Just War

Download or read book The Just War Myth written by Andrew Fiala and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2008 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the war in Iraq continues and Americans debate the consequences of the war in Afghanistan, the war on terror, and the possibility of war with North Korea and Iran, war is one of the biggest issues in public debate. Andrew Fiala in The Just War Myth challenges the apparently predominant American sentiment that war can be easily justified. Even most Democrats seem to hold that opinion, despite the horrific costs of war both on the people being attacked or caught up in the chaos and on the Americans involved in carrying out the war. The Just War Myth argues that while the just war theory is a good theory, actual wars do not live up to its standards. The book provides a genealogy of the just war idea and also turns a critical eye on current events, including the idea of preemptive war, the use of torture, and the unreality of the Bush Doctrine. Fiala warns that pacifism, too, can become mythological, advocating skepticism about attempts to justify war.

Download or read book Just War as Christian Discipleship written by Daniel M. Jr. Bell and published by Brazos Press. This book was released on 2009-10-01 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This provocative and timely primer on the just war tradition connects just war to the concrete practices and challenges of the Christian life. Daniel Bell explains that the point is not simply to know the just war tradition but to live it even in the face of the tremendous difficulties associated with war. He shows how just war practice, if it is to be understood as a faithful form of Christian discipleship, must be rooted in and shaped by the fundamental convictions and confessions of the faith. The book includes a foreword by an Army chaplain who has served in Iraq and study questions for group use.

Download or read book St. Augustine and the Theory of Just War written by John Mark Mattox and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2006-09-01 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The decline of the Roman Empire gave rise to two problems, which combined to form one of the most perplexing philosophical questions of late antiquity. On the one hand, Rome found itself under constant military threat as various tribes from the north and east encroached along its borders to fill the power vacuum left by the receding Empire. On the other hand, adherents to the Empire's new official faith - Christianity - found themselves without clear guidance as to what military roles their faith would permit; the death of the apostles left them without revelatory guidance, and the New Testament writings were not definitive on the subject. The question, then, became: "Can a Christian answer the empire's call to military duty and still answer a clear conscience before God?" Fifth-century philosopher, St Augustine of Hippo, sought to provide a solution to the two problems. His approach formed the foundation of the 'just war' tradition, which has had enormous influence upon moral-philosophical thought on military issues in the West ever since. This major new study identifies the fundamental Augustinian premises and evaluates them in light of historical, neo-Platonic, and Christian contexts. It also identifies the effect of the Augustinian legacy upon medieval and modern philosophical reflections on the nature of warfare and on how war might be waged justly and morally.

Download or read book Shakespeare and the Just War Tradition written by Paola Pugliatti and published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. This book was released on 2010 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As an `innocent', which is to say non-specialist, reader of Shakespeare, I knew that one could find everything in his work, as in the Bible; what I had not imagined was that the Bard - what a devil of a man!-could also inspire one to reflect on a subject that so closely presses upon us today: the ethics of war. Paola Pugliatti's book, however, has obliged me to re-read him from this entirely new perspective.---Umberto Eco In Shakespeare, Paola Pugliatti writes, `war is ubiquitous'. Her examination of his use of war and of just war tradition in his work places it in the context of the prior development of this tradition during the late Middle Ages and the burgeoning debates about just war in Shakespeare's own time. Not only does her study add depth to understanding Shakespeare on war; it provides a primer on the development of the tradition of just war out of which the English debates of this period grew. Pugliatti's work is an important new addition to reflection on both Shakespeare and just war tradition.---James Turner Johnson, Distinguished Professor of Religion at Rutgers University, USA, and author of many books on just war tradition and its use Brought to light in this study is a connection between the treatment of war in Shakespeare's plays and the issue of the `just war', which loomed large both in religious and in lay treatises of Shakespeare's time. The book re-reads Shakespeare's representations of war in light of both the changing historical and political contexts in which they were produced and of Shakespeare's possible connection with the culture and ideology of the European just war tradition. But to discuss Shakespeare's representations of war means, for Pugliatti, not simply to examine his work from a literary point of view or to historicize those representations in connection with the discourses (land the practice) of war which were produced in his time; it also means to consider or re-consider present-day debates for or against war and the kind of war ideology which is trying to assert itself in our time in light of the tradition which shaped those discourses and representations and which still substantiates our `moral' view of war.

Download or read book Just War and Terrorism written by Wim Smit and published by Peeters Publishers. This book was released on 2005 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the new wave of terrorism, scholars, politicians, members of the military and even ordinary people, all of whom have been startled by the extreme kind of violence, have raised many questions. With an interesting spectrum of viewpoints, this text covers many challenging themes.

Download or read book The Just War in the Middle Ages written by Frederick H. Russell and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1975 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first systematic attempt to reconstruct from original manuscript sources and early printed books the medieval doctrines relating to the just war, the holy war and the crusade. Despite the frequency of wars and armed conflicts throughout the course of western history, no comprehensive survey has previously been made of the justifications of warfare that were elaborated by Roman lawyers, canon lawyers and theologians in the twelfth and thirteenth century universities. After a brief survey of theories of the just war in antiquity, with emphasis on Cicero and Augustine, and of thought on early medieval warfare, the central chapters are devoted to scholastics such as Pope Innocent IV, Hostiensis and Thomas Aquinas. Professor Russell attempts to correlate theories of the just war with political and intellectual development in the Middle Ages. His conclusion evaluates the just war in the light of late medieval and early modern statecraft and poses questions about its compatibility with Christian ethics and its validity within international law.

Download or read book The Just War written by Paul Ramsey and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2002 with total page 588 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With a new foreword by noted theologian and ethicist Stanley Hauerwas, this classic text on war and the ethics of modern statecraft written at the height of the Vietnam era in 1968 speaks to a new generation of readers. Characterized by a sophisticated yet back-to-basics approach, The Just War begins with the assumption that force is a fact in political life which must either be reckoned with or succumbed to. It then grapples with modern challenges to traditional moral principles of "just conduct" in war, the "morality of deterrence," and a "just war theory of statecraft."