Abstract

In this thesis, I will argue that the permissible reasons for killing soldiers do not apply to soldiers off-duty because of the insufficient arguments for doing so, and that the more symmetrical view of the permissibility of killing these soldiers is more compatible with some civilians. I will do this by addressing the most compelling reasons why civilians may be liable, focusing primarily on civilians who produce war-essential goods. These civilians work in facilities that could be military objects and are justified in targeting under the principles of necessity and proportionality in international humanitarian law (IHL). I will therefore first accommodate a functionalist view of civilian liability. The other compelling argument used for these workers' liability is that they can pose an indirect threat, which, according to some philosophers, makes them liable. Considering this, I will use the IHL convention to show that factory workers may be victims of collateral damage but are never considered justified as intended targets, thereby separating them from ordinary civilians whose deaths are never justified on moral grounds. Then I will claim that, because of this, these workers' circumstances, given their contribution and threat level, are more like those of soldiers off-duty than those of other civilians. Then I will argue that workers and soldiers off-duty can have similar moral innocence, and that the only thing that obviously differs between them is their status in these scenarios. With this, I will argue that an activity-based view for soldiers is more symmetrical, concerning citizens' moral status on the unjust side of the war as it is today, given the implications stated beforehand. But because of epistemic difficulty in war, I will not suggest that my activity-based view is the core reason for determining whether a soldier is a justified target or not, and with that, I will not claim that this view should be a law or policy in war.