who had belonged to the French Communist Party (PCF). In 1975, Pol Pot’s Khmers finally gained control of Phnom Penh and ousted Lon Nol from power. During this time, Pol Pot sought to return the people to a purely agrarian society, and tried to throw off all forms of westernization that had seeped into Cambodian life. From 1975 – 1979, the Khmer Rouge killed millions of Cambodians for being too westernized.

The Killing, Torture, and Social Programming

The Khmer Rouge killed every Cambodian that was perceived to have received western training or education. Cambodians who spoke English, wore glasses, or who had any advanced education were perceived as ‘westernized’ and were promptly killed. Often, the prisoners were tortured, raped, or dismembered before being savagely slaughtered. In his famous auto-biography, Survival of the Killing Fields, Haing Ngor spoke of his personal experience of being crucified over a bed of hot coals, and he spoke of the searing pain of his blistered feet as they burst open when he was finally cut down able to walk (Ngor 262-67).

Children were taken from their families and programmed to become child-soldiers for the Khmer Rouge; furthermore, in many cases child soldiers were programmed to kill their own family members (Jackson). They were taught to defend the Communist ideal and to give their life for it.

Evaluation of International Realism and Idealism in the 20^th Century

It is difficult to determine which theory came first – idealism or realism? There is no doubt the troubled relationship shared between these two theories, but it is important to give a short synopsis of both theories so that we can determine how they apply to an ethical analysis of the killing fields.

Idealism

Idealism, in part, signifies the natural right and natural law theories as derived from an Aristotelian concept of ‘the good’ that evolved through Aquinas, and then later through the philosophers of the Enlightenment. Idealism, in many cases, posits man’s innate goodness and moral imperative. It is in idealism that man questions whether there is a moral and universal absolute, or whether our moral imperative changes according to social, economic, and natural pressures.

There is an important argument in idealism that questions whether the same rules that apply in a moral relationship between individuals as also applies to the moral relationship between states. There is no definitive answer to this question, but the arguments on either side are compelling. While John Westlake argues that “The duties and rights of states are nothing more than the duties and rights of the men who compose them” (Westlake 78), Michael Walzer argues that

State rights are not constituted through a series of transfers from individual men and women to the sovereign or through a series of exchanges among individuals… The moral standing of any particular state depends upon the reality of the common life it protects and the extent to which the sacrifices required by that protection are willingly accepted and thought worthwhile. If no common life exists, or if the state doesn’t defend the common life that does exist, its own defense may have no moral justification (Walzer 54).

These two quotes apply a different concept and source of morality for both the individual and the state. While Westlake argues that the state can only have as many duties and rights as the people who compose the state, Walzer argues that the moral standing of the state is dependent on the nature of common life that the state protects. Every state, says the idealist, has valid ideas that deserve to be heard and examined thoroughly.

Realism

In contrast to idealism’s moral imperative, realism makes no such absolute claim to any such imperative. This is not to say that realism rejects every moral virtue; however, as idealism’s primary focus is to uphold the moral virtue itself (for the moral virtue’s sake), the realist’s primary focus is to use a moral imperative to advance the state’s power (for the power’s sake). Realism is only concerned about a few things, but it calls for us to address and see things for as they are (and not to worry about how things ought to be). While idealism argues that states have a moral imperative, realism claims that states act in their own self-interest and power.

In his book The Twenty Years Crisis, E.H. Carr argues that a utopian idealism must eventually give way to a practical form of realism (Carr 71). Carr expresses his concern that idealism alone is not sufficient to address the growing needs and situations of international politics; furthermore, Carr argues that “in both physical and political sciences, the point is soon reached where the individual stage of wishing must be succeeded by a stage of hard and ruthless analysis” (Carr9). This is to say that idealism must give way to the realist’s “ruthless analysis” of the world. That said, Carr is no fan of the cold and stark reality that extreme realists had brought to the table of political policy, but Carr argued that we should advance a more moderate form of realism that addresses the relative morals of society when engaging in power politics (Carr 19). This form of moderate realism is certainly at play in today’s engagement of political policy.

Idealists in Action: Thomas Aquinas and Samuel von Pufendorf

While the venerable St. Thomas Aquinas receives praise for his involvement in perpetuating natural law and the Aristotelian traditions, Samuel von Pufendorf has shared relatively little attention in comparison. In determining the basic understanding of these philosopher’s arguments concerning international conflict and war, it is difficult to ascertain a perfect correlation between the philosophy and the events of the Cambodian killing fields. To find the natural law, we must first discover the principle wherein these philosophers spoke; afterward, we will try to more accurately use their philosophy and ideas to determine an appropriate course of ethical action.

Aquinas

For Aquinas, any act of war or aggression, even if it is by nature an intervention, must be iusta causa (i.e. there must be a ‘just cause’). No just cause is given unless those we attack are guilty of some wrong which they refuse or fail to rectify (ST II-II q. 40 a. IC). Aquinas’s discussion of just war focuses primarily the decision to initiate war; that is, for Aquinas, there is no necessary causa in self-defense (Finnis 285). Aquinas stipulates that legitimate authority, just cause, and proper intentions are necessary in declaring any war.

What Aquinas does exclude from this theory of war is the “take no prisoners” policies “or any other policies making the killing of enemies and objective—say, to terrorize other soldiers, or put other psychological pressures on enemy leaders” (Finnis 287). Furthermore, as a matter of natural law, Aquinas universally rejects the “killing of innocents” (ST II-II q. 65. a. 6).

Pufendorf

Unlike Aquinas, Pufendorf spends a good amount of time discussing individual and state wars. For Pufendorf, the reasons for a just war are

to preserve and protect ourselves and our things against others who are trying to hurt us or to take away or destroy these things; to assert ourselves when others, by whom we are owed anything from a perfect right, refuse to furnish it of themselves; and, finally, to obtain reparation for harms by whose infliction we have been injured, and to wrest from one who has previously hurt us a guarantee that he will not attack us in the future (Pufendorf 258).

We must always maintain that our wars, especially the offensive wars, have a strict, clear, and definable cause. We should always use these three rules to determine a rational response, as opposed to “flying in to war” (Pufendorf 258).

While there are just reasons for entering war, Pufendorf addresses certain unjust reasons as well. In hearkening back to Grotius’s work, On the Law of War and Peace, Pufendorf argues that fear of our neighbor’s strength and power is no justification for war. While we are allowed to defend and equip ourselves in times when we feel threatened, we have no moral authority to lash out in these cases.

For Pufendorf, the theory of proportionality is not as evolved as it is in the 20^th and 21^st Century. Pufendorf argues that it is not “always unjust to repay a greater evil for a smaller”, and that once someone has attacked me “by declaring himself my enemy grants me the license to exert unlimited force against him, or as much as seems appropriate to me… The end of war, be it offensive or defensive, cannot be obtained with this license” (Pufendorf 259).

In accordance with his general principle of war, that peace is the only justifiable end for war, Pufendorf argues for a time when waging war in the defense of another is appropriate and justifiable. This type of warfare, however, is only justifiable when those we are protecting are bound to us by treaty or are “subjects” of the state. Pufendorf gave several natural limits on helping those who we are in treaty with, because no state should be at the military whim of another state’s disposition to wage war (Pufendorf 260).

The Realist Problem

It is too overly-simplistic to say that the United States was the sole or primary catalyst for the Khmer Rouge’s successful recruiting and genocide in the late 1970’s Cambodia. This does not, however, dismiss the United States from certain accountability. During the late 1960’s, the United States bombarded the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Cambodia and blanketed the regions with bombs, missiles, and other bombardments during, and after, the Vietnam War. This heavily realist approach helped spark Cambodian resentment against US military involvement along the Ho Chi Minh Trail; furthermore, the US military’s involvement in overthrowing Sihanouk through a military coup did not settle well with the residual of anti-western feelings that Cambodians still held after three-quarters of a century under French colonialism. If the United States’ proactive realist policies in Cambodia were not the sole catalyst for helping the Khmer Rouge to come to power, these blundered policies certainly helped the Khmers to find a foothold.

In addition, once Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge had ousted Lon Nol and began the genocide of its own people in 1975, the United States was quick to dismiss any charges concerning its tampering in Cambodia’s affairs (either concerning the bombings or concerning the assisted coup); furthermore, the United States sought to distance itself from Cambodia, because it could not afford for the American people to suffer any more wartime discontent than what residual suffering the people already endured from the unpopular Vietnam War. This moderate-realist approach only furthered to cement the United States’ hypocritical and aggressive reputation in South East Asia.

The Idealist Solution and Conclusion

Interventionism

As already addressed, Aquinas posits that legitimate authority, just cause, and righteous intent are necessary to wage any justifiable war. In his argument for just cause, Aquinas quotes Augustine who says that “A just war is customarily defined as one which avenges injuries” (Quaestiones in Heptateuchum 4:10). However, a mere justification for avenged injuries is not enough for Aquinas to argue for interventionism. The just war is fought with a righteous intent and decreed by a legitimate authority, but beyond this we are left speculating how, when, and why our personal moral imperative transitions to state action. Aquinas gives no expressed principle for why the state cannot assume a moral imperative for protecting other states. If we desperately desire to find such a theory in Aquinas, it is necessary to create a hybrid-theory between Aquinas and another philosopher – but this does not guarantee our desired outcome.

Pufendorf, unlike Aquinas, does give us a stated principle for state interventionism. Pufendorf argues that the state can protect a third party, if the third party is subjected to the state or if the third party is in treaty with the state. While his premises for just war vary from Aquinas’s, Pufendorf does assert a rather Aquinian concept that peace is the ultimate end of war. This said, there is still no determinable principle for us to gauge a moral imperative in the situation concerning the killing fields of Cambodia. While possible US military action may be somewhat justified in an Aquinian interpretation a righteous intent, no principle of Aquinas addresses the moral imperative of the United States after its perceived long standing abuses in Cambodia (the bombing of the Ho Chi Minh Trail and the overthrow of Sihanouk). Furthermore, Pufendorf’s justification for interventionism does not apply to the Cambodian situation. Cambodia is neither subjected to the United States, nor was the Khmer run Cambodia in treaty with the United States.

The Answer and Conclusion

During the Vietnam War, supposed anti-communist idealisms hid the extreme and moderate realist practices of US militarism. These realist practices denied the fundamental principle of just war as addressed by Thomas Aquinas and Samuel von Pufendorf. Cambodia was not our intended target, and thousands of innocent Cambodians lost their lives due to the overstretched arm of US military involvement from Vietnam.

In this particular situation, the United States violated the just war theories of Aquinas and Pufendorf. According to Aquinas’s argument, the United States had no injuries to avenge against the Sihanouk led Cambodian government (thus negating any US claim to just cause), nor was there a specified ‘righteous intent’. According to Pufendorf, the Sihanouk led Cambodia was not trying to attack or take control of America; in fact, Sihanouk proclaimed a neutral policy. There are some reports that Sihanouk was sympathetic to Communist doctrines, but there is little-to-no evidence that shows he acted against the United States in supporting North Vietnam. Furthermore, Cambodia did not negate on any debts or obligations to the United States, nor did the United States have any claim to reparation from Cambodian mistreatments and injuries.

In these cases, the United States stands accountable for its actions that spurred a violent revolution and genocide. The United States is not inherently accountable for every life destroyed or person tortured in the killing fields, but it is accountable for a blundered foreign policy that denied a natural principle and gave rise and unintended sympathy to a violent ideology.

What is our moral imperative concerning genocide? The realist approach taken by the United States, in this particular instance, proved incompatible to address the real problems present in the ideological movement in Cambodia. It has been said that ideas are bullet-proof, and it takes more than guns and missiles to destroy a thought. By the time the killing fields started, the United States had already failed in its moral imperative.

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