Recent history has seen a rapid growth in the involvement of private parties in war conflicts. In 2020, there were almost twice as many private contractors as US soldiers in Afghanistan.1 In the ongoing war in Ukraine, private actors are allegedly deployed by both parties in the conflict.2 Originally hired by states to provide support services from catering to logistics, private military firms (PMFs) have progressively taken on functions, including combat tasks, that were deemed, at least in the last century, inherently governmental.3 The phenomenon amounts to an unprecedented form of corporatized mercenarism.4

The condemnation of mercenarism has an illustrious history. While Machiavelli famously deprecated mercenaries' lack of loyalty and tendency to corrupt the state,5 Rousseau worried that hiring mercenaries, rather than having citizens fight wars, would lead the latter to value comfort more than republican freedom. Recent critics argue, among other things, that fighting for profit is inherently wrong;6 that the privatization of war leads to an unjust distribution of access to security;7 that it allows both states and private parties to escape democratic accountability;8 and that it provides incentives to escalate conflicts and to increase the use of violence in the battlefield.9 Some contemporary philosophers have, on the other side, shown a friendlier face towards mercenarism. Most prominently, Cécile Fabre argues that, at least under ideal circumstances, private parties have a right to sell their soldiering services to states, for the purpose of just defensive killing, and states are at liberty to buy those services from them.10

Departing from Fabre's (qualified) defense of mercenarism, my goal is to provide an account of the wrong of privatized war, which neither rests on the controversial claim that fighting for profit is inherently wrong, nor assumes that privatization leads to unjust distributive outcomes, a lack of accountability, or the disproportionate use of force (although it may). I argue that, even in the absence of such problems, the privatization of (at least some) military tasks would amount to a condition of double domination, whereby both those exposed to the mercenary's use of force and, perhaps more surprisingly, the mercenary themself is dominated: that is to say, subject to the arbitrary will of another. This can occur even within the context of a just war.

To make my case, I will first argue that the state's outsourcing of certain military tasks to private parties, including most combat tasks, consists of a system of contracts between states and such parties that contain either invalid (not binding) or seriously problematic promises. Either the mercenary's promissory offer to perform those tasks entails the alienation of certain rights that cannot be so alienated, in which case the promise is invalid, or, if limited to the mere waiving of those rights, then the state is generally under a duty not to accept the mercenary's offer. Therefore, either the mercenary acquires no promissory duty to perform the content of the promise, or, if they do acquire it—because the state wrongly accepts the offer—they should be released immediately. Further, insofar as the mercenary comes to acquire a permission to use force on behalf of the state only as a necessary means to discharge their promissory duty to fight on its behalf, if the promise misfires, the mercenary does not acquire any such permission either.

Two implications follow. On the one hand, any attempt, on the part of the state, to compel the mercenary to perform constitutes an instance of domination over them—an arbitrary imposition of duties on them. On the other hand, since the mercenary lacks permission to exercise force on behalf of the state, and since one can arguably legitimately enforce rights on behalf of a state only if one does so in virtue of a grant of permission therefrom,11 those exposed to this exercise are also dominated—subject to an arbitrary will. One important and difficult part of the argument will be to explain why the relationship between states and regular soldiers does not present the same normative problems that afflict the contractual relationship between the state and mercenaries.

A concern with double domination provides strong reasons to limit the privatization of war, even if private actors are committed to only fight just wars and to avoid any disproportionate use of force. This does not mean, however, that the privatization of all military tasks, in all circumstances, is equally problematic. My argument provides reasons to condemn the privatization of combat tasks on the ground, and possibly also of non-combat but essential support tasks in dangerous missions for which replacements cannot be easily found, but not the outsourcing of non-essential tasks or of combat tasks with no or very little risk of death to those providing them, such as drone operating. Further, my account condemns the privatization of military tasks by normally functioning states—that is to say, political entities that have both the institutional and economic capacity to maintain a public military—but not necessarily by very weak or failing states. I take these qualifications to be a strength rather than a weakness of the argument, since they reflect the complex nature of the question at stake, and of reality.

Although the argument relies on empirical assumptions about contemporary mercenarism, some of which could arguably be changed without compromising the conceptual integrity of the practice itself, nevertheless, the objection is robust insofar as, as we shall see, making the changes needed would undermine the reasons why mercenarism exists in the first place.

Also, and importantly, mercenaries do not occupy an official position within a state's armed forces.

Although an ethical assessment of the privatization of war is the main focus of this article, it is not its only ambition. The article also provides an opportunity to reflect on what, if anything, makes the occupancy of a public office normatively special, and suggests a plausible, if not conclusive, answer to the broader question of which jobs, if any, should be performed exclusively by public actors. One upshot of my argument is that we have reasons to publicize—to reserve to public agents—the performance of jobs the function of which (1) is both morally permissible and socially desirable, in the sense that a political society has strong reasons to not eliminate the job in question, and (2) can only be fulfilled if employees are bound and can be compelled, by threat of punishment, to stay when an imminent risk of death materializes. Beyond combat tasks, firefighting and, more controversially, also policing and the provision of emergency care during deadly pandemics are plausible candidates.

最近的历史见证了私人团体参与战争冲突的迅速增长。2020 年，驻阿富汗的私人承包商数量几乎是美国士兵的两倍。1 在乌克兰正在进行的战争中，据称冲突双方都部署了私人承包商。2 最初由国家雇用，提供从餐饮到后勤的支持服务，私营军事公司 (PMF) 已逐渐承担起包括作战任务在内的职能，这些职能至少在上个世纪被认为是政府固有的。3 这种现象相当于一种前所未有的公司化雇佣军形式。4

对雇佣军主义的谴责有着辉煌的历史。虽然马基雅维利著名地反对雇佣兵缺乏忠诚和腐败国家的倾向，5卢梭担心雇佣雇佣兵而不是让公民打仗，会导致后者更看重舒适而不是共和自由。最近的批评者认为，除其他外，为利润而战本质上是错误的；6战争私有化导致安全机会的不公正分配；7它允许国家和私人团体逃避民主责任；8并且它9 另一方面，一些当代哲学家对雇佣军主义表现出了更友好的态度。最突出的是，塞西尔·法布尔 (Cécile Fabre) 认为，至少在理想情况下，私人团体有权出于防御性杀戮的目的向国家出售其士兵服务，而国家可以自由地从他们那里购买这些服务。 10

与法布尔对雇佣军主义的（有限制的）辩护不同，我的目标是对私有化战争的错误进行说明，它既不依赖于有争议的主张，即为利润而战本质上是错误的，也不假设私有化会导致不公正的分配结果，缺乏问责制，或过度使用武力（尽管可能）。我认为，即使不存在这些问题，（至少某些）军事任务的私有化也将构成双重统治的条件，即那些暴露于雇佣军使用武力的人，以及也许更令人惊讶的雇佣军本身被支配：也就是说，受制于他人的任意意志。即使在正义战争的背景下，这种情况也可能发生。

为了说明我的观点，我首先要论证的是，国家将某些军事任务（包括大多数战斗任务）外包给私人团体，是由国家与此类团体之间的合同体系组成的，其中包含无效（不具有约束力）或存在严重问题的承诺。雇佣军承诺履行这些任务，意味着让渡某些不能如此让渡的权利，在这种情况下，承诺无效；或者，如果仅限于放弃这些权利，那么国家一般有义务不这样做。接受雇佣兵的提议。因此，要么雇佣军不承担履行承诺内容的承诺义务，要么即使他们确实承担了义务——因为国家错误地接受了这一提议——他们应该立即被释放。此外，只要雇佣军获得代表国家使用武力的许可只是作为履行代表国家作战的承诺义务的必要手段，如果承诺失败，雇佣兵也不会获得任何此类许可。

接下来有两个含义。一方面，国家方面任何强迫雇佣军履行职责的企图都构成了对他们的统治——任意向他们强加义务。另一方面，由于雇佣军没有代表国家行使武力的许可，而且只有在获得国家许可的情况下才可以合法地代表国家行使权利， 11这项工作也是受支配的——受任意意志的支配。这一论证的一个重要且困难的部分将是解释为什么国家和正规士兵之间的关系不会出现困扰国家和雇佣军之间的契约关系的相同规范问题。

对双重统治的担忧为限制战争私有化提供了强有力的理由，即使私人行为者承诺只打正义的战争并避免过度使用武力。然而，这并不意味着所有军事任务的私有化在任何情况下都同样存在问题。我的论点提供了谴责地面战斗任务私有化的理由，也可能谴责危险任务中非战斗但重要的支援任务的私有化，因为这些任务不容易找到替代者，但不包括非必要任务或战斗任务的外包提供这些服务的人没有或几乎没有死亡风险，例如无人机操作。此外，我的叙述谴责正常运作的国家（也就是说，具有维持公共军队的制度和经济能力的政治实体）将军事任务私有化，但不一定是非常弱小或失败的国家。我认为这些限定条件是论证的优点而不是缺点，因为它们反映了所涉问题和现实的复杂性。

尽管这一论点依赖于关于当代雇佣军主义的经验假设，其中一些假设可以在不损害实践本身概念完整性的情况下进行改变，然而，正如我们将看到的，这种反对意见是强有力的，因为进行所需的改变会破坏其理由首先为什么存在雇佣军主义。

此外，重要的是，雇佣军在国家武装部队中不占据正式职位。

尽管对战争私有化的伦理评估是本文的主要焦点，但这并不是其唯一的目标。该文章还提供了一个机会来思考是什么（如果有的话）使得担任公职人员在规范上具有特殊性，并就哪些工作（如果有的话）应该完全由公职人员担任这一更广泛的问题提出了一个看似合理（如果不是结论性的）答案。公共演员。我的论点的一个结论是，我们有理由公开——保留给公共代理人——其功能（1）既在道德上允许又在社会上令人满意的工作的表现，从某种意义上说，一个政治社会有充分的理由不这样做取消相关工作；(2) 只有在死亡风险迫在眉睫时，员工受到约束并可以通过惩罚威胁被迫留下来，才能完成这项工作。除了战斗任务之外，消防以及更具争议性的警务和在致命流行病期间提供紧急护理都是可能的候选任务。