Self-Defense and the Obligations to Kill and to die (Response to war and Self-Defense‪)‬

Questions of whether the wars of states reduce to the self-defense of individuals are not idle speculation. They inform which wars we fight as well as how we fight them. Consider, for example, the issue of how states procure soldiers. In the Anglo-American tradition, many have felt that the militia model best fits the war-as-personal-self-defense ideal. In that model, soldiers are just average citizens, trained in the use of arms, who interrupt their lives to defend themselves and their loved ones when necessary. Proponents of this model believe it is both efficient--it generates soldiers quickly when needed (Machiavelli argued for it thus, influencing later Republican thinkers)--and fair--the burden of defense is shared equally, lust as important, it provides a popular check on leaders of states who are otherwise prone to initiate wars that have nothing to do with personal self-defense. (1) In the Republican tradition, the feared alternative is a "standing army": a permanent force of professional soldiers with nothing else to do but to roam around the world, serving the sovereign's designs. Kant attacks such an army at the start of "Perpetual Peace" while endorsing "the voluntary periodic military training of citizens." He adds that paying people to be soldiers is "inconsistent with the rights of humanity." (2)