Because my students are always telling me I'm too subtle, and (to quote the Brazilian liberation pedagogue Paolo Freire) I "love and trust" my students - please (re)watch the oldest Star Wars film (Episode IV - A New Hope) in light of the following analysis, whose conclusion is as follows: since (1) Star Wars is pro-Viet Cong, (2) today’s closest analogy to the Viet Cong is Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades, (3) Star Wars is also pro-Asian religious philosophy (East Asian Daosim), (4) (...) Palestinian liberation theology is a (West) Asian (Christian) religious philosophy, and (e) Star Wars is implicitly pro-genderfluid; thus (5) Star Wars logically affirms the Palestinian right to genderfluid armed resistance, whose (6) Jedi Knights = Daoist sage/knights = Viet Cong = Al-Qassam Brigades. In sum, Star Wars (1977) logically affirms the Palestinian right to genderfluid armed resistance. (shrink)

May lethal autonomous weapons systems—‘killer robots ’—be used in war? The majority of writers argue against their use, and those who have argued in favour have done so on a consequentialist basis. We defend the moral permissibility of killer robots, but on the basis of the non-aggregative structure of right assumed by Just War theory. This is necessary because the most important argument against killer robots, the responsibility trilemma proposed by Rob Sparrow, makes the same assumptions. We show that the (...) crucial moral question is not one of responsibility. Rather, it is whether the technology can satisfy the requirements of fairness in the re-distribution of risk. Not only is this possible in principle, but some killer robots will actually satisfy these requirements. An implication of our argument is that there is a public responsibility to regulate killer robots ’ design and manufacture. (shrink)

Since its earliest incarnations, just war theory has included the requirement that war must be initiated and waged by a legitimate authority. However, while recent years have witnessed a remarkable resurgence in interest in just war theory, the authority criterion is largely absent from contemporary discussions. In this paper I aim to show that this is an oversight worth rectifying, by arguing that the authority criterion plays a much more important role within just war theorising than is commonly supposed. As (...) standardly understood, the authority criterion provides a necessary condition for the justification of the resort to war, but has no bearing on the question of permissible conduct in war. In opposition, I argue for an alternative interpretation of the criterion, which attributes to it a fundamental role in assessing this latter question. With this revised interpretation in place, I then demonstrate its advantages by applying it to the practical issue of armed conflicts that are initiated and fought by non-traditional belligerents. While several theorists have recognised that this common feature of modern armed conflict poses a challenge to mainstream just war theory in general—and to the authority criterion in particular—I argue that existing discussions frequently misconstrue the nature of the challenge, since they assume the standard interpretation of the authority requirement and its role within the theory. I then show that the revised interpretation provides a clearer account of both the challenge posed by non-traditional belligerency and the kind of response that it requires. (shrink)

In this article, I present a two-pronged argument for the immorality of contemporary, asymmetric drone warfare, based on my new interpretations of the just war principles of “proportionality” and “moral equivalence of combatants” (MEC). The justification for these new interpretations is that drone warfare continues to this day, having survived despite arguments against it that are based on traditional interpretations of just war theory (including one from Michael Walzer). On the basis of my argument, I echo Harry Van der Linden’s (...) call for “an international treaty banning all weaponized UAV [uninhabited aerial vehicles].”. (shrink)

Like asteroids, hundred-year floods and pandemic disease, thermonuclear war is a low-frequency, high-impact threat. In the long run, catastrophe is inevitable if nothing is done − yet each successive government and generation may fail to address it. Drawing on risk perception research, this paper argues that psychological biases cause the threat of nuclear war to receive less attention than it deserves. Nuclear deterrence is, moreover, a ‘front-loaded good’: its benefits accrue disproportionately to proximate generations, whereas much of the expected cost (...) will be borne in the distant future. Recent surveys indicate that the US and Russian publics assign a surprisingly high likelihood to nuclear war. Nevertheless, earlier research suggests that it is probably not believed to be just around the corner. This, along with the absence of easy solutions, encourages governments and publics to give priority to more pressing concerns. The danger is that the pattern will continue clear up to the point that nuclear war arrives. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the ethics of war through the framework of Judgemental Philosophy. We argue that war is not simply a site of moral extremity but often a zone of structural judgemental collapse. Through the Judgemental Triad—Constructivity, Coherence, and Resonance—we identify conditions under which ethical reasoning becomes unjudgeable. In particular, we show that war frequently eliminates the possibility of resonance, distorts coherence, and disables individual or collective constructibility. As a result, moral claims about war often function as rationalizations rather than (...) genuine judgements. The paper concludes by proposing criteria for recognizing when war enters a structurally non-ethical domain, and what minimal ethical functions may still be preserved. (shrink)

Just War Theory (JWT) replaced an older "warrior code," an approach to war that remains poorly understood and dismissively treated in the philosophical literature. This paper builds on recent work on honor to address these deficiencies. By providing a clear, systematic exposition of "Honor War Theory" (HWT), we can make sense of paradigm instances of warrior psychology and behavior, and understand the warrior code as the martial expression of a broader honor-based ethos that conceives of obligation in terms of fair (...) competition for prestige. Far from being a romantic and outmoded approach to war, HWT accounts for current conflicts and predicts moral intuitions that JWT either rejects or cannot comfortably accommodate. So although it is not recommended as a replacement for JWT, there is good reason think that a fully mature, realistic, and yet properly normative theory of war ethics will incorporate a variety of insights from HWT. (shrink)

War crimes are being committed in Ukraine today, but who should be held responsible? By looking at the literature on responsibility and violence by Philippa Foot and John Harris, this article argues that there are grounds for holding Vladimir Putin responsible for war crimes in Ukraine, even if he did not give the command for these crimes and other atrocities to be carried out.

In international law and just war theory, war is treated as normatively and legally unique. In the context of international law, war’s special status gives rise to a specific set of belligerent rights and duties, as well as a complex set of laws related to, among other things, the status of civilians, prisoners of war, trade and economic relationships, and humanitarian aid. In particular, belligerents are permitted to derogate from certain human rights obligations and to use lethal force in a (...) far more permissive manner than is the case in other kinds of conflicts and in domestic law enforcement operations. Given war’s unique status, the task of defining war requires not just identifying the empirical features that are characteristic of war but explaining and justifying war’s special legal and moral status. In this chapter, I propose a definition of war that captures war’s unique features and can offer insights into when and how some forms of unarmed conflict could count as wars. (shrink)

This paper explores the central question of why soldiers in democratic societies might decide to fight in wars that they may have reason to believe are objectively or questionably unjust. First, I provide a framework for understanding the dilemma caused by an unjust war and a soldier's competing moral obligations; namely, the obligations to self and state. Next, I address a few traditional key thoughts concerning soldiers and jus ad bellum. This is followed by an exploration of the unique and (...) contradicting moral problems that confront modern soldiers and their officers. I argue that although traditional positions such as invincible ignorance provide a rather dangerous ‘head-in-the-sand’ mentality, soldiers serving a democratic government are nonetheless very limited in their legal and moral ability to interpret what is a justifiable war. However, a very few select senior officers are in positions to make such legal and moral decisions concerning jus ad bellum. (shrink)

A number of recent and influential accounts of military ethics have argued that there exists a distinctive “role morality” for members of the armed services—a “warrior code.” A “good warrior” is a person who cultivates and exercises the “martial” or “warrior” virtues. By transforming combat into a “desk job” that can be conducted from the safety of the home territory of advanced industrial powers without need for physical strength or martial valour, long-range robotic weapons, such as the “Predator” and “Reaper” (...) drones fielded by the United States, call the relevance of the “martial virtues” into question. This chapter investigates the implications of these developments for conceptions of military virtue and, consequently, for the future of war. (shrink)

Contemporary just war theory is divided into two broad camps: revisionists and traditionalists. Traditionalists seek to provide moral foundations for something close to current international law, and in particular the laws of armed conflict. Although they propose improvements, they do so cautiously. Revisionists argue that international law is at best a pragmatic fiction—it lacks deeper moral foundations. In this article, I present the contemporary history of analytical just war theory, from the origins of contemporary traditionalist just war theory in Michael (...) Walzer's work to the revisionist critique of Walzer and the subsequent revival of traditionalism. I discuss central questions of methodology, as well as consider the morality of resorting to war and the morality of conduct in war. I show that although the revisionists exposed philosophical shortcomings in Walzer's arguments, their radical conclusions should prompt us not to reject the broad contemporary consensus, but instead to seek better arguments to underpin it. (shrink)

The vast majority of work on the ethics of war focuses on traditional wars between states. In this chapter, I aim to show that this is an oversight worth rectifying. My strategy will be largely comparative, assessing whether certain claims often defended in discussions of interstate wars stand up in the context of civil conflicts, and whether there are principled moral differences between the two types of case. Firstly, I argue that thinking about intrastate wars can help us make progress (...) on important theoretical debates in recent just war theory. Secondly, I consider whether certain kinds of civil wars are subject to a more demanding standard of just cause, compared to interstate wars of national-defence. Finally, I assess the extent to which having popular support is an independent requirement of permissible war, and whether this renders insurgencies harder to justify than wars fought by functioning states. (shrink)

In the wake of widescale deadly attacks, desire and support for military revenge are prevalent. Rather than dismissing it as due to ignorance, moral depravity or heat of the moment, I propose that support for military revenge is more charitably understood as support for a “retributive revenge war,” aimed at inflicting deserved harms on the enemy without punitive authority. Revising McMahan's conception of just cause, I argue that a retributive revenge war could in principle be just, if deserved harms could (...) be good independently of their consequences. I then consider several reasons to think that in practice, such wars are unlikely to be just and submit that the strongest reason is that they would be disproportionate. Targeted vengeful attacks which are highly unlikely to escalate may therefore be proportionate and justified under certain retributivist assumptions, but all-out revenge wars are highly unlikely to be proportionate and just. -/- . (shrink)

Provides an opinionated overview of some recent debates within the ethics of war.

A review of David Rodin's Book, War and Self-Defense.

This paper explores the question of whether the United Nations should engage in preventive military actions. Correlatively, it asks whether UN preventive military actions could satisfy just war principles. Rather than from the standpoint of the individual nation state, the ethics of preventive war is discussed from the standpoint of the UN. For the sake of brevity, only the legitimate authority, just cause, last resort, and proportionality principles are considered. Since there has been disagreement about the specific content of these (...) principles, a third question also is explored: How should they be formulated? Moreover, these questions are addressed in the context of a particular issue: the goals of the non-proliferation and the abolition of weapons of mass destruction. (shrink)

Just war theory − as advanced by Michael Walzer, among others − fails to take war seriously enough. This is because it proposes that we regulate war with systematic rules that are comparable to those of a game. Three types of claims are advanced. The first is phenomenological: that the theory's abstract nature interferes with our judgment of what is, and should be, going on. The second is meta-ethical: that the theory's rules are not, in fact, systematic after all, there (...) being inherent contradictions between them. And the third is practical: that by getting people to view war as like a game, the theory promotes its ‘aestheticization’ (play being a central mode of the aesthetic) such that those who fight are encouraged to act in dangerous ways. And war, it goes without saying, is already dangerous enough. (shrink)

The War in Heaven-the primordial rebellion of Lucifer and the fallen angels- should be interpreted not merely as a mythic or pre-historical event, but as the inaugural rupture of creation from timeless harmony into historical temporality. This rebellion constitutes the first irreversible act of free will in the cosmos, breaking the changeless simultaneity of eternity and introducing narrative sequence, conflict, and teleology in the created order. In this reading, the War in Heaven should serve as the “Inauguration of History,” establishing (...) the structural and metaphysical archetype for all subsequent historical events. This thesis bridges patristic and scholastic angelology (e.g. Augustine, Origen, Aquinas, etc.) with modern philosophy of history (e.g. Taubes, Balthasar, Nietzsche, Boehme, etc.) offering a novel synthesis that: 1. Repositions the War in Heaven within the philosophy of history rather than outside it. 2. Introduces the concept of restlessness and timelessness as a driver in both angelic and human historical movement. 3. Suggests that cosmic and human history share a common structural origin in rebellion against static eternity. (shrink)

I address a foundational problem with accounts of the morality of war that are derived from the Just War Tradition. Such accounts problematically focus on ‘the moment of crisis’: i.e. when a state is considering a resort to war. This is problematic because sometimes the state considering the resort to war is partly responsible for wrongly creating the conditions in which the resort to war becomes necessary. By ignoring this possibility, JWT effectively ignores, in its moral evaluation of wars, certain (...) types of past wrongdoing. I argue that we can address this problem by incorporating an account of compensatory liability into an account of the morality of war. Doing so yields the view that, if we have culpably failed to compensate victims for past wrongs, we might be morally required to weigh the well-being of those victims more heavily in our calculation of proportionality when determining the permissibility of a defensive act that harms the victim as a side-effect. This, in turn, makes satisfying t. (shrink)

In my paper, I develop a phenomenological and pragmatist reflection on the fragility of liberal democracy’s moral foundations in times of war. Following Judith Shklar’s conception of the “liberalism of fear”, the legitimacy of the liberal-democratic order is seen as grounded in experiences of suffering caused by political violence. It is also assumed that the liberalism of fear delivers an adequate conception of the normative foundations of the European project. With the help of phenomenologists such as Edmund Husserl, Maurice Merleau-Ponty (...) and Michel Henry, the paper ants to philosophically deepen the liberalism of fear by outlining a theory of “pathic evidence” as a normative foundation and the concept of a common “flesh of the political” as a shared moral sensitivity that sets boundaries to political conflict as well as the political imaginary, excluding what I call the production of “monumental meaning”. It then examines the question which political conditions are needed for this evidence to become a shared, communal criteria of ethical thought, and considers inner and outer challenges to the transmission and reproduction of this evidence in time, drawing especially on John Dewey’s ideas of democratic communication and social intelligence. In the current war, the following problem appears as crucial for the “soul” of European democracies which are confronted with the need to respond to Russia’s attack: How can a political morality grounded in pathic evidence be sustained, once it is challenged by an aggressor who, out of cultural and political reasons, shows a higher level of toleration towards violence? Besides aggression from an external foe, there are also temporal dynamics that further the loss of the inhibiting force of pathic evidence from the inside. As it shall be argued, boredom can be such a factor. The paper concludes by drawing conclusions for the current war in Ukraine. (shrink)

Contemporary warfare increasingly centers on civilian populations rather than discrete battlefields, placing unprecedented strain on ethical frameworks designed to regulate armed conflict. Just War Theory, long regarded as a foundational moral guide for the use of force, purports to restrain violence through principles such as just cause, proportionality, and civilian immunity. Yet in conflicts marked by prolonged occupation, asymmetrical power, and densely populated environments, these principles appear unable to prevent predictable and sustained civilian harm. -/- This paper argues that in (...) modern warfare, Just War Theory has shifted from a framework of moral restraint to a language of moral legitimation. Through analysis of contemporary conflict, with particular attention to Gaza as a moral stress-test, the paper demonstrates how ethical and legal vocabularies are increasingly deployed post hoc to rationalize outcomes rather than to prevent them. It further examines how abstraction, procedural legality, and responsibility diffusion insulate state actors from accountability while rendering civilian suffering administratively tolerable. -/- The paper concludes that when civilian harm becomes foreseeable and structurally embedded, ethical frameworks grounded in proportionality and discrimination lose their restraining function. In such contexts, moral evaluation must move beyond compliance toward consequence-centered accountability if it is to retain normative force. (shrink)

Just war theory is currently dominated by two positions. According to the orthodox view, provided that jus in bello principles are respected, combatants have an equal right to fight, regardless of the justice of the cause pursued by their state. According to “revisionists” whenever combatants lack reasons to believe that the war they are ordered to fight is just, their duty is to disobey. I argue that when members of a legitimate state acting in good faith are ordered to fight, (...) they acquire a pro-tanto obligation to obey which does not depend for its validity on the justice of the cause being pursued. However, when the war is unjust, this obligation may be overridden, under certain conditions, by the obligation not to contribute to the unjustified killing of innocents. This is because the pro-tanto force of the duty to obey the law is best understood in terms of “presumptive”, rather than “exclusionary” reasons for action. This approach captures the insights of both the orthodox and the revisionist view, while avoiding the problems that afflict each of them. (shrink)

Because the poorest people tend to die from easily preventable diseases, addressing poverty is a relatively cheap way to save lives. War, by contrast, is extremely expensive. This article argues that, since states that wage war could alleviate poverty instead, poverty can render war unjust. Two just war theory conditions prove relevant: proportionality and last resort. Proportionality requires that war does not yield excessive costs in relation to the benefits. Standardly, just war theorists count only the direct costs: the death (...) and destruction wrought by war. This article argues that it can sometimes be appropriate to add the opportunity costs of a failure to alleviate poverty. Last resort is the condition that there must be no better alternative means of achieving the same just end for which the war is waged. This article argues that there are some cases in which alleviating poverty may constitute a better alternative. These are cases in which the most fitting description of the just end for war is sufficiently general that poverty alleviation offers a means to pursue it. The idea that poverty can sometimes render war unjust has, to date, been largely overlooked. It is, nevertheless, an idea with profound implications since, once taken seriously, war becomes much harder to justify. Wars that, in every other respect, seem just may prove disproportionate or unnecessary given the alternative of alleviating poverty. (shrink)

This article develops a conceptual model of war as a process of collective projection rooted in alienation and the denial of difference. Drawing on phenomenological insights into inner multiplicity and mechanisms of projection previously articulated at the level of individual consciousness, the study extends these dynamics to the collective and geopolitical scale. War is interpreted not merely as a political or military event, but as an ontological failure of integration, in which societies externalize unacknowledged internal conflicts by constructing an enemy (...) embodying disowned traits. Using the Ukraine – Russia conflict as a case study, the article analyzes how the persistent refusal to recognize difference – linguistic, cultural, and national – generates escalating tension and symbolic violence. Despite shared historical, cultural, and anthropological roots, the denial of Ukrainian otherness has functioned as a structural mechanism of alienation, producing an irresolvable contradiction that culminates in open conflict. The analysis demonstrates how collective projection operates through cultural narratives, media, education, and propaganda to stabilize an externalized image of the enemy, thereby obscuring internal contradictions and avoiding collective responsibility. The article situates this process within a broader civilizational context characterized as an epoch of rupture, marked by accelerating technological power, unintegrated social trauma, and declining ethical self-regulation. From this perspective, war emerges as a manifestation of unresolved collective fragmentation rather than an isolated geopolitical anomaly. Finally, the study argues that sustainable post-conflict peace cannot be achieved through suppression, domination, or symbolic erasure of difference. Instead, peace requires the conscious integration of collective plurality, the acknowledgment of projected aspects of identity, and the assumption of responsibility for internal contradictions. By reframing war as a failure of collective integration, the article contributes to peace studies, phenomenological social theory, and conflict research, offering an alternative lens through which contemporary conflicts may be understood and metabolized rather than endlessly reproduced. (shrink)

Jeff McMahan has argued against the moral equivalence of combatants (MEC) by developing a liability-based account of killing in warfare. On this account, a combatant is morally liable to be killed only if doing so is an effective means of reducing or eliminating an unjust threat to which that combatant is contributing. Since combatants fighting for a just cause generally do not contribute to unjust threats, they are not morally liable to be killed; thus MEC is mistaken. The problem, however, (...) is that many unjust combatants contribute very little to the war in which they participate—often no more than the typical civilian. Thus either the typical civilian is morally liable to be killed, or many unjust combatants are not morally liable to be killed. That is, the liability based account seems to force us to choose between a version of pacifism, and total war. Seth Lazar has called this “The Responsibility Dilemma”. But I will argue that we can salvage a liability-based account of war—one which rejects MEC—by grounding the moral liability of unjust combatants not only in their individual contributions but also in their complicit participation in that war. On this view, all enlistees, regardless of the degree to which they contribute to an unjust war, are complicitously liable to be killed if it is necessary to avert an unjust threat posed by their side. This collectivized liability based account I develop avoids the Responsibility Dilemma unlike individualized liability-based accounts of the sort developed by McMahan. (shrink)

The Walking Dead is a popular TV series depicting a catastrophic and violent world. After a pandemic that turns humans into zombies, we witness the collapse of civilization with all its institutions, the depletion of the resources, and the struggle to build a new world in the middle of the wars between surviving groups. It illustrates a world of literal and metaphorical homo homini lupus. Some people choose sheer survival, and others try to build a moral, civil world. In this (...) article, I propose a reading of this series from a Kantian perspective by employing his interrelated ideas on history, ethics, and politics. I claim that The Walking Dead represents the state of nature and the violence it contains, and illustrates the course of history toward a civil society as defined by Kant. (shrink)

This article aims to indicate another possible comprehension of war and its relations in the Yugoslavian region. Focused on the construction of national identity, this paper uses the post-structuralist theoretical argumentative movement to invert the common logic of interpretation – to which Foucault and Deleuze are used as reference. Knowing this, the problem is how war, interpreted in another way, can build not only national integration, but also a subjective identity through Football.

A famous Indian argument for jus ad bellum and jus in bello is presented in literary form in the Mahābhārata: it involves events and dynamics between moral conventionalists (who attempt to abide by ethical theories that give priority to the good) and moral parasites (who attempt to use moral convention as a weapon without any desire to conform to these expectations themselves). In this paper I follow the dialectic of this victimization of the conventionally moral by moral parasites to its (...) philosophical culmination in the fateful battle, which the Bhagavad Gītā precedes. Arjuna’s lament is an internalization of the logic of conventional moral expectations that allowed moral parasitism, and Krishna’s push for a purely procedural approach to moral reasoning (bhakti yoga) does away with the good as a primitive of explanation and provides the moral considerations that allow us to see that the jus ad bellum and jus in bello coincide: the just cause is the approximation to the procedural ideal (the Lord), which is also just conduct. Jeff McMahan is correct in claiming that it is wrong for the unjust to attack the just. But it is also not obviously correct that it is the same set of moral considerations in war and peace that mark out the sides, for peace is largely characterizable by conventional morality, which all are forced to abandon in war. Walzer is correct that there are different sets of standards at play at war and peace, and that getting hands dirty in immorality is a price worth paying in war, but Walzer is thereby incorrect for a subtle reason: conventional standards by way of which jus ad bellum and jus in bello appear corrupt are themselves actually corrupt when the need for a just war arises. It is because moral parasites use conventional morality as a means of hostility and not as a means of fair, inclusive social interaction that conventional morality is corrupted and turned into a tool of the unjust. It is hence unjust to employ these standards to judge those whose cause is just, though such a judgement is conventional. Those who fight for a just cause thereby justly get their hands dirty by departing from conventional moral standards. But this is to the disadvantage of parasites who can only function in a climate where the conventionally good are constrained by conventional morality. Just war so understood deprives parasites their weapon of choice. (shrink)

I argue that people are sometimes justified in participating in unjust wars. I consider a range of reasons why war might be unjust, including the cause which it is fought for, whether it is proportionate, and whether it wrongly uses resources that could help others in dire need. These considerations sometimes make fighting in the war unjust, but sometimes not. In developing these claims, I focus especially on the 2003 Iraq war.

In War & Ethics, Nicholas Fotion undertakes three main tasks. The first is critical: to analyze ‘Just War Theory’ (JWT) in the evolving context of modern warfare between nations and non-nation groups, using various case studies to illustrate the strengths and weaknesses of the theory. The second task is modification: to construct a new Just War Theory to incorporate wars between nations (JWT-Regular) and wars between nations and non-nation groups (JWT-Irregular). The third and final task is defensive: to show that (...) Just War Theory in general, and the twin theory in particular, are useful tools in assessing when a war is just. (shrink)

The present war in Ukraine has seen millions of women flee as refugees, while martial law forbids adult men under 60 from leaving the country. According to various reports, many and perhaps most women Ukrainian refugees are breaking romantic ties with the men they leave behind, building new lives with men in their countries of refuge, and/or planning never to return. I avoid any comment about the morality of these events and instead take up the general question of whether women (...) war refugees have any obligations of “connubial loyalty” to their menfolk in circumstances where those men are discharging a moral obligation to fight in the war that precipitated their womenfolk's flight in the first place. I answer that they do. (shrink)

This essay develops a structural theory of modern violence that reconceives war as an endogenous phenomenon of differentiated social orders. It argues that every order generates internal tensions and depends on culturally framed mechanisms of reversible dissolution. Where such mechanisms are delegitimized, tensions accumulate and reappear in the irreversible form of war. Drawing on historical examples, the essay distinguishes between regenerative and destructive modes of de-differentiation and examines the loss of masculinity’s former role in organizing risk, transition, and affective surplus. (...) In the absence of viable substitutes, war functions as a substitute institution that weaponizes unbound intensity. Peace, therefore, is not a stable end state, but a cultural technique of controlled dissolution. (shrink)

War is harmful to animals, but few have considered how such harm should affect assessments of the justice of military actions. In this article, we propose a way in which concern for animals can be included within the just-war framework, with a focus on necessity and proportionality. We argue that counting animals in war will not make just-war theory excessively demanding, but it will make just-war theory more humane. By showing how animals can be included in our proportionality and necessity (...) assessments, we provide a crucial first step towards developing an animal-inclusive account of just-war theory. (shrink)

Interest in just war theory has boomed in recent years, as a revisionist school of thought has challenged the orthodoxy of international law, most famously defended by Michael Walzer [1977]. These revisionist critics have targeted the two central principles governing the conduct of war (jus in bello): combatant equality and noncombatant immunity. The first states that combatants face the same permissions and constraints whether their cause is just or unjust. The second protects noncombatants from intentional attack. In response to these (...) critics, some philosophers have defended aspects of the old orthodoxy on novel grounds. Revisionists counter. As things stand, the prospects for progress are remote. In this paper, we offer a way forward. We argue that exclusive focus on first-order moral principles, such as combatant equality and noncombatant immunity, has led revisionist and orthodox just war theorists to engage in “proxy battles.” Their first-order moral disagreements are at least partly traceable to second-order disagreements about the nature and purpose of political theory. These deeper disputes have been central to the broader discipline of political theory for several years; we hope that bringing them to bear on the ethics of war will help us move beyond the present impasse. (shrink)

Lethal Autonomous Weapons (LAWs) are robotic weapons systems, primarily of value to the military, that could engage in offensive or defensive actions without human intervention. This paper assesses and engages the current arguments for and against the use of LAWs through the lens of achieving more ethical warfare. Specific interest is given particularly to ethical LAWs, which are artificially intelligent weapons systems that make decisions within the bounds of their ethics-based code. To ensure that a wide, but not exhaustive, survey (...) of the implications of employing such ethical devices to replace humans in warfare is taken into account, this paper will engage on matters related to current scholarship on the rejection or acceptance of LAWs—including contemporary technological shortcomings of LAWs to differentiate between targets and the behavioral and psychological volatility of humans—and current and proposed regulatory infrastructures for developing and using such devices. After careful consideration of these factors, this paper will conclude that only ethical LAWs should be used to replace human involvement in war, and, by extension of their consistent abilities, should remove humans from war until a more formidable discovery is made in conducting ethical warfare. (shrink)

We review the literature for the long-term effects of war on human capital. We document the negative effects of exposure to war on individual health, prospective earnings, educational attainment, prospective earnings, and labor productivity in the long run. The findings call for immediate and effective actions to reduce the detrimental repercussions of war in both the short run and long run.

War as an Effect of Imbalance: A Natural and Social Systems Perspective Abstract War has long been a destructive and persistent feature of human civilization. While political, economic, and ideological causes are commonly cited, this essay argues that war is fundamentally a manifestation of systemic imbalance—across resource distribution, power structures, cultural belief systems, and information ecosystems. Using the lens of natural law, particularly the principles of cause and effect, balance, and feedback, this paper examines war as a symptom of deeper (...) societal dysfunctions rather than a legitimate balancing mechanism. True balance, as observed in both ecological systems and healthy societies, is achieved not through violence but through feedback-responsive adaptation, equitable structures, and peaceful cooperation. Introduction War is often seen as a strategic response to threats or a tool for national interest, but beneath these narratives lies a deeper, more universal truth: war is an expression of imbalance. From the perspective of systems thinking and natural law, conflict at the societal level mirrors disturbances in ecological systems, where imbalance, when unresolved, can lead to collapse. Just as the human body responds to internal imbalances with fever or illness, societies erupt into war when their internal and external equilibrium is violated and constructive feedback is ignored. -/- This essay draws upon the principles of natural systems and the concept of a 'universal formula' rooted in three laws: cause and effect, balance, and feedback mechanisms. These principles help explain not only why war occurs but also how it may be prevented or resolved through sustainable systemic design. I. The Law of Cause and Effect: War as a Predictable Outcome of Defective Systems In nature and society alike, every action produces consequences. The law of cause and effect—central to both scientific inquiry and ethical systems such as karma—demonstrates that war is not accidental. It is the predictable result of systemic defects. -/- For instance, economic inequality has been strongly correlated with increased internal unrest and external aggression (Galtung, 1969). Nations experiencing high levels of poverty, unemployment, and inequality often become fertile ground for ideological radicalization and civil war. Similarly, political corruption and repression fuel dissatisfaction and rebellion (Collier & Hoeffler, 2004). -/- These are not random events. They are the natural consequences of defective political, economic, and educational systems that fail to self-correct—systems in which the effects of imbalance accumulate over time until they manifest violently. II. The Law of Balance: War as a Breakdown of Social Equilibrium In ecological systems, balance is maintained through homeostasis and interdependence. In social systems, balance arises through justice, inclusion, and mutual respect. When this equilibrium is disturbed—whether through oppression, exploitation, or unchecked ambition—the system becomes unstable. -/- For example, colonialism created structural imbalances by concentrating wealth and power in the hands of a few, while marginalizing entire populations. The aftermath of these imbalances has continued to echo through civil wars, border conflicts, and economic dependency (Rodney, 1972). -/- War, in this view, is not a balancing mechanism but a collapse due to a failure of balance. A balanced society is one in which power is shared, resources are distributed equitably, and cultural diversity is respected. III. The Law of Feedback: Ignored Warnings and Escalated Conflict Feedback mechanisms are essential for system regulation. In the human body, negative feedback loops regulate temperature and blood sugar; in ecosystems, predator-prey cycles prevent overpopulation. Societies also rely on feedback: protests, journalism, democratic processes, and education act as corrective signals to steer policy and leadership. -/- However, when feedback is ignored, suppressed, or distorted—through censorship, propaganda, or authoritarian rule—the system loses its ability to self-correct. As a result, tensions build up until war becomes the only available outlet for release. -/- The 2011 Arab Spring, for instance, was largely a reaction to decades of ignored social feedback—widespread unemployment, repression, and corruption. When peaceful feedback mechanisms failed, conflict escalated (Gelvin, 2012). IV. Why War Cannot Be a Balancing Mechanism Some may argue that war 'resets' power structures or population pressures. But such reasoning is ethically flawed and empirically weak. War causes long-term devastation—destroying infrastructure, displacing populations, and traumatizing generations. It does not restore balance; it creates new layers of imbalance—economic collapse, ecological damage, and cycles of revenge. -/- Natural balance is not achieved through destruction but through adaptive feedback and nonviolent correction. In successful democracies, peaceful transitions of power, truth commissions, and restorative justice processes have shown that balance can be restored without violence. Conclusion War is not a force of balance, but a symptom of deep imbalance and ignored feedback within human systems. Guided by the universal laws of cause and effect, balance, and feedback, it becomes clear that sustainable peace is achievable only through systems that are inclusive, just, and adaptable. -/- Human societies, like natural systems, must evolve toward cooperative balance rather than destructive confrontation. Education, equity, and open feedback channels are essential components of this evolution. By understanding and applying these principles, leaders and educators can design societies that do not breed war—but prevent it. References Collier, P., & Hoeffler, A. (2004). Greed and grievance in civil war. *Oxford Economic Papers*, 56(4), 563–595. Galtung, J. (1969). Violence, Peace, and Peace Research. *Journal of Peace Research*, 6(3), 167–191. Gelvin, J. L. (2012). *The Arab Uprisings: What Everyone Needs to Know*. Oxford University Press. Rodney, W. (1972). *How Europe Underdeveloped Africa*. Bogle-L'Ouverture Publications. -/- . (shrink)

Two attitudes are possible: one, that the world is an absolute jungle and that the exercise of coercive power by rulers is only a manifestation of this; and the other, that it is both necessary and right that there should be this exercise of power, that through it the world is much less of a jungle than it could possibly be without it, so that one should in principle be glad of the existence of such power, and only take exception (...) to its unjust exercise. (shrink)

This article explores the ‘rationality wars’, contemporary debates about the nature and scope of rationality across economics, psychology, behavioral public policy and philosophy. It traces the evolution of the concept from classical thinkers and shows how modern disagreements – such as Daniel Kahneman’s logical model versus Gerd Gigerenzer’s ecological approach – restate long-standing philosophical tensions. These divergences arise from the distinct epistemological demands of each discipline. Using Gustavo Bueno’s distinction between concepts (discipline-specific) and ideas (transdisciplinary), the article critiques reductionist attempts (...) to impose one framework as definitive. Instead, it argues for a pluralistic, scientifically grounded understanding of rationality that respects diverse aims, methods and standards. (shrink)

Analytic just war theorists often attempt to construct ideal theories of military justice on the basis of intuitions about imaginary and sometimes outlandish examples, often taken from non-military contexts. This article argues for a sharp curtailment of this method and defends, instead, an empirically and historically informed approach to the ethical scrutiny of armed conflicts. After critically reviewing general philosophical reasons for being sceptical of the moral-theoretic value of imaginary hypotheticals, the article turns to some of the special problems that (...) this method raises for appraisals of warfare. It examines some of the hypothetical examples employed in the construction of Jeff McMahan’s revisionist just war theory, and finds that they sometimes stipulate incompre- hensible conditions, lead to argumentative impasses of diverging yet uncertain intuitions, and distract attention away from the real problems of war as we empirically know it. In contrast, empirical and historical studies of warfare rein- force the deep connections between facts and values, and compel theorists to face uncomfortable moral ambiguities. Perhaps most importantly, the analytic method of focusing on imaginary hypothetical examples can not only be distracting, but it can also be genuinely dangerous. Hence, the article pays special attention to the way in which a seemingly innocuous fiction like the famous Ticking Time Bomb scenario can come to frame a new paradigm of inhumanity in the treatment of prisoners of war. (shrink)

In this exposition of important and yet often neglected developments in the history of Western spirituality, Stefan Rossbach reminds us of the philosophical and spiritual underpinnings of the Cold War era. He argues that the conflict's main protagonists - representing the "Third Rome" and the "New World" respectively - drew on the traditions of apocalypticism, millenarianism and "Gnostic" spirituality for the formation and articulation of their self-understanding as the key agents of providential history. In order to characterize the attitudes reflected (...) in these traditions, "Gnostic Wars" offers a historical analysis of conceptions of subjectivity and spiritual order which imply the possibility, and indeed the necessity, of a radical "externalization of evil". Beginning with the "Gnostic" systems of late Antiquity, the analysis follows "lines of meaning" which extend, through the millenarianism of the late Middle Ages and the Hermeticism and "Christian Cabala" of the Renaissance, right up to the present. From the long-term perspective which is thereby established, the spectre of a man-made nuclear apocalypse appears as the latest and most dramatic expression of an outlook on the human condition which refuses to accept limits in the imposition of human designs on the world. The concluding discussion of the paradoxical continuities that underlie the sense of epoch evoked by the end of the Cold War highlights this work's implications for our understanding of contemporary international politics. (shrink)

A small reflection about war and costume in modern times.

Quelle est la responsabilité des intellectuels en temps de guerre? Cet article entend offrir une analyse de la pensée de Michael Walzer afin de répondre à cette question. Il s’agira d’abord de revenir sur la distinction classique, au sein des théories de la guerre juste, entre combattants et non combattants. Par la suite, il sera possible d’examiner de manière plus exacte la responsabilité des citoyens en temps de guerre, et plus particulièrement des intellectuels.

It is widely believed that photography is a ‘transparent’ medium: by seeing through a photograph we directly perceive the world itself. For this reason, photographs are thought to be an especially objective means of representation, and war photography relies on the ideal of objectivity to communicate the surreal horror of distant goings-on. -/- But the aims and practice of war photography, I argue, are at odds with the ideal of objectivity and the resulting image’s transparency. War photography cannot be transparent, (...) lest it be merely documentary. Instead, war photography’s primary aims are perlocutionary: it aims to convey the horrors of war and spur action to end the conflict. Its proper subject is therefore neither identical to, nor really similar to, the objects it depicts; instead, these objects represent the photograph’s subject. (shrink)

The so-called cultural war in classics seems to have evolved into a false dilemma, at least according to Dan-el Padilla Peralta’s and Johanna Hanink’s understanding of their profession (“If Classics Doesn’t Change, Let It Burn, The Chronicle Review, February 11): Either one accepts the views of those who have glorified and romanticized about Roman and Greek classical culture or one accepts the views of those who are ready to “burn down” the classical tradition. Between the two extremes there is plenty (...) of room and issues to be explored from serious, critical, and contestable points of view. (shrink)

This essay advances the thesis that, unlike what the majority of Kant scholars believe, Kant has a just war theory. In Towards Perpetual Peace and in the section Völkerrecht in the Rechtslehre, Kant formulates the legitimate grounds for waging a war against an unjust enemy. Strikingly, in a rather provocative footnote in Towards Perpetual Peace Kant seems to allow for the legality of anticipatory defence against an enemy neighbour that refuses to enter into a lawful relation. In this essay, I (...) connect an account of Kant’s philosophy of history as developed in his Idea for a Universal History, according to which antagonism is postulated as the basic driving force of human history, to his theory, set forth in Towards Perpetual Peace, that states must seek to enter into a lawful relation with each other and must thus strive for peace, i.e. a law- governed arrangement where disputes are resolved by rightful means rather than by brute force. People must give up their ‘lawless’ ‘mad freedom’ for ‘rational freedom’ (8:354). If then for example an enemy neighbour is unwilling to relinquish their ‘mad freedom’ and has adopted a maxim by which ‘a state of nature would be perpetuated’ (Doctrine of Right, §60), a neighbouring state has the legitimate right to hinder this ‘hindrance of freedom’ by waging a defensive war against it. War is justified insofar, and only insofar, as it is consistent with the principle of freedom. [English translation]. (shrink)

Uncorrected proofs. Please cite published version. Abstract: This chapter compares two early modern accounts of war and the possibility of enduring peace between states. The first belongs to Spinoza. The second belongs to Kant. Kant can be credited with providing an influential account grounded in his cosmopolitanism that shaped subsequent policies in international relations and war theory, while Spinoza provides a subtle, though often overlooked, realist account. Specifically, the chapter contrasts Spinoza’s views in his Political Treatise (1677) with Kant’s views (...) in Toward Perpetual Peace (1795). Spinoza argues that although the careful design of social and political institutions can go a long way towards eliminating the appeal of war to states while also promoting conditions that favor peace between states, the power for war is an essential feature of states and that states are by nature enemies. Kant, meanwhile, conceives the cosmopolitan conditions for a perpetual peace between states. Significantly, despite their dissimilarity, both Spinoza and Kant offer theories of war that stand outside of the dominant just war theory tradition. (shrink)

I argue that the lives of domestic and enemy civilians should not receive equal weight in our proportionality calculations. Rather, the lives of enemy civilians ought to be “partially discounted” relative to the lives of domestic civilians. We ought to partially discount the lives of enemy civilians for the following reason (or so I argue). When our military wages a just war, we as civilians vest our right to self-defense in our military. This permits our military to weigh our lives (...) more heavily. Before arguing for this view I first explain why recent accounts attempting to show the opposite – that enemy civilians ought to be weighed more heavily – are mistaken. (shrink)

Mandatory minimum sentencing provisions have been a feature of the U.S. justice system since 1790. But they have expanded considerably under the war on drugs, and their use has expanded considerably under the Trump Administration; some states are also poised to expand drug-related mandatory minimums further in efforts to fight the current opioid epidemic. In this paper I outline and evaluate three prominent arguments for and against the use of mandatory minimums in the war on drugs—they appeal, respectively, to proportionality, (...) consistency, and efficiency. I ultimately defend the view that the use of mandatory minimums in the war on drugs is unjust. -/- . (shrink)