The Ethics of War and Peace
Threats and Coercive Diplomacy: An Ethical Analysis
Threats of armed force are frequently employed in international affairs, yet they have received little ethical scrutiny in their own right. This article addresses that deficit by examining how threats, taken as a speech act, require distinctive moral assessment.
The Irony of Just War
This review essay examines a series of benchmark books on the ethics of war published over the past year. All three grapple with the hard facts of modern violent conflict, and they all skillfully bring diverse traditions of just war thinking into conversation with one another.
Just War Thinkers: From Cicero to the 21st Century, edited by Daniel R. Brunstetter and Cian O’Driscoll
This volume provides an overview of the development of just war thinking over the centuries through a series of contextualized snapshots of individuals whose work has contributed to the development of the just war tradition in some way.
The Internationalists: How a Radical Plan to Outlaw War Remade the World, by Oona A. Hathaway and Scott J. Shapiro
In this book, Oona A. Hathaway and Scott J. Shapiro investigate the history, nature, and impact of the international legal prohibition on the use of force, focusing on the Kellogg-Briand Pact.
Governing Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems
The UN’s first formal meeting on lethal autonomous weapon systems took place in November 2017. Unfortunately, the end of this first historic meeting brought agreement on only the lowest common denominator.
Jonathan D. Caverley on Slowing the Proliferation of Major Conventional Weapons
In this interview, Johnathan D. Caverley and John Krzyzaniak discuss how the United States, pursuing it’s own self-interest, can slow the proliferation of major conventional weapons and at the same time promote human rights and anti-corruption efforts abroad.
Slowing the Proliferation of Major Conventional Weapons: The Virtues of an Uncompetitive Market
Proliferation of major conventional weapons (MCW) is at best a waste of valuable resources and at worst fuel for more and bloodier conflicts. In this essay, Jonathan D. Caverley shows how the United States, pursuing its own political interests, leverages its massive market power to slow the proliferation of MCW.
Looking Inward Together: Just War Thinking and Our Shared Moral Emotions
In this essay Valerie Morkevicius argues that just war thinking serves a social and psychological role that international law cannot fill. Law is dispassionate and objective, while just war thinking accounts for emotions and the situatedness of individuals. She proposes four ways that just war thinking can move beyond the law by focusing on moral emotions.
