| Sumario: | The article focuses on defending a limited moral equality of combatants thesis within just war theory through a contractualist framework. It challenges revisionist critiques that deny any moral equality between just and unjust combatants by arguing that, under realistic empirical conditions—such as the prevalence of lethal wars, combatants’ beliefs in just causes, and the risks of escalation—combatants on all sides have equal moral status and permissions to fight. The author develops contractualism as a nonconsequentialist theory emphasizing principles that no one could reasonably reject, applying it to the nonideal circumstances of war and rejecting the revisionist continuity thesis that equates the morality of war with individual self-defense. The article further contrasts contractualism with contractarianism, arguing that contractualism better accounts for moral duties without relying on social conventions’ mutual benefit or widespread acceptance, and concludes that contractualism supports an intermediary position between orthodox just war theory and revisionism regarding combatants’ moral equality.
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