The Just War Myth

The Just War Myth PDF Author: Andrew Fiala
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742562011
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
As the war in Iraq continues and Americans debate the consequences of the war in Afghanistan, the war on terror, and the possibility of war with North Korea and Iran, war is one of the biggest issues in public debate. Andrew Fiala in The Just War Myth challenges the apparently predominant American sentiment that war can be easily justified. Even most Democrats seem to hold that opinion, despite the horrific costs of war both on the people being attacked or caught up in the chaos and on the Americans involved in carrying out the war. The Just War Myth argues that while the just war theory is a good theory, actual wars do not live up to its standards. The book provides a genealogy of the just war idea and also turns a critical eye on current events, including the idea of preemptive war, the use of torture, and the unreality of the Bush Doctrine. Fiala warns that pacifism, too, can become mythological, advocating skepticism about attempts to justify war.

The Just War Revisited

The Just War Revisited PDF Author: Oliver O'Donovan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521538992
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 154

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Book Description
Leading political theologian Oliver O'Donovan takes a fresh look at some traditional moral arguments about war. Christians differ widely on this issue. The book re-examines questions of contemporary urgency, including the use of biological and nuclear weapons, military intervention, economic sanctions, and the role of the UN. It opens with a challenging dedication to the new Archbishop of Canterbury and proceeds to shed light on vital topics with which that Archbishop and others will be very directly engaged. It should be read by anyone concerned with the ethics of warfare.

Just War Thinkers

Just War Thinkers PDF Author: Daniel R. Brunstetter
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317307119
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 478

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Book Description
This volume offers a set of concise and accessible introductions to the seminal figures in the historical development of the just war tradition. In what, if any, circumstances are political communities justified in going to war? And what limits should apply to the conduct of any such war? The just war tradition is a body of thought that helps us think through these very questions. Its core ideas have been subject to fierce debate for over 2,000 years. Yet they continue to play a prominent role in how political and military leaders address the challenges posed by the use of force in international society. Until now there has been no text that offers concise and accessible introductions to the key figures associated with the tradition. Stepping into this breach, Just War Thinkers provides a set of clear but detailed essays by leading experts on nineteen seminal thinkers, from Cicero to Jeff McMahan. This volume challenges the reader to think about how traditions are constituted—who is included and excluded, and how that is determined—and how they serve to enable, constrain, and indeed channel subsequent thought, debate, and exchange. This book will be of much interest to students of just war tradition and theory, ethics and war, philosophy, security studies and IR.

The Future of Just War

The Future of Just War PDF Author: Caron E. Gentry
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 0820339504
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
Just War scholarship has adapted to contemporary crises and situations. But its adaptation has spurned debate and conversation—a method and means of pushing its thinking forward. Now the Just War tradition risks becoming marginalized. This concern may seem out of place as Just War literature is proliferating, yet this literature remains welded to traditional conceptualizations of Just War. Caron E. Gentry and Amy E. Eckert argue that the tradition needs to be updated to deal with substate actors within the realm of legitimate authority, private military companies, and the questionable moral difference between the use of conventional and nuclear weapons. Additionally, as recent policy makers and scholars have tried to make the Just War criteria legalistic, they have weakened the tradition's ability to draw from and adjust to its contemporaneous setting. The essays in The Future of Just War seek to reorient the tradition around its core concerns of preventing the unjust use of force by states and limiting the harm inflicted on vulnerable populations such as civilian noncombatants. The pursuit of these challenges involves both a reclaiming of traditional Just War principles from those who would push it toward greater permissiveness with respect to war, as well as the application of Just War principles to emerging issues, such as the growing use of robotics in war or the privatization of force. These essays share a commitment to the idea that the tradition is more about a rigorous application of Just War principles than the satisfaction of a checklist of criteria to be met before waging “just” war in the service of national interest.

The Just War Myth

The Just War Myth PDF Author: Andrew Fiala
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742562011
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
As the war in Iraq continues and Americans debate the consequences of the war in Afghanistan, the war on terror, and the possibility of war with North Korea and Iran, war is one of the biggest issues in public debate. Andrew Fiala in The Just War Myth challenges the apparently predominant American sentiment that war can be easily justified. Even most Democrats seem to hold that opinion, despite the horrific costs of war both on the people being attacked or caught up in the chaos and on the Americans involved in carrying out the war. The Just War Myth argues that while the just war theory is a good theory, actual wars do not live up to its standards. The book provides a genealogy of the just war idea and also turns a critical eye on current events, including the idea of preemptive war, the use of torture, and the unreality of the Bush Doctrine. Fiala warns that pacifism, too, can become mythological, advocating skepticism about attempts to justify war.

The Just War in the Middle Ages

The Just War in the Middle Ages PDF Author: Frederick H. Russell
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521292764
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
The first systematic attempt to reconstruct from original manuscript sources and early printed books the medieval doctrines relating to the just war, the holy war and the crusade. Despite the frequency of wars and armed conflicts throughout the course of western history, no comprehensive survey has previously been made of the justifications of warfare that were elaborated by Roman lawyers, canon lawyers and theologians in the twelfth and thirteenth century universities. After a brief survey of theories of the just war in antiquity, with emphasis on Cicero and Augustine, and of thought on early medieval warfare, the central chapters are devoted to scholastics such as Pope Innocent IV, Hostiensis and Thomas Aquinas. Professor Russell attempts to correlate theories of the just war with political and intellectual development in the Middle Ages. His conclusion evaluates the just war in the light of late medieval and early modern statecraft and poses questions about its compatibility with Christian ethics and its validity within international law.

The Just War

The Just War PDF Author: Paul Ramsey
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742522329
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 588

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Book Description
With a new foreword by noted theologian and ethicist Stanley Hauerwas, this classic text on war and the ethics of modern statecraft written at the height of the Vietnam era in 1968 speaks to a new generation of readers. Characterized by a sophisticated yet back-to-basics approach, The Just War begins with the assumption that force is a fact in political life which must either be reckoned with or succumbed to. It then grapples with modern challenges to traditional moral principles of "just conduct" in war, the "morality of deterrence," and a "just war theory of statecraft."

Just War as Christian Discipleship

Just War as Christian Discipleship PDF Author: Daniel M. Jr. Bell
Publisher: Brazos Press
ISBN: 1441206817
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
This provocative and timely primer on the just war tradition connects just war to the concrete practices and challenges of the Christian life. Daniel Bell explains that the point is not simply to know the just war tradition but to live it even in the face of the tremendous difficulties associated with war. He shows how just war practice, if it is to be understood as a faithful form of Christian discipleship, must be rooted in and shaped by the fundamental convictions and confessions of the faith. The book includes a foreword by an Army chaplain who has served in Iraq and study questions for group use.

St. Augustine and the Theory of Just War

St. Augustine and the Theory of Just War PDF Author: John Mark Mattox
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1847141110
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
The decline of the Roman Empire gave rise to two problems, which combined to form one of the most perplexing philosophical questions of late antiquity. On the one hand, Rome found itself under constant military threat as various tribes from the north and east encroached along its borders to fill the power vacuum left by the receding Empire. On the other hand, adherents to the Empire's new official faith - Christianity - found themselves without clear guidance as to what military roles their faith would permit; the death of the apostles left them without revelatory guidance, and the New Testament writings were not definitive on the subject. The question, then, became: "Can a Christian answer the empire's call to military duty and still answer a clear conscience before God?" Fifth-century philosopher, St Augustine of Hippo, sought to provide a solution to the two problems. His approach formed the foundation of the 'just war' tradition, which has had enormous influence upon moral-philosophical thought on military issues in the West ever since. This major new study identifies the fundamental Augustinian premises and evaluates them in light of historical, neo-Platonic, and Christian contexts. It also identifies the effect of the Augustinian legacy upon medieval and modern philosophical reflections on the nature of warfare and on how war might be waged justly and morally.

Shakespeare and the Just War Tradition

Shakespeare and the Just War Tradition PDF Author: Paola Pugliatti
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 9780754659273
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
As an `innocent', which is to say non-specialist, reader of Shakespeare, I knew that one could find everything in his work, as in the Bible; what I had not imagined was that the Bard - what a devil of a man!-could also inspire one to reflect on a subject that so closely presses upon us today: the ethics of war. Paola Pugliatti's book, however, has obliged me to re-read him from this entirely new perspective.---Umberto Eco In Shakespeare, Paola Pugliatti writes, `war is ubiquitous'. Her examination of his use of war and of just war tradition in his work places it in the context of the prior development of this tradition during the late Middle Ages and the burgeoning debates about just war in Shakespeare's own time. Not only does her study add depth to understanding Shakespeare on war; it provides a primer on the development of the tradition of just war out of which the English debates of this period grew. Pugliatti's work is an important new addition to reflection on both Shakespeare and just war tradition.---James Turner Johnson, Distinguished Professor of Religion at Rutgers University, USA, and author of many books on just war tradition and its use Brought to light in this study is a connection between the treatment of war in Shakespeare's plays and the issue of the `just war', which loomed large both in religious and in lay treatises of Shakespeare's time. The book re-reads Shakespeare's representations of war in light of both the changing historical and political contexts in which they were produced and of Shakespeare's possible connection with the culture and ideology of the European just war tradition. But to discuss Shakespeare's representations of war means, for Pugliatti, not simply to examine his work from a literary point of view or to historicize those representations in connection with the discourses (land the practice) of war which were produced in his time; it also means to consider or re-consider present-day debates for or against war and the kind of war ideology which is trying to assert itself in our time in light of the tradition which shaped those discourses and representations and which still substantiates our `moral' view of war.

Just War and Terrorism

Just War and Terrorism PDF Author: Wim Smit
Publisher: Peeters Publishers
ISBN: 9789042916975
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
With the new wave of terrorism, scholars, politicians, members of the military and even ordinary people, all of whom have been startled by the extreme kind of violence, have raised many questions. With an interesting spectrum of viewpoints, this text covers many challenging themes.