The Oxford Handbook of Ethics of War

The Oxford Handbook of Ethics of War
Author: Seth Lazar
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 496
Release: 2018-01-12
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0199944393

Recent years have seen a resurgence of interest, among both philosophers, legal scholars, and military experts, on the ethics of war. Due in part due to post 9/11 events, this resurgence is also due to a growing theoretical sophistication among scholars in this area. Recently there has been very influential work published on the justificaton of killing in self-defense and war, and the topic of the ethics of war is now more important than ever as a discrete field. The 28 commissioned chapters in this Handbook will present a comprehensive overview of the field as well as make significant and novel contributions, and collectively they will set the terms of the debate for the next decade. Lazar and Frowe will invite the leading scholars in the field to write on topics that are new to them, making the volume a compilation of fresh ideas rather than a rehash of earlier work. The volume will be dicided into five sections: Method, History, Resort, Conduct, and Aftermath. The contributors will be a mix of junior and senior figures, and will include well known scholars like Michael Walzer, Jeff McMahan, and David Rodin.

Law and Morality at War

Law and Morality at War
Author: Adil Ahmad Haque
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2017
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0199687390

The laws are not silent in war, but what should they say? What is the moral function of the law of armed conflict? Should the law protect civilians who do not fight but help those who do? Should the law protect soldiers who perform non-combat functions or who may be safely captured? How certain should a soldier be that an individual is a combatant rather than a civilian before using lethal force? What risks should soldiers take on themselves to avoid harming civilians? When do inaccurate weapons become unlawfully indiscriminate? When does "collateral damage" to civilians become unlawfully disproportionate? Should civilians lose their legal rights by serving, voluntarily or involuntarily, as human shields? Finally, when should killing civilians constitute a war crime? These are the questions that Law and Morality at War answers, contributing to a cutting-edge international debate. Drawing on the concepts and methods of contemporary moral and legal philosophy, the book develops a normative framework within which the laws of war and international criminal law can be evaluated, criticized, and reformed. While several philosophical works critically examine the moral status of civilians and combatants, this book fills a gap, offering both an account of the laws of war and war crimes, and proposing how the law could be improved from a moral point of view. Finally, it explores when, if ever, the emotional pressures under which soldiers act should partially or wholly excuse their wrongful actions.

The Ethics of War

The Ethics of War
Author: Saba Bazargan
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2017-01-23
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0190614552

Just War theory - as it was developed by the Catholic theologians of medieval Europe and the jurists of the Renaissance - is a framework for the moral and legal evaluation of armed conflicts. To this day, Just War theory informs the judgments of ethicists, government officials, international lawyers, religious scholars, news coverage, and perhaps most importantly, the public as a whole. The influence of Just War theory is as vast as it is subtle - we have been socialized into evaluating wars largely according to the principles of this medieval theory, which, according to the eminent philosopher David Rodin, is "one of the few basic fixtures of medieval philosophy to remain substantially unchallenged in the modern world". Some of the most basic assumptions of Just War Theory have been dismantled in a barrage of criticism and analysis in the first dozen years of the 21st century. "The Ethics of War" continues and pushes past this trend. This anthology is an authoritative treatment of the ethics and law of war by both the eminent scholars who first challenged the orthodoxy of Just War theory, as well as by new thinkers. The twelve original essays span both foundational and topical issues in the ethics of war, including an investigation of: whether there is a "greater-good" obligation that parallels the canonical lesser-evil justification in war; the conditions under which citizens can wage war against their own government; whether there is a limit to the number of combatants on the unjust side who can be permissibly killed; whether the justice of the cause for which combatants fight affects the moral permissibility of fighting; whether duress ever justifies killing in war; the role that collective liability plays in the ethics of war; whether targeted killing is morally and legally permissible; the morality of legal prohibitions on the use of indiscriminate weapons; the justification for the legal distinction between directly and indirectly harming civilians; whether human rights of unjust combatants are more prohibitive than have been thought; the moral repair of combatants suffering from PTSD; and the moral categories and criteria needed to understand the proper justification for ending war.

Kant and the Law of War

Kant and the Law of War
Author: Arthur Ripstein
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages:
Release: 2021-09-12
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0197604226

The past two decades have seen renewed scholarly and popular interest in the law and morality of war. Positions that originated in the late Middle Ages through the seventeenth century have received more sophisticated philosophical elaboration. Although many contemporary writers appeal to ideas drawn from Kant's moral philosophy, his explicit discussions of war have not yet been brought into their proper place in these debates. Ripstein argues that a special morality governs war because of its distinctive immorality: the wrongfulness of entering or remaining in a condition in which force decides everything provides the standards for evaluating the grounds of initiating war, the ways in which wars are fought, and the results of past wars. The book is a major intervention into just war theory from the most influential contemporary interpreter and exponent of Kant's political and legal theories. Beginning from the difference between governing human affairs through words and through force, Ripstein articulates a Kantian account of the state as a public legal order in which all uses of force are brought under law. Against this background, he provides innovative accounts of the right of national defence, the importance of conducting war in ways that preserve the possibility of a future peace, and the distinctive role of international institutions in bringing force under law.

The Morality of War - Second Edition

The Morality of War - Second Edition
Author: Brian Orend
Publisher: Broadview Press
Total Pages: 339
Release: 2013-09-10
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1554810957

The first edition of The Morality of War was one of the most widely-read and successful books ever written on the topic. In this second edition, Brian Orend builds on the substantial strengths of the first, adding important new material on: cyber-warfare; drone attacks; the wrap-up of Iraq and Afghanistan; conflicts in Libya and Syria; and protracted struggles (like the Arab-Israeli conflict). Updated and streamlined throughout, the book offers new research tools and case studies, while keeping the winning blend of theory and history featured in the first edition. This book remains an engaging and comprehensive examination of the ethics, and practice, of war and peace in today’s world.

War by Agreement

War by Agreement
Author: Yitzhak Benbaji
Publisher:
Total Pages: 230
Release: 2019
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0199577196

War by Agreement presents a new theory on the ethics of war. It shows that wars can be morally justified at both the ad bellum level (the political decision to go to war) and the in bello level (its actual conduct by the military)by accepting a contractarian account of the rules governing war. According to this account, the rules of war are anchored in a mutually beneficial and fair agreement between the relevant players - the purpose of which is to promote peace and to reduce the horrors of war. The book relies on the long social contract tradition and illustrates its fruitfulness in understanding and developing the morality and the law of war.

On War

On War
Author: Carl von Clausewitz
Publisher:
Total Pages: 388
Release: 1908
Genre: Military art and science
ISBN:

The Laws of War in International Thought

The Laws of War in International Thought
Author: Pablo Kalmanovitz
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2020-09-14
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0198790252

Two broad competing normative conceptions of war can be distinguished in the history of legal and political thought. The first and nowadays more familiar belongs to the tradition of "just war." It sees war as an instrument of justice, indeed the most extreme form of supra-national lawenforcement, justified only in the most serious cases of violation of right. The second conception has been labelled "lawful", "legitimate", or "regular war", where war is not enforcement of justice, but a legally regulated procedure governing the pursuit of conflicting legitimate claims amongequal and autonomous political entities.This book sheds light on the relationship between law and morals in armed conflict, and can be read as a historical argument against the disappearance of the regular war concept. Kalmanovitz highlights three important contemporary challenges: the juridification of aggression and the "turn to ethics"in international law; the progressive individualization of war; and the predominance of asymmetrical warfare and armed nonstate actors.This study of the regular war tradition brings historical and theoretical perspective to these recent conceptual transformations, which undermine the fundamental and long-standing distinction between war and police action. It contributes to clarify the stakes in the erosion of internationalpluralism and the normative depoliticization of war. In revisiting the regular war tradition, a clearer sense of these ongoing transformations is realised, inspiring fresh perspectives on the justifiability of war.

Utilitarianism and the Ethics of War

Utilitarianism and the Ethics of War
Author: William H. Shaw
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 184
Release: 2016-02-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1135969132

This book offers a detailed utilitarian analysis of the ethical issues involved in war. Utilitarianism and the Ethics of War addresses the two basic ethical questions posed by war: when, if ever, are we morally justified in waging war, and if recourse to arms is warranted, how are we permitted to fight the wars we wage? In addition, it deals with the challenge that realism and relativism raise for the ethical discussion of war, and with the duties of military personnel and the moral challenges they can face. In tackling these matters, the book covers a wide range of topics—from pacifism to armed humanitarian intervention, from the right of national defense to pre-emptive or preventive war, from civilian immunity to the tenets of just war theory and the moral underpinnings of the rules of war. But, what is distinctive about this book is that it provides a consistent and thorough-going utilitarian or consequentialist treatment of the fundamental normative issues that war occasions. Although it goes against the tide of recent work in the field, a utilitarian approach to the ethics of war illuminates old questions in new ways by showing how a concern for well-being and the consequences of our actions and policies shape the moral constraints to which states and other actors must adhere. This book will be of much interest to students of the ethics of war, just war theory, moral philosophy, war and conflict studies and IR.