6 - Augustinian Liberalism

Summary

The Augustinian, Westphalian, and Liberal traditions are each insufficient to guide ethical reasoning about war today. The answer lies in a partial synthesis among them, especially the Augustinian and Liberal traditions. The language of natural law and human rights are especially useful because they can make moral claims about the common good across the boundaries of culture and religion. In the Augustinian Liberal perspective, the principles of ordered liberty, human rights, and human flourishing do much the same work that natural law and justice did for the Augustinian tradition as an external standard above the state, to which the state must be accountable. Justice requires the vindication of rights but is not exhausted with rights because it also requires the sustainment of conditions required for rights to be meaningful, to promote human flourishing—which is a long way of saying that justice requires ordered liberty. Sovereignty means responsibility for the common good, which means responsibility for establishing, sustaining, and defending a system of ordered liberty at home and abroad. And ordered liberty is as close to a universal value system as the world has yet seen.