The Just-War Tradition in Contemporary Civic Debate (original) (raw)
2009
COURSE OVERVIEW The backdrop for this course is supplied by contemporary events—by the problem of international terrorism and the current attempt to address this problem through war. However, this is not a course on terrorism or on the “war against terror” per se; it is a course on the power of great texts to help us think deeply, ethically and concretely about war, and thus to debate the justice of any particular war in philosophically fruitful ways. As such, this is a course in the connection between citizenship, philosophy and tradition—in the ways that rich traditions of politicalphilosophical reflection can be brought to bear effectively on issues of contemporary life. The course begins with a session on “formulating questions.” In this introductory session we face the challenge of admitting our ignorance and trying to articulate the questions we would most like to answer. We turn then to a seven-week long, in-depth study of the just-war tradition, focusing on the authors and t...
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