In this book Uwe Steinhoff describes and explains the basic tenets of just war theory and gives a precise, succinct and highly critical account of its present status and of the most important and controversial current debates surrounding it. Rejecting certain in effect medieval assumptions of traditional just war theory and advancing a liberal outlook, Steinhoff argues that every single individual is a legitimate authority and has under certain circumstances the right to declare war on others or the state. He (...) also argues that the just cause cannot be established independently of the other criteria of jus ad bellum (the justification of entering a war), except for right intention, which he interprets more leniently than the tradition does. Turning to jus in bello (which governs the conduct of a war) he criticizes the Doctrine of Double Effect and concludes that insofar as wars kill innocents, and be it as "collateral damage", they cannot be just but at best justified as the lesser evil. Steinhoff gives particular attention to the question why soldiers, allegedly, are legitimate targets and civilians not. Discussing four approaches to the explanation of the difference he argues that the four principles underlying them all need to be taken into account and outlines how their weighing can proceed if applied to concrete cases. The resulting approach does not square the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate targets with the distinction between soldiers and civilians, which has extremely important consequences for the conduct of war. Finally, Steinhoff analyses the concept of terrorism and argues that some forms of "terrorism" are actually not terrorism at all and that even terrorism proper can under certain circumstances be justified. (shrink)

Coady understands political violence to include war as well as terrorism, interventionism, revolution and the violence of mercenaries. His discussion ranges widely over the concept of violence, terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and ethical issues surrounding mercenaries. Some of this has appeared in print before, but much of it is new.Although war is but one form of political violence, in his view, much of his concern is with the just war tradition. Contrary to some contemporary just war theorists, who question (...) whether war is presumptively wrong, he takes the just war tradition to counsel against war unless strict conditions are met. He thinks that these conditions can be met, but apparently only rarely. He follows many contemporary writers, however, in seeing the just war tradition as an alternative to the traditions of realism and pacifism, both of which he examines critically.Coady's discussion of terrorism is particularly timely. He rejects the tendency to view …. (shrink)

This paper develops and defends a new way for pacifists to deal with the problem of supreme emergency. In it I argue that a supreme emergency in which some disaster can only be prevented by modern war is a morally tragic situation. This means that a leader faced with a supreme emergency acts unjustifiably in both allowing something terrible to occur, as well as in waging war to prevent it. I also argue that we may have cause to excuse from (...) wrongdoing the agents who must choose an unjustified action in a supreme emergency. (shrink)

A quick tour rather than a comprehensive treatment, to ready readers to study pacifism in the 20th century, Brock's 1970 account of which has just appeared in a new edition. Looks at the prehistory, early Christians, the age of the democratic revolution, the US before and during the Civil War, and other topics. Revises and updates references from the earlier editions between 1981 and 1994. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.