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Why is it that soldiers may be killed in war but civilians may not be killed? By tracing the evolution of the principle of non-combatant immunity in Western thought from its medieval religious origins to its modern legal status, Colm McKeogh attempts to answer this question. In doing so he highlights the unsuccessful attempts to reconcile warfare with our civilization's most fundamental principles of justice.
Why is it that soldiers may be killed in war but civilians may not be killed? By tracing the evolution of the principle of non-combatant immunity in Western thought from its medieval religious origins to its modern legal status, Colm McKeogh attempts to answer this question. In doing so he highlights the unsuccessful attempts to reconcile warfare with our civilization's most fundamental principles of justice.
An account of war ethics sensitive to the historical just war theory, informed by the contemporary concerns of war.
This book is organized in seven chapters. Chapter one looks at the origins and the causes of war. The chapter argues that war is a consequence of how we, as a species, have evolved. War has both endogenous and exogenous causes. While the former depends on our biology and psychology, the latter has to do primarily with international relations. Chapter two makes the case for the paradoxical nature of war. While war takes lives, it is legitimate under certain circumstances. For example, armed humanitarian interventions are allowed to save lives among local populations at the expense of the oppressors by employing all necessary means – ethical or not. Chapter three asks if peace among nations ...
Most people strongly condemn terrorism; yet they often fail to say how terrorist acts differ from other acts of violence such as the killing of civilians in war. Stephen Nathanson argues that we cannot have morally credible views about terrorism if we focus on terrorism alone and neglect broader issues about the ethics of war. His book challenges influential views on the ethics of war, including the realist view that morality does not apply to war, and Michael Walzer's defence of attacks on civilians in 'supreme emergency' circumstances. It provides a clear definition of terrorism, an analysis of what makes terrorism morally wrong, and a rule-utilitarian defence of noncombatant immunity, as well as discussions of the Allied bombings of cities in World War II, collateral damage, and the clash between rights theories and utilitarianism. It will interest a wide range of readers in philosophy, political theory, international relations and law.
The unintended deaths of civilians in war are too often dismissed as unavoidable, inevitable, and accidental. And despite the best efforts of the U.S. to avoid them, civilian casualties in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan have been a regular feature of the United States' wars after 9/11. In Accountability for Killing, Neta C. Crawford focuses on the causes of these many episodes of foreseeable collateral damage and the moral responsibility for them. The dominant paradigm of legal and moral responsibility in war today stresses both intention and individual accountability. Deliberate killing of civilians is outlawed and international law blames individual soldiers and commanders for such killin...
Fighting Terror analyses the ethical dilemmas that confront everyone in the war on terror. Arguing that this is as much a war of ideas as it is a military struggle, Alex Bellamy argues that fighting morally is essential in distancing the terrorized from the terrorists. The book starts by setting out the case for thinking ethically about the war on terror and demonstrates the immorality of terrorism. Covering everything from torture to bombing, assassination to post-war reconstruction, Bellamy uses a series of fascinating case studies to examine how morally terror is being fought across the world. Though, he claims, there is a good case for combating terrorism, the way this is being done is ethically deeply troubling. Fighting Terror makes a powerful and controversial argument for bringing ethics and morality back in to the way we think about terrorism.
A new powerful military weapon has appeared in the skies of world and with it a new form of warfare has quickly emerged bringing with it a host of pressing ethical questions and issues. This book brings together some of the best scholars currently working on these questions.
This interdisciplinary volume examines the relationship between civilians and war in Europe in the period 1618 to 1815, challenging familiar narratives of the rise of modern war and the nature of early modern warfare.