As one of a non-religious (some of my friends might consider it an anti-religious) bent, it has always seemed to me impossibly difficult to deal with questions of war and statecraft as moral problems. If we are thinking of “war” in the abstract, we are thinking of one of the ugly facts of life—an institution which has characterized human society from time immemorial, and which, like many other ugly facts of life, is in itself morally neutral. Like pain, pestilence or natural disaster, it presents a problem to the moralist; but the moralist can say nothing to those involved in war's agonies and cruel decisions.