scholarly journals War and Peace in The Law of Peoples: Rawls, Kant and the Use of Force

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 661-680
Author(s):  
Peri Roberts
Keyword(s):  
International Politics ◽  
Just War ◽  
International System ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
The Other ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
Law Of Peoples ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The Law

AbstractWhere Rawls’s The Law of Peoples addresses war and the use of force then his position has often been identified closely with Walzer’s restatement of just war theory, as both positions appear to take nation-states, and the conflicts between them, to be the bedrock of the international system. On the other hand, Kant’s notion of a peaceful federation of states presents us with the notion of a world without war and where the international system is transformed. This article argues that Rawls’s account of the use of force is better understood if we read it with an eye to its resonances with Kant rather than with Walzer. Doing so rewards us with a clearer understanding of central aspects of Rawls’s account of just war and vision of international politics.

Just War Theory and the Last of Last Resort

2015 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eamon Aloyo
Keyword(s):  
Just War ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
The Other ◽  
Just Cause ◽  
Jus Ad Bellum ◽  
Just War Tradition

The last resort criterion has a hallowed place in the just war theory tradition. Many leading just war theory scholars accept it as a jus ad bellum requirement and some powerful politicians reference it. While there are several versions of last resort, many take it to mean that peaceful options that have a reasonable chance of achieving a just cause must be exhausted before the use of force is permissible. Its justification is straightforward and commonsensical: war is terrible, inevitably results in the deaths of numerous innocents and destruction of their property, and thus should be avoided whenever possible. I argue that last resort should be dropped from the just war tradition because its inclusion in the just war tradition can result in a greater number of harms to innocents than if the precept did not exist. What should matter morally is the severity and numbers of harms inflicted on innocents, not whether those harms are inflicted violently or nonviolently. I suggest that in the context of achieving a just cause, the only actions that are permissible are those that are likely to inflict the fewest morally weighted harms and that meet the other just war theory precepts (excluding last resort). Three accounts of last resort do not permit this, whereas while a fourth does, it is redundant with an important account of the jus ad bellum proportionality precept. Thus violent policies may be preferable in some rare circumstances to nonviolent alternatives such as non-targeted sanctions and negotiations because nonviolent policies sometimes are more likely to foreseeably and avoidably result in far greater harms to innocents than violent options.

The New Law of Armed Conflict

1978 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 3-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. C. Green
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Intermediate State ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
The Other ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
Law Of Armed Conflict ◽  
The Law ◽  
Court Of Appeal

In HisDe Jure Belli ac Paris, Grotius, quoting Cicero, stated that “there is no Middle between War and Peace,” and this sentiment seems to have received general agreement well into the twentieth century. Thus, inJansonv.Driefontein Consolidated Mines, Lord Macnaghten stated: “I think the learned counsel for the respondent was right in saying that the law recognises a state of peace and a state of war, but that it knows nothing of an intermediate state which is neither one thing nor the other — neither peace nor war.” One might have thought that the English courts would have abandoned this view in the light of their own experience during the Manchukuo incident, for by 1939 inKawasaki Kisen Kabushiki Kaisha of Kobev.Bantham S.S. Co.the Court of Appeal was prepared to concede that “war” might exist for some commercial purposes but not in so far as other legal relationships were concerned.

A Semi-Kantian Just War Theory

2021 ◽  
pp. 13-31
Author(s):  
Yitzhak Benbaji
Keyword(s):  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
Law Of War ◽  
The Law ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Kantian Philosophy

The chapter explores the Kantian philosophy of the law of war and how it is based on two normative claims. First, states are independent of each other in virtue of their duty to provide a legal order in a territory that they rule. Second, any use of non-defensive force by a state in a territory that it does not actually rule is illegal. Benbaji shows that there is a deep tension between these claims, and he sets out to offer a contractarian theory of the crime of aggression, which he characterizes as semi-Kantian: states are fully legitimate only if their right to rule over their territory is recognized by all other states. Semi-Kantians argue that Ripstein’s Kant misconstrues the standing of states vis-à-vis the territories over which they rule.

7. St Augustine

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Bethke Elshtain
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Just War ◽  
Human Person ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
The World ◽  
Moral Orientations ◽  
The Way

This chapter examines Augustine of Hippo's political thought. After providing a brief biography of St Augustine, it considers the fate of his texts within the world of academic political theory and the general suspicion of ‘religious’ thinkers within that world. It then analyses Augustine's understanding of the human person as a bundle of complex desires and emotions as well as the implications of his claim that human sociality is a given and goes all the way down. It also explores Augustine's arguments regarding the interplay of caritas and cupiditas in the moral orientations of persons and of cultures. Finally, it describes Augustine's reflections on the themes of war and peace, locating him as the father of the tradition of ‘just war’ theory.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fernando R. Tesón ◽  
Bas van der Vossen
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Just War ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Self Defense ◽  
Collective Self

We introduce general concepts of just war theory and describe different kinds of war: national self-defense, collective self-defense, and humanitarian intervention. After laying down the conditions for the justification of humanitarian intervention, we highlight some of our differences. We conclude with an outline of the international law of use of force and some jurisprudential themes that bear on the current humanitarian intervention debate.

International Law and Armed Conflict

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ward Thomas
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Just War ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
The Other ◽  
World War ◽  
Self Defense ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Raison D’État ◽  
The One

International law and armed conflict have a rather contentious history together. One the one hand, armed conflict implies and absence of law, and yet, on the other, international law plays an important role in codifying the use of force. The UN Charter’s restrictions on the use of force, drafted in the waning days of a second cataclysmic world war, were intended to radically transform the centuries-old ideology of raison d’état, which viewed war as a sovereign prerogative. More precisely, Article 2(4) of the Charter forbids not just war but force of any kind, or even the threat of it. On its face, the Charter system is a model of simplicity, consisting of a clear prohibition and two exceptions to that prohibition. The apparent simplicity is misleading, however. Article 2(4) is violated so often that experts disagree about whether it should even be considered good law. The Chapter VII enforcement exception is rarely used, and the meaning of self-defense under Article 51 is the subject of contentious disagreement. Moreover, even some UN bodies have supported creating another exception (humanitarian intervention) that coexists uneasily with the organization’s foundational principles. In addition, there is yet another exception (the use of force by national liberation movements) that may be as significant as the others, yet is little discussed by contemporary commentators.

scholarly journals Iran’s Nuclear Decision Making and the Issue of Nuclear Non-Proliferation in the International System

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-65
Author(s):  
Ibrahim Suleiman ◽  
Hamza Shehu Mohammed ◽  
Haruna Mohammed Haruna
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
International Politics ◽  
International System ◽  
National Interest ◽  
World Politics ◽  
The State ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Military Diplomacy

This paper studies the reason for Iran’s nuclear decisions making by using the realist approach in the international politics, also the issue of nuclear non-proliferation in the international system and why the international system is totally against the Iran’s nuclear program? The study employs both primary and secondary sources as a method of data collection. The study reveals that that national interest should come first before any collective ones. The process which decisions are made is only determined by self-serving interests of those who possess power in the international system. The realist school of thought provides the critical opinions propounded by various political science scholars on power politics and national interest in the international system. According to Hans Morgenthau a classical realist scholar, society has to be governed generally by objective laws which are rooted in human nature. To him theory is necessary so that to bring order in the international politics, he rejected the idea of liberalism and idealism. Theory has to reflect the objective laws like power, military, diplomacy and norms of the society. First of all we have to look at the human nature which is seen as a rational, we have to examine through individual, group, and societal level because naturally human nature is selfish. Morgenthau defined the state as a collection of human beings who are self-interested, thus the state will have to deal with order interested states in the world politics. The aim of state in the international politics is pursuing national interest which is basically about power. He viewed international politics as a struggle for power.Thus, the realist scholars maintained that in the international politics, states happened to be the key actors and that politics is a conflictual, a struggle for anarchical environment in which nation-states defend on their own capabilities to survive.

The Pragmatic Approach

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Pattison
Keyword(s):  
Moral Theory ◽  
Just War ◽  
International System ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Pragmatic Approach ◽  
Jus Ad Bellum ◽  
Alternative Approaches

This chapter explicates the Pragmatic Approach, which is used to assess the ethics of the alternatives to war. This approach is pragmatic in that it is significantly instrumentalist and takes seriously the nonideal and contingent features of the contemporary international system. The chapter first outlines a series of tests any moral theory should meet, before going on to present the central features of the Pragmatic Approach. The chapter then defends this approach, showing how it meets the four tests outlined and is superior to alternative approaches. It also delineates the links to Just War Theory, and especially the jus ad bellum principles of necessity and proportionality. The end of the chapter considers how the values on the Pragmatic Approach should be weighed.

Levinas and the Ethics of War and Peace

2018 ◽  
pp. 566-586
Author(s):  
Joshua Shaw
Keyword(s):  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
Secondary Literature ◽  
Ethics Of War

This essay considers the role of war in Levinas’s philosophy and his philosophy’s place in the secondary literature on the ethics of war. It is argued that his understanding of war most closely matches just war theory, although it bears similarities as well to pacifist fears about the depersonalization that occurs in war. These comparisons are used to raise concerns about both Levinas’s philosophy and just war theory. Reading just war theory through the lens of his philosophy exposes the inability of just war theory to settle pacifist fears about wartime depersonalization. Conversely, reading Levinas through the lens of this debate reinforces the worry that there may be an unbridgeable gap between ethics and justice in his philosophy.

Religion and Violence from Christian Theological Perspectives

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Kimball
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
First Century ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
The Third ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
City State ◽  
The City ◽  
The Catholic Church

This chapter reviews the movement from pacifism to Just War and Crusade. It also tries to demonstrate the ways prominent Catholic and Protestant leaders have harshly used violent measures within their communities, and determines contemporary manifestations of these three approaches among twenty-first-century Christians. The Crusades constitute the third type of response to war and peace among Christians, joining the ongoing Just War and pacifist traditions. The Inquisition within the Catholic Church and the city-state of Geneva under John Calvin's leadership within the emerging Protestant movement are elaborated. These examples show how pervasive the use of violence in the name of religion had become. The Just Peacemaking Paradigm is the alternative to pacifism and Just War theory, an effort that tries to change the focus to initiatives which can help prevent war and foster peace.

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