Has War ever been Justified?
War is defined as a state of hostility or rivalry that usually consists of physical force between opposing parties. Surely there are times in which conflict between states and peoples arise out of necessity, but there are also points in which wars arise out of needless ambitions, and it's in these instances that war is never justified. I would like to introduce a new word that I just found related with war. That word is the act of utilitarianism. The act of utilitarianism implies that us, civilians, make a binary choice to either go to war and serve our country or we tell ourselves that it is essential to go to war.
When faced with such an ethical questoin on whether or no war ever been justified, we may look on evidences from the past. Some wars arose because of the necessity of independence and hence the good of mankind. For example, WW2 was a necessary war in which arms had to be taken against the Axis powers who had serious ambitions of enslaving the Slavic states of Eastern Europe and spreading Aryan/Japanese supremacy throughout the world. This particular example is one of the many wars that arose where it is to defend human rights and for the beneficial of minor parties. Hence, war should be done only for the importance of defending the national defence or the international imprisonment such as German in the World War II.
However, everything has their own consequences. For instance, if 100,000 people have to die in order to save the lives of 35 million then that is a reasonable cost. The cost of such a tragical occurance should not excee half the number of the population for which it is to be spread amongst. For example, a war that cost the lives of 51% of the population means that the majority of population died in the war benefiting the remaining 49%, certainly not a majority. Hence, I don’t see the need of war.