The Nature of War (original) (raw)
Related papers
Kazan University Law Review, 2019
The aim of the article is to elucidate the issue of a universally accepted normative definition of the terms ‘jus post bellum’ and ‘armed conflict’ from the legal historical and legal philosophical perspectives. The main concept of just war theories is based on the human desire to control interracial aggression. It is known that the “morally justifiable war” based on a series of criteria is split first into two, and later into three groups: right to go to war (jus ad bellum), right conduct in war (jus in bello), and right after the war (jus post bellum). Jus post bellum approach appeared just after the Second World War. In the author’s opinion, jus post bellum is the most important part. The author’s task is to find a generally acceptable working definition, or at least a generally acceptable meaning of jus post bellum in the mirror of just war theories, and an armed conflict from the perspective of war and aggression, as well as to describe the historical evolution of the two classic parts of just war theories: just ad bellum and jus in bello. Keywords: just war theories, jus post bellum, just ad bellum, jus in bello, armed conflict, definition, war.
The Ethics of War. Part I: Historical Trends1
Philosophy Compass, 2012
Abstract This article surveys the major historical developments in Western philosophical reflection on war. Section 2 outlines early development in Greek and Roman thought, up to and including Augustine. Section 3 details the systematization of Just War theory in Aquinas and his successors, especially Vitoria, Suárez, and Grotius. Section 4 examines the emergence of Perpetual Peace theory after Hobbes, focusing in particular on Rousseau and Kant. Finally, Section 5 outlines the central points of contention following the reemergence ...
From Vladimiri’s just war to Kelsen’s lawful war: the universality of the bellum justum doctrine.
Studia Philosophiae Christianae, 2017
The article explores Hans Kelsen’s theory of just war (bellum justum). It addresses the question of how and why the leading modern positivist thinker in fact embraced a key natural law theory, the concept of just war. In exploring this question, it collates the Viennese philosopher’s views with those of Polish late Middle Ages philosopher and lawyer, Paulus Vladimiri, who developed his own version of the bellum justum doctrine. In the first step, an outline of Paulus Vladimiri’s views on just war is presented. Secondly, the article offers an overview of two key theses of Kelsen’s theory of international law in order to provide the necessary context for his use of the term bellum justum. Next, the analysis moves to answering the question of whether Kelsen’s position might in fact be described as naturalist. In the last part, the article adds to some criticism of Kelsen’s use of the term “just war”. The conclusion underlines the points of intersection between the two doctrines. Although Kelsen’s attempt to harness the just war tradition within the confines of his own pure theory of law seems to have largely failed, it exemplifies a degree of universalism of the just war tradition and its potential for transcending divisions among schools of legal and philosophical thinking.
The study of war is an area that has been long ignored by conventional criminologists, mainly due to the criminogenic acts of war being legitimate and justified. This however, rests on the assumption that a 'just war' actually exists and that the just war tradition is a useful and adequate guide on which to judge our thought about war. The purpose of this dissertation is to challenge this assumption, providing a critical analysis of the rationales for war. It will be concluded that the just war tradition is flawed. Its near impossibility of being followed fully means that all wars, despite perhaps having moral authority, are unjust.
The philosophy of international law of Modern Scholasticism: the theory of just war
Juridical Tribune
This article analyzes the philosophy of international law of the Second, or Modern Scholasticism. The author of the article concentrates on the just war theory mainly developed by Francisco de Vitoria and Francisco Suarez. The objectives of the article are to clarify and classify the main principles of the above-mentioned theory as well as to grasp its relevance nowadays. In order to achieve these objectives doxographical, analytical as well as hermeneutical methods are applied. Based on them, the principles and rules of just war are divided into two fundamental types. The article comes to conclusion that these types correspond to the parts of contemporary just war theory entitled as jus ad bellum and jus in bello. Another significant conclusion is that the vast majority of the principles of just war presented in Modern Scholasticism (e.g. just cause of the war, adversary’s warning of intended offensive actions, the inviolability of ambassadors and peaceful population, prohibition o...
Sotsiologicheskoe Obozrenie / Russian Sociological Review, 2015
At the beginning of the article, the author explains its idea-to explicate the conceptual approach to war as the most important structural element and mechanism for maintaining social order. The author claims the existence of a stable tradition of theorizing based on the argument about the social functionality of the structural violence, which allows interpreting war as a special type of sociality. The representatives of this conventional line of argumentation mentioned in the article are such key figures in the history of ideas, as Thomas Hobbes, Carl von Clausewitz, Carl Schmitt and Michel Foucault. The author formulates ten theses, which problematize the heuristic aspects of war in relation to the theory of social order and are accompanied by short comments explaining the ambivalent status of war topics in the philosophical tradition and sociological classics, because neither of them developed a complete theory of war relevant from the social theory perspective. The key theses state that war experience is constitutive for human societies, and reconstruct the line of argumentation that emphasizes the constitutive function of war for social institutions and political order and the role of war as a major factor of social transformations in the modernity for this role is often underestimated in sociological theory. In conclusion, the author states the need for analytical explication of the organized violence functionality in relation to the structures of social action typical for the modern era. He also claims that within the proposed social-theoretical perspective the war can become a heuristic key to understanding the nature of the social, because this approach allows not only to consider war as a cultural-universal phenomenon, but to analyze more realistically the structural role of violence in the processes of production, reproduction and transformation of social orders.
The Ethics of War up to Thomas Aquinas
Oxford Handbooks Online, 2015
This chapter explores major developments in concepts of justified warfare and norms of military conduct over nearly 2,000 years. From at least the first millennium BC, ideas about the justice of war and customary norms regulating combat were developed by Western societies. Throughout the ancient and medieval worlds, war was subjected to varying degrees of ethical analysis, as well as being influenced by social pragmatism. Examining a variety of evidence, this chapter argues that the two branches of just war doctrine, jus ad bellum and jus in bello, developed hand-in-hand and should be seen as an integrated whole. This intermingling of jus ad bellum and jus in bello concerns produced a sophisticated and complex body of ethical thought about war—embodied in the systematic analysis of medieval canon lawyers and theologians—and ultimately provided the essential building blocks for modern just war doctrine.