Arguing About War

Author: Michael Walzer
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300127715
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Book Description
Michael Walzer is one of the world’s most eminent philosophers on the subject of war and ethics. Now, for the first time since his classic Just and Unjust Wars was published almost three decades ago, this volume brings together his most provocative arguments about contemporary military conflicts and the ethical issues they raise.The essays in the book are divided into three sections. The first deals with issues such as humanitarian intervention, emergency ethics, and terrorism. The second consists of Walzer’s responses to particular wars, including the first Gulf War, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. And the third presents an essay in which Walzer imagines a future in which war might play a less significant part in our lives. In his introduction, Walzer reveals how his thinking has changed over time.Written during a period of intense debate over the proper use of armed force, this book gets to the heart of difficult problems and argues persuasively for a moral perspective on war.

Thick and Thin

Author: Michael Walzer
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
ISBN: 026816164X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 77

Book Description
In Thick and Thin: Moral Argument at Home and Abroad, Michael Walzer revises and extends the arguments in his influential Spheres of Justice, framing his ideas about justice, social criticism, and national identity in light of the new political world that has arisen in the past three decades. Walzer focuses on two different but interrelated kinds of moral argument: maximalist and minimalist, thick and thin, local and universal. This new edition has a new preface and afterword, written by the author, describing how the reasoning of the book connects with arguments he made in Just and Unjust Wars about the morality of warfare. Walzer's highly literate and fascinating blend of philosophy and historical analysis will appeal not only to those interested in the polemics surrounding Spheres of Justice and Just and Unjust Wars but also to intelligent readers who are more concerned with getting the arguments right.

Walzer and War

Author: Graham Parsons
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9783030416560
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 275

Book Description
This book presents ten original essays that reassess the meaning, relevance, and legacy of Michael Walzer’s classic, Just and Unjust Wars. Written by leading figures in philosophy, theology, international politics and the military, the essays examine topics such as territorial rights, lessons from America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the practice of humanitarian intervention in light of experience, Walzer’s notorious discussion of supreme emergencies, revisionist criticisms of noncombatant immunity, gender and the rights of combatants, the peacebuilding critique of just war theory, and the responsibility of soldiers for unjust wars. Collectively, these essays advance the debate in this important field and demonstrate the continued relevance of Walzer’s work.

Just War Thinkers

Author: Daniel R. Brunstetter
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317307119
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 478

Book Description
This volume offers a set of concise and accessible introductions to the seminal figures in the historical development of the just war tradition. In what, if any, circumstances are political communities justified in going to war? And what limits should apply to the conduct of any such war? The just war tradition is a body of thought that helps us think through these very questions. Its core ideas have been subject to fierce debate for over 2,000 years. Yet they continue to play a prominent role in how political and military leaders address the challenges posed by the use of force in international society. Until now there has been no text that offers concise and accessible introductions to the key figures associated with the tradition. Stepping into this breach, Just War Thinkers provides a set of clear but detailed essays by leading experts on nineteen seminal thinkers, from Cicero to Jeff McMahan. This volume challenges the reader to think about how traditions are constituted—who is included and excluded, and how that is determined—and how they serve to enable, constrain, and indeed channel subsequent thought, debate, and exchange. This book will be of much interest to students of just war tradition and theory, ethics and war, philosophy, security studies and IR.

Just War Against Terror

Author: Jean Bethke Elshtain
Publisher: Basic Books (AZ)
ISBN: 9780465019106
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 262

Book Description
The University of Chicago political philosopher applies "just war theory" to the war on terror and concludes that pacifism is an inappropriate response to the events of September 11, 2001. 35,000 first printing.

The Company Of Critics

Author: Michael Walzer
Publisher:
ISBN: 0786752408
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 286

Book Description
The Company of Critics provides a fascinating survey of the terrain of social criticism in the last century. Organizing the book as a series of eleven intellectual biographies, Michael Walzer tells not just the dramatic story of the cultural and political radical but also the more personal story of the meaning of criticism to the critic. By looking at the life and work of Julien Benda, Randolph Bourne, Martin Buber, Antonio Gramsci, Ignazio Silone, George Orwell, Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoir, Herbert Marcuse, Michel Foucault, and Breyten Breytenbach, Walzer explains the role of the public intellectual in the context of what he identifies as "the triumphs and catastrophes of our time: the two world wars, the struggles of the working class, national liberation, feminism, totalitarian politics."The new edition, featuring a new preface, contains Walzer's thoughts on his own role as a public intellectual and, most important, the challenges that lie ahead for the engaged social critic. With its unique emphasis on life as a proving ground for thought, The Company of Critics is a necessary addition to the literature of social and political engagement both within and outside of the academy.

Preventing Unjust War

Author: Roger Bergman
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 153268665X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 216

Book Description
Catholic pacifists blame the just war tradition of their Church. That tradition, they say, can be invoked to justify any war, and so it must be jettisoned. This book argues that the problem is not the just war tradition but the unjust war tradition. Ambitious rulers start wars that cannot be justified, and yet warriors continue to fight them. The problem is the belief that warriors do not hold any responsibility for judging the justice of the wars they are ordered to fight. However unjust, a command renders any war “just” for the obedient warrior. This book argues that selective conscientious objection, the right and duty to refuse to fight unjust wars, is the solution. Strengthening the just war tradition depends on a heightened role for the personal conscience of the warrior. That in turn depends on a heightened role for the Church in forming and supporting consciences and judging the justice of particular wars. As Saint Augustine wrote, “The wise man will wage just wars. . . . For, unless the wars were just, he would not have to wage them, and in such circumstances he would not be involved in war at all.”

Killing in War

Author: Jeff McMahan
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191563463
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 264

Book Description
Killing a person is in general among the most seriously wrongful forms of action, yet most of us accept that it can be permissible to kill people on a large scale in war. Does morality become more permissive in a state of war? Jeff McMahan argues that conditions in war make no difference to what morality permits and the justifications for killing people are the same in war as they are in other contexts, such as individual self-defence. This view is radically at odds with the traditional theory of the just war and has implications that challenge common sense views. McMahan argues, for example, that it is wrong to fight in a war that is unjust because it lacks a just cause.

Reading Walzer

Author: Yitzhak Benbaji
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134636253
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 353

Book Description
Michael Walzer is one of the world’s leading philosophers and political theorists. In addition to his best-known books such as Spheres of Justice, and Just and Unjust Wars, he has contributed to contemporary political debates beyond academia in the New York Times, the New Yorker and Dissent. Reading Walzer is the first book to assess the full range of Walzer’s work. An outstanding team of international contributors consider the following topics in relation to Walzer’s work: the moral standing of nation states individual responsibility and laws governing the conduct of war debates over intervention and non-intervention human and minority rights moral and cultural pluralism equality justice Walzer’s radicalism and role as a critic. All chapters have been specially commissioned for this collection, and Walzer’s responses to his critics makes Reading Walzer essential reading for students of political philosophy and political theory.

Justice is Steady Work

Author: Michael Walzer
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 150954481X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 260

Book Description
Michael Walzer is one of the pre-eminent political theorists in the world today and also a prominent public intellectual. His conception of social justice and his work on just and unjust wars have been hugely influential in political theory and, at the same time, he has taken a public stand on many of the great issues of our time, from the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War to 9/11, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Iraq War. He stands out among political theorists and philosophers by virtue of his attention to historical reality and his sensitivity to social and political context. Convinced that philosophical debate is only useful if it is rooted in the concrete practices and morality of societies, he develops a form of social critique that is opposed to a disembodied philosophy which does not respond to concerns of ordinary people. For Walzer, it is useless to try to write a theory of justice: the challenge is to think through issues of justice in relation to the particular contexts in which people live out their lives. The core strength of his work is his practical instinct: if individuals are contextualized, critique must be too. This book takes the form of an extended conversation between Walzer and Astrid von Busekist, ranging from Walzer’s biography and political activism to his work on war, justice and Judaism. Weaving together his theoretical work and his political activism, it provides an outstanding introduction to the life and work of one of the most influential political theorists of our time.