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Imagine three cases:
Corporal Greene returns to the United States in a body bag having been killed by an elite armed guard in a war that had been officially authorized as a defense of her country against foes who have the capability and desire to attack her fellow citizens and soldiers at home and abroad with acts of terrorism. Such foes may either be planning eventually to launch their own attacks or to facilitate attacks by others who have an established record of using terrorism against U.S. soldiers and citizens.
Private Smith returns to the United States in a body bag having been killed by a roadside bomb in a war that had been authorized as enforcing international law against a rogue state with a recent history of ignoring or avoiding U.N.authorized inspections to track and dismantle weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
Sergeant Jones returns to the United States in a body bag having been killed by a suicide bomber in a war that had been officially described to him as a rescue operation aimed at saving citizens in another country from human rights abuses carried out against them by a despotic regime.
The deaths of Greene, Smith, and Jones are equally tragic. All three soldiers had been fighting in the same conflict, Operation Iraqi Freedom. Assume for the sake of argument that they were motivated by the causes for which they each understood themselves to be fighting. Are their deaths, then, morally the same?
I raise this question in part to frame an ethical analysis of the war in Iraq. I ask that we imagine Greene, Smith, and Jones for two reasons: one, their cases reflect different rationales offered for the Iraq war; and two, their deaths are arguably not morally the same. The goods for which they have been asked to risk their lives not only differ, they are not on par with each other. Nonetheless, they have been sent to war on the premise that the goods for which they are risking their lives are of the same gravity. In the ensuing discussion I will assume that taking risks to protect goods that redound to one's collective interests is more intelligible-and easier to motivate-than taking risks for altruistic reasons. Stanley Hoffmann puts...