War

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Turner Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Just War ◽  
International Agreements ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Napoleonic Wars ◽  
Moral Reform ◽  
Evangelical Christianity ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
Divine Punishment ◽  
Christian Thought ◽  
The Ideal

The ‘long’ nineteenth century was a time of contradictions in Christian thinking on war. Loss of the just war idea, transformed into a theory of the ‘law of nations’, opened the door to more extreme Christian perspectives: abolition of war versus support for war to achieve moral reform. During the Napoleonic wars, English evangelical Christians labelled those wars divine punishment for England’s immorality but did not oppose the struggle against Napoleon, while Kant’s essay ‘Eternal Peace’ defined peace in terms of opposition to all war. The Quakers and the Mennonites and Brethren embraced a specifically Christian rejection of war. By mid-century a newly assertive and militant evangelical Christianity countered this, supporting use of military force to serve Christian ideals. By century’s end prominent Christian thinking had returned to the ideal of abolishing war, but this time through international agreements and organizations. This chapter follows Christian thought through these contradictory phases.

scholarly journals Scarred souls, weary warriors, and military intervention: the emergence of the subject in the just war writings of Jean Bethke Elshtain

2012 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 859-880 ◽  
Author(s):  
PETER LEE
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Just War ◽  
Military Intervention ◽  
Military Force ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Just War Tradition ◽  
A Site

AbstractOver the past three decades Jean Bethke Elshtain has used her critique and application of just war as a means of engaging with multiple overlapping aspects of identity. Though Elshtain ostensibly writes about war and the justice, or lack of justice, therein, she also uses just war a site of analysis within which different strands of subjectivity are investigated and articulated as part of her broader political theory. This article explores the proposition that Elshtain's most important contribution to the just war tradition is not be found in her provision of codes or her analysis of ad bellum or in bello criteria, conformity to which adjudges war or military intervention to be just or otherwise. Rather, that she enriches just war debate because of the unique and sometimes provocative perspective she brings as political theorist and International Relations scholar who adopts, adapts, and deploys familiar but, for some, uncomfortable discursive artefacts from the history of the Christian West: suffused with her own Christian faith and theology. In so doing she continually reminds us that human lives, with all their attendant political, social, and religious complexities, should be the focus when military force is used, or even proposed, for political ends.

Just war thinking in recent American religious debate over military force

2009 ◽  
pp. 76-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Turner Johnson ◽  
Richard Dannatt
Keyword(s):  
Just War ◽  
Military Force

James Turner Johnson's Just War Idea: Commanding the Headwaters of Tradition

2008 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cian O'Driscoll
Keyword(s):  
Historical Development ◽  
Just War ◽  
Critical Reading ◽  
Historical Reconstruction ◽  
Critical Commentary ◽  
Christian Love ◽  
Just War Tradition ◽  
The Ideal ◽  
The Way

James Turner Johnson is the foremost scholar of the just war tradition working today. His treatment of the historical development of the just war tradition has been hugely important, influencing a generation of theorists. Despite this, Johnson's work has not generated much in the way of critical commentary or analysis. This paper aims to rectify this oversight. Engaging in a close and critical reading of Johnson's work, it claims that his historical reconstruction of the just war tradition is bounded by two key thematic lines — the imperative of vindicative justice and the ideal of Christian love — and occasionally betrays an excessive deference to the authority of past practice. By way of conclusion, this paper sums up the promise and limits of Johnson's approach, and reflects upon its contribution to contemporary just war scholarship.

scholarly journals The resort to military force in the COVID-19 health emergency: A justification

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (35) ◽  
pp. 549-569
Author(s):  
Zivorad Rasevic
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Survey Methodology ◽  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Military Operations ◽  
Domestic Use ◽  
Military Support ◽  
Human Rights Standards ◽  
Emergency Measures

The COVID-19 pandemic has been mobilizing the full capacities of societies worldwide to respond to unprecedented threats to national and human security. In many cases, emergency measures have involved military support to civil institutions, including law enforcement operations. This paper aims to understand the legality and legitimacy of these military operations better, using hermeneutic, comparative, and survey methodology. It is based on the assumptions that international human rights standards crucially determine moral requirements for domestic use of military force and that just war theory can be equally helpful in the decision-making on domestic military operations in such circumstances. This study assesses the justification of current military enforcement and recommends criteria for future emergencies.

A God by any other Name …

1990 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-121
Author(s):  
David Steglich
Keyword(s):  
Ideal Observer ◽  
Moral Thought ◽  
God's Will ◽  
Christian Religion ◽  
Moral Decisions ◽  
Christian Thought ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Ideal

In his book Ethics Without God, Kai Nielsen voices criticism of Christian thought and morality. In two of his major arguments, Nielsen contends that morality can not be based on the Christian religion or similar theistic metaphysics, and secondly, that if morality is based on God, or God's will, any ‘moral decisions’ are arbitrary and involve no reasoning on the part of the individual. These two criticisms of Christian moral thought can be met by drawing upon the Ideal Observer Theory in ethics.

Conclusion

2019 ◽  
pp. 351-356
Author(s):  
Renaud Morieux
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
International Agreements ◽  
The Other ◽  
Military Conflict ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
Customary Laws ◽  
Women And Children ◽  
The One ◽  
Status Of Women

In this book, I have highlighted the creative tension between the state imperative of military conflict, on the one hand, and the emergence of powerful moral and legal norms that emphasized the need to wage civilized and humane wars, on the other. For most of the time, this tension between the growth of violence and the preservation of life was productive. For example, the differentiation between civilians and combatants, and the exceptional status of women and children were acknowledged by legal writers. These principles were implemented in administrative regulations and international agreements from the beginning of the eighteenth century. These exemptions could always be revoked, and practices were highly contingent throughout the period. But in the eighteenth century, the customary laws of war, the law of nations, and humanitarian patriotism encouraged the states to try to get the upper hand on the moral front and treat their prisoners better than their enemies did theirs. In itself, this account contrasts with the Francophobic and Anglophobic perspectives explored by other historians....

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