Political revolutions are transformative moments marked by profound,rapid change in the political order achieved through the use of forcerather than through consensus or legal process. Moral responses torevolutions are often ambivalent or deeply polarized. On the one hand,revolutions promise to be powerful engines of moral progress, allowinga community to abolish an oppressive social order and providing theopportunity to institute a better one. On the other hand, revolutionsrisk unravelling the fabric of political community and devolving intobloody, prolonged conflicts that only manage to reinstate a newoppressive regime. In this entry, we will clarify the concept ofrevolution and then go on survey the complex moral issues surroundingpolitical revolutions.
Section 1 discusses conceptual issues, distinguishing betweendifferent understandings of revolution and between violent andnonviolent revolution; it also distinguishes revolution fromresistance, rebellion, and secession. Section 2 outlines in broadrelief some of the major historical views on the morality ofrevolution. Section 3 applies the moral framework developed bycontemporary just war theory to examine complications facing thejustification of resorting to revolutionary war (revolutionary jusad bellum). Section 4 examines the justification of the conductof revolutionaries in armed conflict (revolutionary jus inbello), with emphasis on the way in which revolutionaries employirregular tactics. Section 5 surveys some contemporary exchangesconcerning the justification of foreign intervention intorevolutionary war. The Conclusion suggests directions for furtherphilosophical work on revolution.
1. Conceptual Matters2. Some Major Figures’ Views on the Morality of Revolution3. Revolutionary Jus ad Bellum4. Revolutionary Jus in Bello5. Intervention6. Implications for Further Research in the Philosophy of RevolutionBibliographyAcademic ToolsOther Internet ResourcesRelated Entries1. Conceptual MattersSeveral terms are used to denote extra-constitutional rejection of anexisting government’s authority, either tout court orin some particular domain: resistance, rebellion, secession,revolution. Resistance need not be total; it can instead involvedisobeying some particular law or laws or efforts to thwart only someof a government’s policies or the government’s attempt toperform particular actions; and resistance can take a number of forms,including acts of disobedience that are not only public but designedto achieve maximal publicity (as in the case of civil disobedience),as well as covert acts of noncompliance; and it may also be eitherpeaceful or nonviolent and disruptive or not. Rebellion, usefullydistinguished from resistance, involves a wholesale rejection ofgovernment’s authority. But the government’s authoritycould be rejected for quite different reasons: to do away withgovernment altogether (the anarchist’s goal), to establish a newgovernment with the same domain of territorial authority, to create anew territorial unit out of part of the territory ruled by theexisting government (secession), or to sever part of the territory ofthe government and join it to another existing state (irredentistsecession).
Revolution is commonly understood to have two components: rejection ofthe existing government’s authority and an attempt to replace itwith another government, where both involve the use of forcefulextra-constitutional means. On this reading, revolution and rebellionshare a negative aim, the wholesale rejection of a government’sauthority, but revolution includes in addition a positive aim, toinstitute a new government in place of the one it has destroyed. Notethat on our use of the term, “constitution” is meant torefer to something broader than foundational legal principles or afoundational legal document. Rather, we understand a constitution toexist when there is coordination among a sufficient number of membersof some group on some basic rules for collective decision-making. Onour understanding, then, a bargain struck among military elitesdefining roles in a society run by a military junta counts as aconstitution, and a popular militant uprising that aimed at displacingsuch a regime would thus count as a revolution.
Some important empirical work relevant to the morality ofrevolutionary war is to be found in studies of civil war. The latteris sometimes defined as a large-scale armed conflict between stateforces and one or more nonstate parties. This definition may be toorestrictive, however, since it would exclude a large-scale armedconflict between two or more nonstate parties under conditions inwhich the government had disintegrated entirely or still existed butwas not capable of fielding forces. A broader understanding of civilwar that would encompass that kind of case would be simply that of alarge-scale intrastate armed conflict.
The preceding terms are not always used in this way in actualpolitical discourse. For example, the government of the United Stateslabeled the secession of the Southern states from the Union arebellion, while many Confederates called their enterprise the SecondAmerican Revolution; and the American colonists who strove to secedefrom the British Empire tended to call themselves revolutionaries, notsecessionists or rebels. (It may be that the Americans avoided theterm “rebel” because they thought it had negativeconnotations). Similarly, the Algerian secession from France is oftenreferred to as the Algerian Revolution and wars of colonial liberationare rarely called secessionist conflicts, though their goal issecession from a political order centered on a metropolitan statewhose territory is not adjacent to the colony. In what follows, theterm “revolution” will be reserved forextra-constitutional attempts to destroy an existing nationalgovernment and replace it, to the full extent of its territorialauthority, with a new government. On this way of sorting out thevarious terms, secessionists and revolutionaries are necessarilyrebels, while rebels need be neither secessionists nor revolutionaries(they may be anarchists), and secessionists as such are notrevolutionaries.
Sometimes the term “revolution” is used in a strongersense, as denoting not just an extra-constitutional attempt to replaceone government with another, but also to effect a fundamental changein the type of government, as in a revolution to replace an autocracywith a democracy. Thus some scholars on the Left have contended thatthe so-called American Revolution was not really a revolution, becauseit did not create or even aim at anything other than a new form of thebourgeois state—a state controlled by and in the interest of theclass that controls the means of production (Zinn 1980, Jennings2000). Many American historians have concluded otherwise, assertingthat it was a revolution in the stronger sense because it replaced amonarchy with a republic (Nash 2005; Wood 1993). On this strongerunderstanding of revolution as involving a fundamental change in thetype of government, secessionists would also be revolutionaries, ifthe new government they attempt to establish in part of the territoryof the state would be of a fundamentally different type. For theremainder of the discussion, we will use “revolution” inthe weaker sense, with the understanding that it can also encompassrevolutions in the stronger sense. It is worth noting, however, thatthe morality of revolution in the stronger sense is, if anything, morecomplex than that of the weaker sense, because the former involves notonly the extra-constitutional overthrow of the existing government butalso the extra-constitutional establishment of a new type ofgovernment.
One more distinction is needed. Revolutions may be violent ornonviolent and may begin nonviolently and become violent. Thisdistinction, though obviously important, is not so crisp as one mightthink, because what counts as violence may be disputed. For example,attempts to overthrow a government by disruptive techniques (forexample conducting general strikes, disabling power grids, or blockingmain transportation routes) are not violent in the way in whichdischarging firearms or detonating explosives is, but they maynonetheless cause lethal harms. The chief topic of this entry isviolent revolution where “violence” is understood in themost robust way and as occurring on a large scale; in other words, thetopic is revolutionary war as “war” is usually understood(Singer & Small 1994: 5).
It is well worth noting, however, that there is a position onrevolution that obviates the need for a theory of just revolutionarywar, namely, the view that large-scale revolutionary violence is nevermorally justified because the risks of such an endeavor are so greatand because nonviolent revolution is more efficacious. Some empiricalpolitical scientists have argued that there is good evidence thatnonviolent revolution is more likely to achieve its ends thanrevolutionary war (Chenoweth & Stephan 2011). Even if that is trueas a generalization, the question remains as to whether there areexceptions—cases where nonviolence is not likely to achieve theaims of just revolution or would only achieve them with undue costs interms of human well-being—and whether they can be identifiedex ante. If there are any such cases, there is a need for atheory of just revolutionary war.
2. Some Major Figures’ Views on the Morality of RevolutionNo attempt can be made here to conduct a survey of views on revolutionacross the history of Western Philosophy, much less one thatencompasses other traditions. Instead, it must suffice to say that thetypical attitude toward revolution of major figures in the Westerntradition prior to the modern period was to condemn it or toacknowledge its moral permissibility only in very narrow circumstances(Morkevicius 2014). Augustine (City of God) and Aquinas(Summa theologiae), for example, both condemn rebellion andhence revolution, unambiguously urging obedience to the powers thatbe. Suárez (1609) held that only “lessermagistrates” had the authority to try to overthrow an existinggovernment, with the implication that revolution by those who do notalready occupy official roles is never justified. Hobbes (1651),explicitly denied that revolution could ever be justified, holdinginstead that a subject could only rightly resist government authorityas a matter of self-defense and then only when the perpetration oflethal harm against her was imminent.
Perhaps the most famous condemnation of revolutions comes fromImmanuel Kant. According to Kant, revolution is never justified,regardless of the extent to which political power is abused. Hewrites: “The reason a people has a duty to put up with even whatis held to be an unbearable abuse of supreme authority is that itsresistance to the highest legislator can never be regarded as otherthan contrary to law, and indeed as abolishing the entire legalconstitution” (Ak 6:320). Kant’s unqualified rejection ofthe possibility of justified revolution is based in his understandingof individual rights as inherently relational. For Kant, the UniversalPrinciple of Right dictates that constraints on individual freedom areto be such that they are compatible with the freedom of all underuniversal law (Ak 6:230–1). Rights are constituted by claimsconcerning the conduct of others, but individuals are not in aposition to unilaterally enforce those claims. Individual enforcementof a rights claim amounts to an individual imposing his will andinterpretation of the situation on another, and this kind ofimposition is impermissible as a basic matter of justice.Consequently, a juridical, omnilateral will that is not party torights relations is necessary to enforce rights claims in a way thatis compatible with the Universal Principle of Right. The state is sucha will. Hence, submission to the state is a necessary condition ofachieving the juridical conditions of mutual freedom that are requiredon grounds of the Universal Principle of Right (for much more detaileddiscussions, see: Hill 2002, Korsgaard 2008, Flikschuh 2008).Revolution is never justified because it lacks rightful authority.
The anti-revolutionary arguments just surveyed can be summarized inthe following terms. First is the Undue Risk Argument, according towhich the prospect of violent anarchy that follows an attemptedrevolution is so great that it defeats any other reasons that purportto justify political revolution. Second is the Conceptual Argumentoffered by Kant, according to which acts that instigate revolution cannever satisfy the requirement of rightful authority, and so arenecessarily unjustified.
A number of figures in the history of political thought have opposedsuch anti-revolutionary positions. The monarchomachs in late16th century France argued that their monarchy wasunjustified and advocated for revolution and tyrannicide. FrancoisHotman defended this claim by arguing that the French constitution wasfundamentally based in an assembly of the nation, and the author ofVindicie contra Tyrannos, publishing under the pseudonymStephanus Junius Brutus, argued that subjects are never bound to obeya prince that oversteps God’s law and that subjects are entitledto resist a King that deviates from his divine duties (for an overviewof the monarchomachs, see Dunning 1904). In his work De Jure Regniapud Scotos, the Scottish thinker George Buchanan argues for anearly conception of popular sovereignty according to which the peopleare entitled to resist and punish tyrants (Macmillan 2016 [1906]provides a comprehensive biography of Buchanan’s life andsummary of his political thought).
The most prominent defense of revolution in the liberal tradition wasoffered by John Locke, according to which revolution is both justifiedand permissible when the state breaches its duty to protect thenatural rights of persons (1689, chapter XIX). On Locke’s socialcontract theory, the state is formed to protect individual rights andresolve disputes between persons concerning their rights. The statethus acts as a trustee of the rights of individuals, and violation ofthose rights amounts to a breach of trust (Simmons 1993, pp.157–8). If the trust is breached, the rights entrusted to thestate are returned to civil society, members of which are thenentitled to defend against violations of those rights through the useof force (Locke 1689, section 227, on rights returning to civilsociety see Simmons 1993, pp. 171–2). We can thus summarize thecore of Locke’s view on revolution in terms of the Self-DefenseArgument, according to which revolution is justified against somestate S when S breaches its fiduciary obligation to protect individualnatural rights, then the authority to protect these rights returns tothe people (for a discussion contrasting Kant’s andLocke’s views of revolution, see Flikschuh 2008).
Locke took a more favorable stance toward revolution than Hobbes orhis medieval predecessors because he did not believe that the risks ofphysical insecurity attendant upon the destruction of an existinggovernment were as high as those thinkers did. That more optimisticview as grounded, in turn, in his belief that the destruction of thepolitical order need not entail the destruction of society—thatis, of social practices and habits that effectively control the mostserious forms of violence (Simmons 1993, p. 171). It is a mistake,however, to conclude either that Hobbes was right and Locke was wrongor vice versa about the consequences for physical security ofthe destruction of government. A more reasonable view is that therisks of the destruction of government and hence of revolution vary,depending upon the circumstances. If that is so, and if thejustifiability of revolution depends even in part on the severity ofthe risks of physical insecurity it involves, then it appears that thecontent of a moral theory of revolution must be shaped by empiricalconsiderations. We return to this point in the subsequent section,where we introduce a distinction between the different kinds of socialcontexts within which revolutions take place.
Whereas liberal political philosophers have tended to frame thejustification for revolution in terms of natural rights and justice,revolution in the Marxist tradition is understood quite differently.There is one strain of Marx interpretation according to which herejects rights-talk altogether, either in favor of the discourse ofconflicting interests or in favor of the vocabulary ofself-realization or mankind’s overcoming of alienation from its“species being” (Buchanan 1982). On this interpretation,Marx held that the very concept of rights is an ideological constructthat is fostered by and in turn reinforces the egoistic psychology ofbourgeois society and will be discarded once the transition todeveloped communist society occurs. If the very concept of rights isthus both tainted and fated for obsolescence, then the question arisesas to how else the justification for proletarian revolution might beframed (Finlay 2006). One answer that is consistent at least with theearly writings of Marx is that proletarian revolution is needed todestroy the conditions of alienation and create the conditions for thefull realization of man’s nature as a creative, communal being,the sort of being who will, through processes of scientificallyinformed collective decision-making, bring the natural and socialworld fully under deliberate human control for the good of all(Economic & Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, inMER: 66–125).
Even if Marx thought that successful revolution could be correctlydescribed as the overcoming of alienation or more positively as therealization of human “species being”, it is doubtful thathe thought that proletarian revolution needed to be justifiedin this or any other way. There is, after all, a Marx who derides“moralistic” socialists and who seems to hold thatsuccessful proletarian revolution is a matter of the historicallyinevitable realization of the common interests of the proletariat, andthat the revolution will be effectively motivated by those interests,not by a commitment to any moral principle (On the Division ofLabor in Production in MER: 683–717). Suchan interpretation fits well with Marx’s understanding of histheory of history as scientific and realistic. According to thisaccount, the question of whether revolution is justified is idle; itwill occur, because the revolution in the mode of production thatmarks the transition from capitalism to communism will produce afundamental transformation of all social relationships that will carryhuman beings beyond the state and beyond politics (Critique of theGotha Programme, Part IV, 1875 in MER:525–541). On this reading, Marx does not offer a justificationof revolution so much as he offers an explanation for why a certainkind of revolution must (on his view) occur (for a discussioncomparing Kant and Marx’s views that argues against theamoralist reading of Marx, see Ypi 2014)
By way of summary and as a broad generalization, it is fair to saythat at least since the time of Locke, the dominant view on revolutionin Western Political Philosophy, both in the Liberal and Marxisttraditions, and perhaps in popular political culture as well, has beenconsiderably more permissive than that of Hobbes and Kant and theirmedieval predecessors. For the remainder of this entry, we will assessvarious morally relevant features of revolutions, drawing on insightsdeveloped in contemporary just war theory.
3. Revolutionary Jus ad BellumContemporary just war theory provides a sophisticated framework forassessing the morality of political revolution (see the entry on war). Just war theory is relevant because revolutions typically involve thelarge-scale use of force, both by revolutionaries and by the regimethat attempts to thwart their efforts. Locke’s argument insupport of revolution has already illustrated this connection betweenrevolution and just war because he conceives of revolution as an actof collective self-defense against usurpers of legitimatepolitical power.
In this section, then, we will examine how the satisfaction of typicaljus ad bellum standards faces complications in the case ofrevolutionary war. Before turning to this analysis, we must introducea key distinction concerning the social context of revolutions. Thesocial context that a revolution takes place in can lead to variationwith respect to how violent a given revolution is, a crucial parameterfor assessing whether the conditions of jus ad bellumobtain.
How bloody and protracted a revolution is and whether it will besuccessful will in part be a function of how well-organized andeffective revolutionary leadership is. Accordingly, we willdistinguish between what we call Hobbesian revolutionarycontexts and Lockean revolutionary contexts. In Lockeancontexts, revolutionaries have access to institutional structures,either formal or informal, that they can rely on to solve two basicproblems: the cooperation problem (mobilizing a sufficient number ofrevolutionaries) and the coordination problem (organizing therevolutionaries in an effective manner). In Hobbesian contexts, bycontrast, such institutional resources are absent.
Hobbesian and Lockean contexts thus described are ideal types, withmost actual revolutions occurring in contexts that fall somewhere inbetween the ideal types. The American Revolution took place in aLockean context, insofar as revolutionaries had access to coloniallegislatures, through participation in which they had developed skillsin organization and leadership. These institutional resources enabledAmerican revolutionaries to solve the cooperation and coordinationproblems and to do so through relatively peaceful, democratic means.The early stages of the Russian Revolution, in contrast, took placeunder Hobbesian conditions, resulting in division and conflict amongrevolutionary factions and uncoordinated violence by relatively smallgroups (e.g. mutinying soldiers or striking laborers) actingindependently. In the Russian case, as opposed to the American one,the process by which the cooperation and coordination problems weresolved did not provide the group that eventually took control of therevolution, the Bolsheviks, with experience in non-coercive,relatively democratic leadership.
Crucially, the social context of a revolution is not fixed because, asSkopcol emphasizes, revolutions, to the extent that they aresuccessful, involve the creation of new state structures (Skocpol2015). Further, the context in which a revolution occurs can alsochange prior to the successful seizure of sufficient power to build anew state structure. One example of the latter kind is found in theIranian Revolution. This revolution began with widespread butuncoordinated student protests which, following some student deaths,were transformed by Ayatollah Khomeini into an organized mass protestmovement. The institutional resource Khomeini utilized was a networkof pre-existing religious institutions.
It will be important to keep in mind the distinction between Hobbesianand Lockean revolutionary contexts in order to avoid over generalizingabout the risks of revolution. If one assumes, if only implicitly,that revolutions occur in predominantly Lockean conditions, one willbe predisposed to rate the risk of anarchy and extreme violence lowand consequently take a more permissive stance on the justification ofrevolution. If one assumes that Hobbesian conditions are predominant,one will infer that the risks of revolution are great and bepredisposed to regard revolutions as unjustified. Keeping in mind theneed to avoid over-generalization, we now turn to a consideration ofhow standard jus ad bellum criteria apply to revolutions orat least to revolutions that are, like most revolutions, likely toinvolve large-scale collective violence.
Consider first the just cause requirement. Some causes for revolutionwe can set aside immediately, namely, those that are patently unjust.It is not a legitimate aim of revolution, for example, to displace aliberal state that is reasonably effective at protecting basic humanrights in order to institute a theocracy that will violate basic humanrights. Nor would a revolution to institute or preserve slavery bejustified. More appropriate targets of revolution are Resolute SevereTyrannies, defined as regimes that persistently violate some of thebasic human rights of large segments of the population, are extremelyauthoritarian (that is, wholly undemocratic), and are utterlyimpervious to efforts to reform them (Buchanan 2013, p. 296).
The moral stakes of opposing a Resolute Severe Tyranny will depend onwhich human rights are being violated. When relatively basic rightssuch as rights to one’s life, body, or the conditions necessaryfor subsistence are being violated, then officials and agents of theregime are plausibly liable to immediate defensive harm in theindividual cases where such violations arise and ending suchsystematic violation of basic rights is a just cause for armedresistance of the regime (Finlay 2015, pp. 78). Tyrannies can be lesssevere when the human rights they violate are relatively less urgentthan these basic rights, which would include political rights orrights against discrimination.
While there might be cause for replacing a tyrannical regime, thejustification of revolution encounters a complication when it comes todetermining what kind of government or institutional arrangement oughtto replace the regime if the revolution proves successful. Thisproblem is especially acute under Hobbesian conditions becauserevolutionaries have repudiated or cannot avail themselves of existingpolitical processes for determining political aims and have not yetdeveloped new processes for performing that task (at least in theearlier stages of the struggle). There may be serious disagreementamong revolutionaries as to what the goal of the revolution is, withno nonviolent, much less legitimate process for resolving it. Ifrevolutionaries lack the institutional resources to determine a commonunderstanding of what the new political order is to be, then the taskof evaluating the justness of a revolutionary struggle becomes moredifficult. It may be a mistake to say “X is the aim ofthe revolutionary war-makers” because there may be no one aimand the plurality of aims may be mutually inconsistent, with somebeing just and others being unjust. In certain contexts, then, thecause of a political revolution, its justifying aim, may beindeterminate.
Though the cause of revolution may be indeterminate or unjust, it doesnot follow that joining the fight, once it has started, is necessarilywrong or unjust (Buchanan 2013). Whether various individuals aremorally justified in joining the war effort depends upon whether theyhave morally acceptable reasons for doing so, not upon the morality orimmorality of the actions others took to initiate the conflict. Thejustification for initiating revolution will be different from thejustification for joining a revolution. This point is not limited torevolutionary wars, but it may be more significant in therevolutionary case, if generally speaking the initiation ofrevolutionary wars is harder to justify than some interstate wars,especially wars of self-defense or defense of others againstaggression.
Consider now to the proportionality criterion, applied torevolutionary war. Proportionality is satisfied when the moralsignificance of the goods achieved through revolution is greater thanthe significance of the “bads” or harms orrights-violations that will be brought about by revolutionaryconflict. As Richard Norman and David Rodin argue, the moral urgencyof political rights seems to be categorically inferior to thesignificance of rights to life and limb that will be violated andthreatened by revolutionary war, thus making revolutionary war againsttyrannies that only violate political rights unjustified (Norman 1995:128; Rodin 2002: 48). In a similar vein, Jonathan Parry argues thatrevolutionaries are at a moral disadvantage when it comes to thesatisfaction of proportionality. That is because, on Parry’sview, in order for some interests to count in the proportionalitycalculus, the persons to whom those interests are tied must consent tothe use of force to protect those interests. And, sincerevolutionaries are generally less likely to receive consent, thismeans that there will be fewer interests that count in favor ofrevolutionary violence (Parry 2018).
There are a number of replies that one might offer in response tothese challenges concerning proportionality. First, one can argue thatthe moral significance of the violation of relatively less urgentrights aggregates to a cost that is great enough to be proportionateto a relatively lesser number of harms to more urgent rights that willbe suffered as a consequence of violent revolution (McMahan 2004).This aggregationist argument can also be bolstered by identifyingfurther goods advanced by revolution. The effects of revolutionary waragainst “lesser tyranny” on valid norm compliancemight also be included. Supposing that it is a valid norm thatgovernments abstain from harming their citizens and respect thepolitical liberties of citizens. If international institutions are soweak as to be unable to enforce this norm, then the best prospect forenforcing a norm of good government is the threat of revolutionagainst governments that violate the norm. Under these conditions, itwould be problematic to restrict proportionality assessments toimmediate, direct harms, ignoring the effects on the enforcement ofimportant norms of justice. Second, one could argue that a regime thatviolates relatively less urgent rights does so by virtue of issuing aconditional threat, explicit or implicit, and that therefore theregime is responsible for escalation in conflict that occurs becauseof an assertion of the relatively less urgent rights by individuals,and use of force in response to such escalation is justified (McMahan1994; Finlay 2015: 63–76). Third, one could argue thatproportionality is sensitive to responsibility, such that when one isresponsible for some harm or rights violation then the threshold ofproportionality is lessened to some extent. So, if a regime isresponsible for violations of relatively less urgent human rights,then this fact may make members of the regime liable to a degree offorce that would not have otherwise been proportionate (Kapelner2023). Fourth, one could argue that revolutions respond to adistinctive kind of wrong that changes the proportionality calculus infavor of revolution. Mattias Iser argues that states that bring aboutwidespread human rights violations thereby fail to recognize the equalbasic moral status of citizens, and that this failure of recognitionis a distinctive kind of wrong that weighs in favor of forcefulreplacement of prevailing regime (Iser 2017).
The preceding points concern proportionality in revolutionary war ingeneral. Under relatively Hobbesian conditions, there is a furthercomplication concerning proportionality. In such conditions, aspiringrevolutionary leaders face a serious collective action problem thatestablished states have already solved: they must mobilize asufficient portion of the population to make war effectively, in spiteof the fact that it will often be rational for any given individual torefrain from participating. As we shall discuss in the context ofjus in bello criteria of just war, revolutionaries will oftenneed to resort to coercing other members of the population in order tomotivate cooperation in revolutionary activity. The regime is likelyto respond in kind to such coercive tactics, producing an escalatingspiral of violence.
The discussion so far helps explain a general feature of revolutions,namely, that they are often more violent than interstate wars,especially when undertaken in Hobbesian conditions. Revolutionary warspresent a greater risk of literal anarchy, with all of the threats tohuman rights and well-being that this usually entails, becauserevolutionaries, even when they succeed in defeating the regime, maynot yet have (and in some cases may never develop) the capacity toimpose order. In that sense, the stakes are often higher inrevolutionary wars and the traditional likelihood of successrequirement of just war theory may be harder to satisfy. Revolutionaryconflicts, like other intrastate wars, are often especially brutal,because the lines between combatants and noncombatants tend to beblurred, because of the spiral of coercion stemming from strategicinteraction regarding revolutionary mobilization mentioned above, andbecause individuals and groups often use the general context ofviolence to settle private conflicts that have little or no connectionto the issues for which revolution is supposedly undertaken (Kalyvas2006: 14).
Similar complications to those encountered in the case of just causealso arise regarding satisfaction of the rightful authorityrequirement, especially under Hobbesian revolutionary contexts. It istypically held that in order for some agent to have the rightfulauthority to wage just war, she must in some significant way representthe persons whose interests the war is meant to protect or promote(Finlay 2015 ch. 6; Parry 2018). If “represents” meanswhat it does in the context of ordinary democratic politics, namely, Arepresents B if and only if A is authorized to act on B’s behalfthrough some appropriate public political process (such as anelection), then this is a non-starter, since an oppressive regime isunlikely to allow any such process.
This standard, institutionally-based understanding of representationwould work as a criterion of rightful authority to initiaterevolutionary war only if one of two conditions were satisfied. First,those who initiate revolutionary war were duly chosen asrepresentatives prior to the advent of an oppressive regime (as whenan authoritarian coup usurps an elected government). Second, theconstitutional order included pre-authorization for revolution undercertain specified conditions. It is worth noting that the FrenchDeclaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen explicitly included aright (and indeed a duty) to resist tyranny and that the Inner ServiceAct of the Turkish Armed Forces (articles 35 and 85) goes farther,designating an agent of revolution by pre-authorizing the military todepose the government if it violates the constitutional requirement ofsecular government. Just as an advance directive for medical careenables a competent patient to pre-authorize agent to act on herbehalf in the event of her losing the capacity to act, so aconstitutional provision of this sort would enable a people underconditions of political freedom to pre-authorize some agent toinitiate revolution on its behalf should the abuse of governmentauthority undermine its ability to perform an act of authorization.Whereas under Lockean conditions there may be some residualinstitutional structures that can be relied on to choose genuinelyrepresentative revolutionary leaders, when facing a Resolute SevereTyranny or occupying Hobbesian contexts it is far less likely thateither conditions of representation can obtain. A Resolute SevereTyranny is not likely to allow any institutional process forrepresentation by those who may oppose it.
Here it is important to note that revolutionary conflict in suchconditions typically begins when a relatively small minorityundertakes armed struggle against the government and claims to do soin the name of the people. The problem is that it is difficult to seehow, in Hobbesian contexts, they could be authorized to act on behalfof the people.
Another problem concerning rightful authority in Hobbesian contexts isthat there are often two or more parties engaging in revolutionaryviolence that contend with one another (often violently) to beacknowledged, by the people and by other states and internationalorganizations, as the sole legitimate revolutionary war-maker.Revolutions frequently are characterized by violent struggles forleadership, under conditions in which no contender for leadership canclaim exclusive legitimacy if any legitimacy at all. So, in additionto the fact that Hobbesian conditions are characterized by a lack ofsocial or institutional resources for the determination of rightfulauthority, there is the fact that rival revolutionary groups mayresort to violence among themselves in a bid to claim suchauthority.
In the absence of any institutional provisions for choosingrepresentatives during the struggle or for pre-authorizing some groupto serve as representatives prior to it, one might offer a differentunderstanding of representation that is easier to satisfy in contextswhere political revolutions have some appeal. An agent represents thepeople, in a fashion that morally empowers her to initiate and leadrevolutionary war, if she is committed to and acts appropriately torealize their shared interest or common good (Biggar 2013). It isworth noting just how distant this view is from any widely acceptednotion of rightful authority to make war in other contexts or for thatmatter of rightful authority in any context, whether private orpublic. The fact that Jones is committed to Smith’s good andable to promote it effectively does nothing whatsoever to establishthat Jones has rightful authority over Jones, much less that he hasrightful authority to undertake actions supposedly on Jones’sbehalf that pose a danger to Jones or others. This understanding ofrightful authority is subject to all of the objections to paternalismtoward competent adults.
At this point one might make a radical move: simply deny the rightfulauthority requirement applies to revolutionary wars or at least torevolutionary wars that occur in a Hobbesian context. This move couldbe qualified with the proviso that although a group attempting toexercise leadership in the revolutionary struggle lacks rightfulauthority, it is justified in assuming the leadership role only if itacts in such a way as to bring about conditions in which rightfulauthority can exist. Similarly, one might argue that rightfulauthority is not required in the case of a group that can help createthe conditions for legitimacy out of a situation of violently anarchicstate-breakdown, so long as that group acts in ways that facilitatethe establishment of legitimacy. This response to the problem ofrightful authority calls into question the assumption that a justrecourse to war developed for application to interstate wars alsoapplies in toto to revolutionary wars. Similarly, as we shallsee in the next section, there is also the question of whethertraditional jus in bello requirements apply without exceptionto the conduct of revolutionary wars.
Let us turn to the last criterion of jus ad bellum,necessity. The standard of necessity is satisfied when there is noless harmful means of achieving the cause for violence. For arevolution to be necessary, it must be the case that existinginstitutions are both so deeply morally flawed and recalcitrant toreform that nothing short of displacing them and starting anew wouldsuffice to improve upon the existing state of affairs. This is whydiscussions about revolution generally take for granted that thetarget of revolution is something like a Resolute SevereTyranny—only such regimes pose such a significant enough threatto the basic rights of persons while barring all prospects forreforming political institutions. Plausible candidates for revolution,then, are states that are so organized as to foreclose internalchannels for reform. These channels need not be exclusively legal orconstitutional. Even states that bar significant portions of thepopulation from access to legal or political mechanisms for changemight not make revolution necessary. Citizens of such states may stillhave access to options like protest, general strikes, civildisobedience, and uncivil disobedience as a means of forcing therelevant kind of changes, thus making revolution unnecessary. Hence,our discussion has followed most discussions of political revolutionby focusing on the case of extremely repressive regimes like ResoluteSevere Tyranny, because only under such conditions of complete andunrelenting oppression is it plausible that revolution is necessary tobring about change.
4. Revolutionary Jus in BelloPrinciples of jus in bello specify what kinds of particularactions are permissible in making war. Two standards featureprominently in discussions of jus in bello. First isproportionality, which holds that the specific acts or tacticsemployed in war must promote the good to such a degree that itoutweighs the “bads” or harms or rights-infringements ofthe act or tactic. Second is discrimination, which is typicallyunderstood in terms of non-combatant immunity—innocents are notliable to harms and so it is impermissible to target them. A muchdisputed question is whether all and only civilians qualify asinnocents. Here it is worth noting that the original meaning of“innocent” is one who is incapable of inflicting harm.Some military personnel, namely those who lack access to weapons orhave become incapable of using them may fit this description and somecivilians, namely those who supply resources to the military, maynot.
A key issue that a theory of the morality of revolutionary war oughtto address is whether these widely accepted jus in bellonorms apply without exception or modification to war-making byrevolutionaries or whether, instead, revolutionaries are morallypermitted to undertake acts of war that the military personnel ofstates are usually prohibited from performing. This is not a merelytheoretical issue: revolutionary warriors have often engaged invarious morally problematic forms of “irregular” warfare.They have assassinated civilian leaders and other civilians such asgovernment bureaucrats and judges, attacked regime forces whilewearing civilian attire (not wearing uniforms or insignia as requiredby the laws of war and not carrying weapons openly), and engaged interrorism, deliberately killing individuals who had no discernibleconnection with the regime by detonating bombs in public places.Furthermore, in order to mobilize people to join the revolution or todeter them from aiding the regime in suppressing it, they have engagedin acts of terrorism against the oppressed.
These examples of irregular tactics fall into four differentcategories (Finlay 2015, pp. 206–8). First is civiliancamouflage, which involves combatants retaining the appearance ofcivilians for the sole purpose of avoiding elimination prior tocombat. Second is civilian disguise, which, like civiliancamouflage, involves combatants appearing as civilians, but, unlikecamouflage, this misleading appearance is used to mislead the enemyduring combat. In an example of civilian disguise discussed by MichaelWalzer, French partisans resisted German occupation by dressing aspeasants and launching an ambush (Walzer 1977 p. 183). Third ishuman shields, a tactic where combatants deliberately locatemilitary targets near civilians in order to deter attack (Schmitt2009). Fourth, combatants can engage in non-combatanttargeting, a tactic that deliberately places non-combatants, e.g.civilians, in harm’s way for the sake of some advantage.Examples of non-combatant targeting include: the concealment ofcivilians in a position close to military targets in the hopes thatthe enemy harms them with collateral damage, provocation of the regimewith the intent of producing harms to civilians, or, of course,deliberate targeting of locations predominantly used or occupied bycivilians. The aims of non-combatant targeting can range frommotivating the populace to join the revolutionary effort, to coercingthe populace into supporting the revolution, to instigating terror anddisorder. These irregular tactics are clearly in tension if notoutright contradiction with jus in bello standards ofproportionality and discrimination as they expose civilians to greaterrisks of suffering collateral harm either by making it more difficultfor the enemy to discriminate between combatants and non-combatants,or by directly exposing non-combatants to greater harms on account ofusing them as shields or deliberate targeting.
Revolutionaries are often under powerful incentives to employ suchirregular tactics, because they are disadvantaged relative to theiradversaries. First, they will generally have less military trainingand less disciplined organization than regime combatants, they will befewer in number, will generally have lower quality arms, and will haveinferior logistical and intelligence capacities. Secondly,revolutionaries face the challenge of mobilizing a people that hassuffered oppression under an unjust regime. Entrenched tyrannicalregimes typically use their control over education and the media toinstill propaganda designed to prevent the people from recognizingjust how rotten the regime is, how poorly the economy is performing,how inferior the quality of life is compared with that in bettergoverned countries, and how widespread dissatisfaction with the regimeactually is. Hence, effective revolutionary action may require thedissipation of false consciousness on the part of the people. Theaspiring revolutionary leadership thus may be faced with the task oftrying to dismantle the false consciousness of those they hope toenlist in the revolutionary struggle. In actual cases, aspiringleaders have often used violence and sometimes terrorism in an effortto overcome the epistemic obstacles to widespread participation inrevolution. For example, they have attacked “softtargets”—policemen or government officials—todemonstrate to the people that “we have the power tohurt them”. Another tactic often used byrevolutionaries to overcome epistemic obstacles is to provoke theregime to undertake brutal responses to relatively peacefuldemonstrations, in order to reveal to all just how ruthless the regimeis. Such actions, which are condemned by mainstream jus inbello thinking, are said to be necessary to instill the sense ofagency that false consciousness has undermined.
While such “irregular” tactics are understandablyattractive to revolutionaries, the claim that they are justified isgenerally regarded with a good deal of skepticism. We start byexamining the use of civilian camouflage and civilian disguise. Thesetactics are clearly at odds with standard requirements ofdiscrimination, according to which combatants must wear uniforms andopenly carry their arms so that the enemy can distinguish them fromnon-combatants. The intuitive appeal of the standard account ofdiscrimination thus leads some thinkers to argue that civiliancamouflage and civilian disguise are impermissible because suchtactics expose non-combatants to unjust and disproportionate risk ofcollateral harm (Meisels 2008; Chiu 2010).
Those who argue that civilian camouflage or disguise are permissibletypically appeal to fairness. The idea is that, at least in the earlystages of their struggle, revolutionaries are at a great disadvantagevis à vis government forces, that this disadvantage issomething for which they are not responsible, and that therevolutionaries should not be expected to let it render unsuccessfultheir struggle against a seriously unjust regime (Gross 2010:153–4). As noted earlier, revolutionaries typically haveinferior arms and logistical capacities, they have no safe rear areasbehind which they can regroup and resupply because there are no battlelines as in conventional wars. Finlay argues that for these reasons,civilian camouflage, but not disguise, is a tactic thatrevolutionaries may permissibly employ (Finlay 2015, pp.211–12). Civilian camouflage is justified, according to Finlay,because this tactic serves only to enable revolutionaries to withdrawtemporarily from fighting and enabling this both restores fairness tothe distribution of rights and duties concerning warfare in asymmetriccontexts and is not inconsistent with standard laws of war. The use ofcivilian disguise, on the other hand, is not permissible, because thattactic is not meant to restore fairness with respect to an abilitynormally protected by the laws of war (i.e. the ability to withdrawfrom combat), but rather to diminish the ability of regular combatantsto defend themselves (Ibid., p. 213).
Whereas civilian camouflage and civilian disguise are tactics thatonly indirectly contribute to the risk of collateral harm forcivilians by making discrimination between combatants andnon-combatants more difficult, tactics like the use of human shieldsor non-combatant targeting directly expose non-combatants tosignificant risks of harm for the sake of some military advantage andso necessarily violate the principle of non-combatant immunity. Manytheorists who study irregular conflicts like revolutionary wargenerally view such tactics as strictly impermissible.
It is important to note that critics of such irregular tactics do notgenerally claim that as a matter of principle irregular tactics cannever be justified. In the face of a “supreme emergency,”where failure to displace the prevailing regime would be a moralcatastrophe, such theorists often grant that irregular tactics thatwould facilitate resolving the emergency may in fact be justified as alesser evil. The problem lies in allowing persons waging war to judgefor themselves whether they occupy an exceptional, supreme emergencysituation. The worry is that if participants in war know that suchexceptions are in principle available to them, then there is a seriousrisk that their fallible judgments (perhaps shaped by various biasesor motivated reasoning) lead them to make a wrongful exception andemploy tactics that are not in fact justified and which come at adisproportionate harm to innocents and bystanders (Nathanson 2010, pp.201–8; Nagel 1972; Coady 2002; Coady 2004). Relatedly, one mightworry that once one belligerent has violated the principle ofnon-combatant immunity, opposing sides might respond by no longercomplying with the norm in turn, leading to total breakdown of therules of war (Waldron 2010: pp. 88–90).
Whether the tactics in question are at risk of being abused willnaturally depend on the specific way in which they are employed, so itwill be helpful to distinguish the different kinds of non-combatanttargeting. First, and most extreme, is terrorism, by which we meandeliberate targeting of non-combatants (for a more detailed andextensive discussion of terrorism, see the entry on terrorism). An example is the targeting of public places where combat is notoccurring. The aims of such acts can include those of instillingterror in the populace, weakening support for the regime, or sending amessage to the regime or international actors.
Revolutionaries can employ tactics that target non-combatants whichneed not be indiscriminate. Rather, they can employ a second sort ofirregular tactic which we will call expansive discriminatetargeting. This tactic involves the deliberate targeting ofnon-combatants who are taken to be morally liable to suffer harms fromrevolutionary war. We will discuss the grounds of such liabilityshortly when we survey arguments given in defensive of irregulartargeting.
Third, revolutionaries can rely on provocation of the enemy. The aimof this tactic is to provoke agents of the regime to harmnon-combatants with the aim of securing greater popular support forthe revolutionary movement. Provocation is distinct from the use ofhuman shields in that the former is offensive whereas the latter isdefensive. Combatants employ human shields in the hope that thepresence of non-combatants dissuades the enemy from launching anattack, whereas the intent of provoking the enemy is to have them harminnocents. Fourth and last, combatants can employ coercion againstnon-combatants with the aim of forcing them to join the revolutionaryeffort.
The argument from risk of abuse and the risk of breakdown of the rulesof war applies to some, but not all, of these irregular tactics. Thesearguments against irregular tactics are weaker when there arenaturally occurring incentives in place that would motivate againstabusing the irregular tactics or against reciprocating their use andwhen the dominant regime does not already engage in the abuse of therelevant sort of tactic. Such a situation is likely to obtain withregard to relatively less extreme forms of non-combatant targeting,namely, expansive discriminate targeting and coercing support. In alllikelihood, a regime that can be the target of legitimaterevolutionary war is likely already employing some kind of coercion tobolster its ranks, which makes worries about further abuse of thetactic moot. Expansive discriminate targeting is also unlikely to beworthwhile for a dominant regime to employ because of its asymmetricpower vis a vis the revolutionaries.
Revolutionaries are unlikely to have access to establishedinstitutional structures that they can rely on to advance their wareffort. The enemy of the regime consists of the specific members ofthe revolutionary movement that threatens it, whereas the enemy ofrevolutionaries is the regime as such, which is comprised not only ofpolitical officials and the combatants following orders issued by theofficials, but also the institutions and structures that keep theregime operating, and this makes an expansive understanding oflegitimate targets appealing for revolutionaries but not for theregime. By contrast, the arguments from risk of abuse and risk ofbreakdown of the rules of war seem to hold in the case of terrorismand the use of human shields. Dominant regimes have some interest inemploying either of these tactics as the use of indiscriminatetargeting would counteract the likely use of civilian camouflage anddisguise that revolutionaries will by necessity employ, and the use ofhuman shields would presumably be a deterrent against revolutionaryattack (though, for a qualified defense of the use of human shields,see Fabre 2012, pp. 256–67).
Even if the arguments from risk of abuse and risk of breakdown of therules of war do not hold in the case of coercing support andemployment of an expansive understanding of legitimate targets, thisdoes not mean that revolutionaries are justified in deploying suchirregular tactics. The principle of non-combatant immunity still seemsto offer a compelling prima facie reason for holding such tactics tobe impermissible, and so some positive reason in support of their usemust be offered.
In defense of coercing support, Buchanan 2013 argues that some formsof coercion may be permissible, as when revolutionary fighters areconscripted through the threat of penalties such as expropriation ofproperty or even perhaps confinement or lesser restrictions onliberty. The most plausible justification for such methods of coercedmobilization would characterize the goals of the revolution as publicgoods of extraordinary moral importance and present coercion as asolution to the collective action problem. For such coercion to bejustified, it must be the case that the cause of revolution is just,that the good gained by exercising coercion is proportionate to thebad of such coercion (i.e., one cannot use coercion to force personsto join a futile cause), the recruitment of further persons that canonly be achieved by coercion must be necessary for success, and theexercise of coercion must satisfy further standard principlesconcerning the use of coercion to secure a morally significant publicgood, namely the costs of coercion and contributing to the revolutionmust be distributed fairly.
What if anything can justify the deliberate targeting ofnon-combatants by revolutionary forces? According to Fabre, “theact of killing an innocent person—which infringes his right notto be killed and thereby extinguishes all his otherrights—cannot be justified unless as a way to avert the greaterevil of far greater numbers of individuals suffering a similar loss,or a violation, of all rights. By implication, violations of the rightto collective self-determination alone do not justify deliberatelytargeting innocent non-combatants” (Fabre 2012, p. 253).
Notice that Fabre’s conclusion takes for granted thatnon-combatants are also innocent. In defense of a more expansiveground for the deliberate targeting of non-combatants, Finlay arguesthat some non-combatants are not innocent and that because of thisfact it can be fair to distribute some of the harms of war to them.Key to Finlay’s argument is the claim that there will be some,perhaps many, civilians whose conduct contributes to maintaining theoppressive regime such that they are to some extent responsible for,or at least complicit in allowing, the harms of oppression to obtain.On Finlay’s view, then, supposing that targeting non-combatantsis necessary for advancing a just revolutionary war and that doing sois the most proportionate means available, then targetingnon-combatants can be justified when the targets are to some extentcomplicit or responsible for oppression, which thereby grounds somedegree of liability to harm (Finlay 2015, pp. 261–83).Complications face this kind of argument as what counts as significantcontribution is both unclear and disputed. For example, a farmer whosupplies food for a tyranny’s secret police or repairs thevehicles that they use to hunt down dissidents clearly makes acontribution to their depredations, but it is unclear whether thatsort of contribution makes her liable to deliberate targeting in war(Fabre 2009, Frowe 2014).
5. InterventionWhether intervention in revolution can be justified is a question ofgreat significance for the morality of political revolution. We willuse the term “intervention” in a broad sense to refer todeliberate military contributions made by foreign actors. Interventionis thus understood to include acts like contributing combatants orweapons, as well as acts like instituting a no-fly zone, or providingintelligence or logistical support or training in the use of weapons.Given the asymmetrical nature of revolutionary war, militaryassistance from foreign actors may be crucial, perhaps even necessary,to the success of revolutionaries.
Though intervention may be of urgent importance for the success of arevolution, the justification of military intervention by foreignactors is subject to important moral limitations. Michael Walzer hasfamously argued that the right of collective self-determination setsstringent constraints on what foreign actors may do. On Walzer’sview, foreign actors can only initiate unrequested intervention when apeople faces a supreme humanitarian emergency, such as genocide(Walzer 1977; Walzer 1980). Walzer’s argument results in anasymmetry between the justification of revolution and thejustification of intervention; whereas the former can be justified inresponse to oppression that does not reach the threshold of supremehumanitarian emergency, the latter cannot (for discussion of theasymmetry position, see Dobos 2011).
Buchanan has argued that respect for self-determination entails quitedifferent conclusions (Buchanan 2013). Buchanan rejects two commonprinciples offered as constraints on intervention based in respect forself-determination. The first is Mill’s principle, which holdsthat popular support for revolution is necessary for intervention tobe justified. The second is the consent principle, according to whichthe beneficiaries of intervention must consent to the intervention forit to be justified. Buchanan rejects both these principles because apopulace that is oppressed by a Resolute Severe Tyranny facesconsiderable obstacles to expression of popular support for revolutionand consent to intervention.
Without such constraints on intervention, Buchanan has offered twodistinctive kinds of grounds for intervention in revolutions. First,he has argued on the basis of considerations of proportionality thatforeign actors can justifiably intervene in revolutions that may nothave even been instigated rightfully when such intervention serves toeither a) preempt wrongdoing and the escalation of violence andcoercion that tends to take place in revolutionary wars, or b)establish the conditions under which the oppressed are able tomeaningfully convey their support for (or opposition to) revolution orconsent (or lack thereof) to intervention (Buchanan 2013). Second,Buchanan has argued that considerations of self-determination may infact weigh in favor of the justification of intervention (Buchanan2016). He argues that respecting a peoples’ right toself-determination requires taking measures to protect the conditionsof the exercise of a group’s self-determination and to promotethe conditions under which the group is capable of beingself-determining. Consequently, on Buchanan’s view respect forself-determination, considered by itself, entails a permission tointervene in revolutionary wars when doing so will protect or promotethe people’s self-determination. This permission extends toconsiderations of future generations, such that foreign actors mayalso intervene in the formation of post-revolutionary government ifthe post-revolutionary regime was going to be such that the conditionsof self-determination would not obtain for future persons. It isimportant to note that Buchanan’s argument is directed onlyagainst the view that respect for self-determination rules outintervention. He does not hold that the fact that an interventionwould promote self-determination entails that intervention ispermissible all things considered. There can be counter-vailingconsiderations.
Massimo Renzo offers the following critical reply to Buchanan’sargument (Renzo 2018). Renzo first argues that even if a person istemporarily incapable of exercising a right, this does not mean thatothers cannot violate the right. Accordingly, the fact that some groupis unable to exercise its right to self-determination does not implythat others may act as though the group had no right toself-determination at all. Constraints based in self-determination maystill obtain on the grounds of a) past exercises ofself-determination, and b) available reasons concerning how the groupwould exercise their right to self-determination if they were able todo so (for a critical reply to Renzo, see Weltman 2023). Buchananmight reply that he acknowledges that the right of self-determinationcontinues to exist under conditions in which the right-holders areincapable of exercising it but the right is violated only when itcould be exercised, not by measures that enable its exercise. The ideawould be that under conditions in which a tyranny prevents the peoplefrom developing the capacity for self-determination, the right is,latent or in reserve and that respecting self-determination can insome circumstances mean doing what is necessary to make the exerciseof the right possible.
The exchange reviewed so far takes for granted that self-determinationis relevant to some extent in determining the justification ofintervention. A number of authors, however, deny thatself-determination is of any import at all. On such views, if jusad bellum principles are satisfied, then intervention isjustified regardless of whether it is supported by beneficiaries(McMahan 2010; Altman and Wellman 2011: ch. 5; Teson 2017 ch. 3).Because these arguments reject that respect for self-determinationsets constraints on intervention, they consequently entail a rejectionof Walzer’s asymmetrical position, resulting in a symmetrybetween permissions to engage in revolutionary war and permissions forforeign actors to engage in military intervention.
Replying to such views, Renzo has argued that self-determination isindeed a value that sets constraints on the justification ofintervention (Renzo 2023). Key to Renzo’s argument is the claimthat self-determination is an independent value. In support of thisclaim, Renzo argues that appeal to self-determination is necessary toexplain the wrongness of a certain kind of colonialism. Renzo holdsthat colonialism that does not involve the violation of the basichuman rights of colonized is nevertheless wrong because it violates apeople’s right to self-determination. Having established thatself-determination is indeed an independent value, Renzo goes on toargue that respect for the value of self-determination sets a protanto constraint on the justification of intervention. Thispro tanto constraint requires taking into consideration how acommunity would have exercised its right to self-determination if itwere able to do so, and how it has exercised its self-determination inthe past in order to determine whether the intervention would beaccepted by the community. Renzo does not, however, conclude that onhis account there is an asymmetry between revolution and intervention.Rather, he argues that there is a symmetry, because revolutions willtend to be instigated by a vanguard group that in effect bears thesame relationship to the people as does a foreign actor. Accordingly,he argues that there is symmetry between the justification ofintervention and the justification of revolution because both musttake into consideration the right to self-determination of thepeople.
An alternative account of the relationship between revolution andintervention is offered by Christopher J. Finlay (Finlay 2023). Finlayargues that revolution and intervention are complementary. He holdsthat intervention is a supplement for revolution, such that thejustification of intervention is a function of the justification ofrevolution. In order for intervention to be justified onFinlay’s view, it must be that, first, the beneficiaries ofintervention are unable to secure their own rights, and second, thatdomestic leaders of a revolution would be unable to succeed on theirown.
6. Implications for Further Research in the Philosophy of RevolutionBoth the ethics of revolution and the ethics of intervention inrevolution are heavily fact-dependent, because both are shaped byconsideration of the likely consequences of engaging in revolution.More specifically, whether individuals or groups ought to or maypermissibly attempt to overthrow the existing political order andreplace it with a new one depends, inter alia, on whether theprospects for significant improvement are good, relative to the likelycosts of trying to achieving it. And for third parties consideringwhether to intervene either in support of or in opposition to arevolution an estimate of the risks and benefits is also essential. Wehave seen that, except in the case of Kant’s ConceptualArgument, the division between philosophers who opt for a blanketprohibition on revolution (and by implication, on intervention insupport of revolution) and those who hold that revolution is sometimesjustified is best explained by the hypothesis that the opposing groupsrely on different estimates of the risks of revolution. But we havealso seen that the risks vary depending upon the context in which arevolution occurs. Consequently, a sound philosophical theory ofrevolution will be particularistic, in this sense: it will acknowledgethat there is no correct answer to the question “Is revolutionjustified,” unless the context is specified and a defensibleaccount of the relationship between different contexts and differentlikely outcomes of revolution is provided. Doing that requires anempirically grounded account of the relationship between particularcontexts and outcomes. So far, no moral theory of revolution satisfiesthis requirement.
We conclude, accordingly, that a defensible theory of the morality ofrevolution must rely on a descriptive-explanatory theory of howlarge-scale political change is likely to occur, a theory that iscontext-sensitive. Further, since the question is when, if ever,revolutions are likely to produce a morally better political order,what is needed is nothing short of a descriptive-explanatory theory ofmorally progressive large-scale political change.
Another way to put this fundamental point is that theorizing themorality of revolution should be “naturalized,” not in thesense that normative issues should be reduced to factual ones, butrather in the sense that theorists should recognize the relevance ofthe facts about what actually happens in revolutions. Until they doso, perennial debates about whether revolution or reform is the bestpath to moral progress, debates of great importance for thejustification of revolution, will remain unresolvable. That means thatthe normative theorizing about revolution, if it is to be concreteenough to be action-guiding, requires not just the traditional skillsof the philosopher, but also recourse to relevant social scientifictheories of how large-scale changes come about (a factual question),in combination with principled assessments of whether the likelyoutcomes of revolution in various contexts will be morallyprogressive.
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