Security Beyond the State: Cosmopolitanism, Peace and the Role of Just War Theory

2005 ◽  
pp. 157-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Hayden
Keyword(s):  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
The State

Humanism, the Bible, and Erasmus’s Moral World Order

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xavier Tubau
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Just War ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
World Order ◽  
Moral Order ◽  
Moral Formation ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Moral World

This chapter sets Erasmus’s ideas on morality and the responsibility of rulers with regard to war in their historical context, showing their coherence and consistency with the rest of his philosophy. First, there is an analysis of Erasmus’s criticisms of the moral and legal justifications of war at the time, which were based on the just war theory elaborated by canon lawyers. This is followed by an examination of his ideas about the moral order in which the ruler should be educated and political power be exercised, with the role of arbitration as the way to resolve conflicts between rulers. As these two closely related questions are developed, the chapter shows that the moral formation of rulers, grounded in Christ’s message and the virtue politics of fifteenth-century Italian humanism, is the keystone of the moral world order that Erasmus proposes for his contemporaries.

Just War Theory & the Conduct of Asymmetric Warfare

Daedalus ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 146 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-70
Author(s):  
Allen S. Weiner
Keyword(s):  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Just War ◽  
Central Element ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
The State ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Laws Of War ◽  
Equal Rights ◽  
Moral Equality ◽  
Asymmetric Warfare

A central element of the dominant view of just war theory is the moral equality of soldiers: combatants have equal rights to wage war against one another and are entitled to certain protections if captured, without regard to which side's cause of war is just. But whether and how this principle should apply in asymmetric armed conflicts between states and nonstate groups is profoundly unsettled. I argue that we should confer war rights on fighters for nonstate groups when they are engaged in violence that has risen to the level of armed conflict, and when the state against which the war is being waged is not entitled to assert its monopoly on the legitimate exercise of force, either because 1) the nonstate group has established sufficient control over territory to assert its own governing authority; or 2) because the group is located abroad. Conferring war rights on nonstate fighters does not, however, permit them to engage in acts that violate the laws of war. Fighters who commit such violations are individually subject to prosecution without regard to their group's entitlement to war rights.

For a Cautious Utopianism

2005 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 97-98
Author(s):  
Anthony Burke
Keyword(s):  
International Society ◽  
Just War ◽  
The State ◽  
Women And War

I thank Professor Elshtain for her response to my article, and the editors for inviting me to make some clarifications and engage in what is emerging as a profound normative dispute about the underlying hopes and worldview of “just war” thinkers and various post-Kantian tendencies. This dispute is centered on our view of the role of war in international society, the normative promise and understanding of “peace,” and, to a lesser extent, on critiques of sovereignty and the state. If our exchange has any value, it will be to highlight the considerable stakes of this dispute, which might have otherwise remained hidden in a few short pages of Elshtain's important Women and War.

scholarly journals Moral Justification of Humanitarian Intervention in Modern Just War Theory

2021 ◽  
Vol 63 (11) ◽  
pp. 58-73
Author(s):  
Arseniy D. Kumankov
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Just War ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
The State ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Moral Justification ◽  
Mass Violence ◽  
Mass Murders

The article deals with the problem of moral justification of humanitarian intervention by modern just war theorists. At the beginning of the article, we discuss the evolution of the dominant paradigms of the moral justification of war and explain why the theory and practice of humanitarian intervention appears only at the present stage of the development of ethics and the law of war. It is noted that theorization of humanitarian intervention began in the last decades of the 20th century. This is due to a significant transformation, a retreat in the legal and ethical studies of war from the position of radical condemnation of aggressive actions and the recognition of the political subjectivity of non-state groups. Thus, there is a rethinking of the long tradition, the Westphalian system of international relations, according to which the state was recognized as the main participant of big politics, and its sovereign right to conduct domestic policy was considered indisputable. Further, we take the works of Michael Walzer as the main source of modern conceptualization of the ethics of humanitarian interventionism, since Walzer repeatedly addressed this topic and formulated a position on this issue that is representative of the entire modern Just War Theory. The arguments of Walzer and his supporters in favor of the moral justification of humanitarian intervention are considered. Among them are the following. First, the argument about the state as an organization which goal is to protect the rights of its own citizens. If this goal is not not achieved, the state shall loose its power over these people and in this territory. Second, Walzer calls for identifying governments and armed forces involved in mass murders as criminal and, therefore, deserving of punishment. Finally, there is, perhaps the most important, demonstrative argument: an appeal to the self-evident impossibility to stand aside in cases of mass violence in any state. This is followed by a critique of these arguments, as well as a demonstration of how the modern Just War Theory can respond to these criticisms.

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.

scholarly journals Dying for the state: the missing just war question?

2010 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 215-234
Author(s):  
ILAN ZVI BARON
Keyword(s):  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
War Literature ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Obligation ◽  
Ethics Of War ◽  
Proper Authority ◽  
The Way

AbstractThis article introduces the problem of having to risk one's life for the state in war, asking first why this question is no longer asked in the just war literature and then suggesting five issues that relate to this question: 1) that of individual consent, 2) whether or not any state can be justified in obliging its citizens in this regard and whether or not the type of government is important, 3) whether or not the problem of the obligation differs between conscript and volunteer armies, 4) the problem of political obligation and how any individual could be justifiably obliged to risk his or her life for the state in war, and 5) the question of whether a citizen may be obliged to go into any war. The argument is that these questions are no longer given much attention in the just war literature because of the way that the concept of proper authority has come to be understood. The article concludes by suggesting that the problem of the ‘obligation to die’ should be included in our understanding and use of just war theory and the ethics of war.

Just War Theory in Times of Individual Rights

2018 ◽  
pp. 220-232
Author(s):  
Janina Dill
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Individual Rights ◽  
International Political Theory ◽  
Radical Revision

Just war theory (JWT) has undergone a radical revision over the last two decades. This chapter discusses the implications of this reformulation for the role of JWT in International Political Theory (IPT) and for JWT’s strategic usefulness. Revisionists’ consistent prioritization of individual rights means JWT now follows the strictures of justified violence according to contemporary IPT. At the same time, the collective nature of war makes it impossible for anyone but the omniscient attacker to properly protect individual rights and thus to directly implement revisionist prescriptions. I argue that revisionism is strategically relevant not in spite of, but because of this lack of practicability on the battlefield. It highlights the impossibility of waging war in accordance with widespread expectations of moral appropriateness, which largely follow the strictures of justified violence according to contemporary IPT. This is a crucial limitation to the political utility of force in twenty-first-century international relations.

scholarly journals A Just and Lasting Peace After War

2020 ◽  
pp. 48-64
Author(s):  
Lonneke Peperkamp
Keyword(s):  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Central Question ◽  
Political Realism ◽  
Moral Idealism ◽  
Lasting Peace ◽  
Feasibility Constraints ◽  
Lively Debate

While a ‘just and lasting peace’ is the axiomatic goal of a just war, it is not clear what that means exactly. The central question of this chapter is: How should a just war theorist understand peace, insofar that peace is the goal of just war theory, taking into account the theory’s middle position between political realism and moral idealism? In the first part of this chapter, the contemporary debate is mapped and various positions on peace are made explicit. This reveals a shift towards a more positive concept of peace. How far should this shift go? The second part of this chapter places the peace continuum in a lively debate in political philosophy on the role of feasibility constraints in normative theory. This chapter argues that a ‘just and lasting peace’ must be understood as a decent peace that is ‘just enough’.

The Internal Legitimacy of Humanitarian Intervention

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allen Buchanan
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Just War ◽  
Military Intervention ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
The State ◽  
Military Action ◽  
Institutional Processes

This chapter addresses a remarkably neglected issue in just war theory: the internal legitimacy of humanitarian military intervention, military actions in another state undertaken with the objective of stopping occurring or preventing imminent large-scale violations of basic human rights, without the consent of the state in which the intervention occurs. When such wars cannot be justified as necessary for protecting the rights or advancing the interests of the citizens of the states that undertake them, the question arises as to whether they are legitimate from the standpoint of the state’s own citizens. This chapter argues that the decision to engage in humanitarian wars is so especially serious and problematic (given that the primary duty of the state is to protect the rights and serve the interests of its own citizens), that special institutional processes are needed for authorizing such military action.

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