Just war theory and the war on terror

2011 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 108-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bill Calcutt
Keyword(s):  
War On Terror ◽  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory

10. War and intervention

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Frowe
Keyword(s):  
War On Terror ◽  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
World War ◽  
Jus Post Bellum ◽  
Jus Ad Bellum ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
The World ◽  
Just War Tradition

This chapter examines the main theoretical approaches to war and the circumstances under which it is permissible to wage war. War is one of the most morally difficult, and morally pressing, aspects of human existence. It nearly always involves killing and maiming on a vast scale. Despite its destructive nature, and despite the rise of rights talk on the international stage and the spread of democracy across large parts of the world, war persists. The chapter first considers the just war tradition and alternatives to just war theory before discussing two theoretical approaches to the ethics of war: collectivism and individualism. It also explores three principles that govern the fighting of war: jus ad bellum, jus in bello, and jus post bellum. A case study on Afghanistan and the ‘war on terror’ is presented, along with Key Thinkers boxes featuring Michael Walzer and Jeff McMahan.

scholarly journals Just war theory after colonialism and the war on terror: reexamining non-combatant immunity

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Gabriel Mares
Keyword(s):  
War On Terror ◽  
Recent Trend ◽  
Just War ◽  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Just War Theory

Abstract I challenge a recent trend in just war theory – that civilians might be complicit with terrorists and lose non-combatant immunity – by reversing the gun sights and asking whether colonizing populations complicit with empire might compromise their non-combatant status. Employing colonial settlers as a thought experiment, I demonstrate the logic of expanded civilian culpability that has been proposed in the wake of the War on Terror would be unacceptable in other scenarios, and that these revisionist proposals are in service of ends incompatible with just war. In the process, I identify an important ambiguity regarding the performativity of non-combatant status, and show how this is used to aggressively expand civilian culpability for violence.

scholarly journals Arguing the Just War in Islam

2010 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-130
Author(s):  
Sajjad H. Rizvi
Keyword(s):  
War On Terror ◽  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
English Word ◽  
Holy War ◽  
Contemporary Debate ◽  
Forthcoming Book ◽  
Real Issue ◽  
Ethical Concept ◽  
The Subject

Jihad has become a normal English word, a term to describe irrational violence,“holy war,” terrorism, and the generally rather nasty things that “badMuslims do.” John Kelsay, in this wonderfully succinct and accessible work,wants to argue that the real issue in discussing jihad is to make sense of legitimateviolence and how it may be deployed, and hence to locate the discoursewithin an existing discussion about just war theory. I am not generally sympatheticto the use of the comparable frame of just war theory because, as ajuridical and ethical concept it is rather limited, arising as it does out of a particularpolitico-theological context of medieval Catholicism. Having saidthat, any serious attempt to nuance jihad’s meaning in the contemporaryworld, to contextualize the discourse adequately and historically, and to posedifficult questions to those who appropriate it on the basis of a claim towardestablishing justice and acting in a just cause is welcome. Kelsay is interested in the contemporary debate about the nature ofpolitical ethics among Muslims. His book is not just an attempt to “whitewash”Muslims and their theologies from any culpability in the acts and ideologiesof the likes of al-Qaeda. While he does interrogate the theologicaland juridical reasoning of such terrorists, what he wants to show is not onlytheir distance from historically grounded narratives of jihad, but alsohow their reasoning may be shared. It is indeed foolish to argue that jihadiideology has nothing to do with reasoning about jihad as such; it is counterintuitiveand unhelpful. He also wants to indicate how the language of justwar is mutually supportive between the rhetoric of the “war on terror” andal-Qaeda’s war on the “Zionist-Crusaders” (which is, in theological terms,the subject of a forthcoming book by Alia Brahimi to be published by CambridgeUniversity Press) ...

Kantian Project of Perpetual Peace in the Context of Modern Ethical and Political Concepts of War

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-100
Author(s):  
Arseniy D. Kumankov
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Democratic Peace ◽  
Peace Treaty ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Democratic Peace Theory ◽  
Perpetual Peace

The article considers the modern meaning of Kant’s doctrine of war. The author examines the context and content of the key provisions of Kant’s concept of perpetual peace. The author also reviews the ideological affinity between Kant and previous authors who proposed to build alliances of states as a means of preventing wars. It is noted that the French revolution and the wars caused by it, the peace treaty between France and Prussia served as the historical background for the conceptualization of Kant’s project. In the second half of the 20th century, there is a growing attention to Kant’s ethical and political philosophy. Theorists of a wide variety of political and ethical schools, (cosmopolitanism, internationalism, and liberalism) pay attention to Kant’s legacy and relate their own concepts to it. Kant’s idea of war is reconsidered by Michael Doyle, Jürgen Habermas, Ulrich Beck, Mary Kaldor, Brian Orend. Thus, Doyle tracks democratic peace theory back to Kant’s idea of the spread of republicanism. According to democratic peace theory, liberal democracies do not solve conflict among themselves by non-military methods. Habermas, Beck, Kaldor appreciate Kant as a key proponent of cosmopolitanism. For them, Kant’s project is important due to notion of supranational forms of cooperation. They share an understanding that peace will be promoted by an allied authority, which will be “governing without government” and will take responsibility for the functioning of the principles of pacification of international relations. Orend’s proves that Kant should be considered as a proponent of the just war theory. In addition, Orend develops a new area in just war theory – the concept of ius post bellum – and justifies regime change as the goal of just war.

The Possibility To Intervene In Syria Relying On Just War Theory Assumptions

2019 ◽  
pp. 338
Author(s):  
عامر سلامة القرالة ◽  
أيمن صالح البراسنة
Keyword(s):  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory

The Mechanics of Claims and Permissible Killing in War

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alec D. Walen
Keyword(s):  
Side Effect ◽  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Central Problem ◽  
Lethal Force ◽  
Practical Level

This book operates on two levels. On the more practical level, its overarching concern is to answer the question, When is it permissible to use lethal force to defend people against threats? The deeper concern of the book, however, is to lay out and defend a new account of rights, the mechanics of claims. This framework constructs rights from the premise that rights provide a normative space in which people can pursue their own ends while treating each other as free and equal fellow-agents whose welfare morally matters. According to the mechanics of claims, rights result from first weighing competing patient-claims on an agent, then determining if the agent has a strong enough agent-claim to act contrary to the balance of patient-claims on her, and then looking to see if special claims limit her freedom. The strength of claims in this framework reflects not just the interest in play but the nature of the claims. Threats who have no right to threaten have weaker claims not to be harmed than bystanders who might be harmed as a side effect, all else equal. With this model, a central problem in just war theory can be pushed to the margins: determining when people have forfeited their rights and are liable to harm. Threats may lack a right not to be killed even if they have done nothing to forfeit it.

The Alternatives to War

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Pattison
Keyword(s):  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Economic Sanctions ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
Military Action ◽  
Comprehensive Account ◽  
The Face ◽  
Normative Issues ◽  
Better Than

If states are not to go to war, what should they do instead? In The Alternatives to War: From Sanctions to Non-violence, James Pattison considers the case for the alternatives to military action to address mass atrocities and aggression. He covers the normative issues raised by measures ranging from comprehensive economic sanctions, diplomacy, and positive incentives, to criminal prosecutions, non-violent resistance, accepting refugees, and arming rebels. For instance, given the indiscriminateness of many sanctions regimes, are sanctions any better than war? Should states avoid ‘megaphone diplomacy’ and adopt more subtle measures? What, if anything, can non-violent methods such as civilian defence and civilian peacekeeping do in the face of a ruthless opponent? Is it a serious concern that positive incentives can appear to reward aggressors? Overall, Pattison provides a comprehensive account of the ethics of the alternatives to war. In doing so, he argues that the case for war is weaker and the case for many of the alternatives is stronger than commonly thought. The upshot is that, when reacting to mass atrocities and aggression, states are generally required to pursue the alternatives to war rather than military action. Pattison concludes that this has significant implications for pacifism, Just War Theory, and the responsibility to protect doctrine.

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