Law and Morality at War

Law and Morality at War
Author: Adil Ahmad Haque
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2017
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0199687390

The laws are not silent in war, but what should they say? What is the moral function of the law of armed conflict? Should the law protect civilians who do not fight but help those who do? Should the law protect soldiers who perform non-combat functions or who may be safely captured? How certain should a soldier be that an individual is a combatant rather than a civilian before using lethal force? What risks should soldiers take on themselves to avoid harming civilians? When do inaccurate weapons become unlawfully indiscriminate? When does "collateral damage" to civilians become unlawfully disproportionate? Should civilians lose their legal rights by serving, voluntarily or involuntarily, as human shields? Finally, when should killing civilians constitute a war crime? These are the questions that Law and Morality at War answers, contributing to a cutting-edge international debate. Drawing on the concepts and methods of contemporary moral and legal philosophy, the book develops a normative framework within which the laws of war and international criminal law can be evaluated, criticized, and reformed. While several philosophical works critically examine the moral status of civilians and combatants, this book fills a gap, offering both an account of the laws of war and war crimes, and proposing how the law could be improved from a moral point of view. Finally, it explores when, if ever, the emotional pressures under which soldiers act should partially or wholly excuse their wrongful actions.

The Oxford Handbook of Ethics of War

The Oxford Handbook of Ethics of War
Author: Seth Lazar
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 496
Release: 2018-01-12
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0199944393

Recent years have seen a resurgence of interest, among both philosophers, legal scholars, and military experts, on the ethics of war. Due in part due to post 9/11 events, this resurgence is also due to a growing theoretical sophistication among scholars in this area. Recently there has been very influential work published on the justificaton of killing in self-defense and war, and the topic of the ethics of war is now more important than ever as a discrete field. The 28 commissioned chapters in this Handbook will present a comprehensive overview of the field as well as make significant and novel contributions, and collectively they will set the terms of the debate for the next decade. Lazar and Frowe will invite the leading scholars in the field to write on topics that are new to them, making the volume a compilation of fresh ideas rather than a rehash of earlier work. The volume will be dicided into five sections: Method, History, Resort, Conduct, and Aftermath. The contributors will be a mix of junior and senior figures, and will include well known scholars like Michael Walzer, Jeff McMahan, and David Rodin.

The Ethics of War

The Ethics of War
Author: Saba Bazargan
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2017-01-23
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0199376158

Just War theory - as it was developed by the Catholic theologians of medieval Europe and the jurists of the Renaissance - is a framework for the moral and legal evaluation of armed conflicts. To this day, Just War theory informs the judgments of ethicists, government officials, international lawyers, religious scholars, news coverage, and perhaps most importantly, the public as a whole. The influence of Just War theory is as vast as it is subtle - we have been socialized into evaluating wars largely according to the principles of this medieval theory, which, according to the eminent philosopher David Rodin, is "one of the few basic fixtures of medieval philosophy to remain substantially unchallenged in the modern world". Some of the most basic assumptions of Just War Theory have been dismantled in a barrage of criticism and analysis in the first dozen years of the 21st century. "The Ethics of War" continues and pushes past this trend. This anthology is an authoritative treatment of the ethics and law of war by both the eminent scholars who first challenged the orthodoxy of Just War theory, as well as by new thinkers. The twelve original essays span both foundational and topical issues in the ethics of war, including an investigation of: whether there is a "greater-good" obligation that parallels the canonical lesser-evil justification in war; the conditions under which citizens can wage war against their own government; whether there is a limit to the number of combatants on the unjust side who can be permissibly killed; whether the justice of the cause for which combatants fight affects the moral permissibility of fighting; whether duress ever justifies killing in war; the role that collective liability plays in the ethics of war; whether targeted killing is morally and legally permissible; the morality of legal prohibitions on the use of indiscriminate weapons; the justification for the legal distinction between directly and indirectly harming civilians; whether human rights of unjust combatants are more prohibitive than have been thought; the moral repair of combatants suffering from PTSD; and the moral categories and criteria needed to understand the proper justification for ending war.

The Morality of the Laws of War

The Morality of the Laws of War
Author: MARCELA PRIETO. RUDOLPHY
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2023-05-19
Genre:
ISBN: 0192855476

The Morality of the Laws of War examines the modern landscape of the ethics of war. Rudolphy assesses the conflicting theories on the legality of just and unjust combatants. While doing this, she proposes an alternative morality of war proceeding from the inescapable fact that regulating war is always a significant moral compromise.

The Morality of War - Second Edition

The Morality of War - Second Edition
Author: Brian Orend
Publisher: Broadview Press
Total Pages: 339
Release: 2013-09-10
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1554810957

The first edition of The Morality of War was one of the most widely-read and successful books ever written on the topic. In this second edition, Brian Orend builds on the substantial strengths of the first, adding important new material on: cyber-warfare; drone attacks; the wrap-up of Iraq and Afghanistan; conflicts in Libya and Syria; and protracted struggles (like the Arab-Israeli conflict). Updated and streamlined throughout, the book offers new research tools and case studies, while keeping the winning blend of theory and history featured in the first edition. This book remains an engaging and comprehensive examination of the ethics, and practice, of war and peace in today’s world.

Military Necessity

Military Necessity
Author: Nobuo Hayashi
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 453
Release: 2020-03-26
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1108484719

Explores the normative foundation of international humanitarian law by developing and defending a new theory of military necessity.

Law and Morality at War

Law and Morality at War
Author: Adil Ahmad Haque
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 474
Release: 2017-02-09
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0191511196

The laws are not silent in war, but what should they say? What is the moral function of the law of armed conflict? Should the law protect civilians who do not fight but help those who do? Should the law protect soldiers who perform non-combat functions or who may be safely captured? How certain should a soldier be that an individual is a combatant rather than a civilian before using lethal force? What risks should soldiers take on themselves to avoid harming civilians? When do inaccurate weapons become unlawfully indiscriminate? When does 'collateral damage' to civilians become unlawfully disproportionate? Should civilians lose their legal rights by serving, voluntarily or involuntarily, as human shields? Finally, when should killing civilians constitute a war crime? These are the questions that Law and Morality at War answers, contributing to a cutting-edge international debate. Drawing on the concepts and methods of contemporary moral and legal philosophy, the book develops a normative framework within which the laws of war and international criminal law can be evaluated, criticized, and reformed. While several philosophical works critically examine the moral status of civilians and combatants, this book fills a gap, offering both an account of the laws of war and war crimes, and proposing how the law could be improved from a moral point of view.

The Morality of War

The Morality of War
Author: David Todd Kinsella
Publisher:
Total Pages: 436
Release: 2007
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN:

?A highly useful core text for courses in the field?as well as an invaluable reference for any serious student of the ethics of war.??Albert Pierce, U.S. Naval AcademyWhen and why is war justified? How, morally speaking, should wars be fought? The Morality of War confronts these challenging questions, surveying the fundamental principles and themes of the just war tradition through the words of the philosophers, jurists, and warriors who have shaped it.The collection begins with the foundational works of just war theory, as well as those of two competing perspectives, realism and pacifism. Subsequent selections focus on issues related to the resort to war, the conduct of war, and the judgment of war crimes. Both traditional just war concerns and those that have emerged in response to contemporary developments?such as the U.S. ?war on terror??are thoroughly covered.With articles that are crucially relevant to today?s world paired with contextual introductions to each section, the reader is ideally constructed to inform and guide students as they consider the morality of past and current military actions.David Kinsella is associate professor of political science at the Hatfield School of Government, Portland State University. He is editor of International Studies Perspectives and coauthor of World Politics: The Menu for Choice. Craig L. Carr is professor of political science at the Hatfield School of Government. He is author of On Fairness and editor of The Political Writings of Samuel Pufendorf.

Ethics and the Laws of War

Ethics and the Laws of War
Author: Antony Lamb
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 173
Release: 2013-05-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 1136255427

This book is an examination of the permissions, prohibitions and obligations found in just war theory, and the moral grounds for laws concerning war. Pronouncing an action or course of actions to be prohibited, permitted or obligatory by just war theory does not thereby establish the moral grounds of that prohibition, permission or obligation; nor does such a pronouncement have sufficient persuasive force to govern actions in the public arena. So what are the moral grounds of laws concerning war, and what ought these laws to be? Adopting the distinction between jus ad bellum and jus in bello, the author argues that rules governing conduct in war can be morally grounded in a form of rule-consequentialism of negative duties. Looking towards the public rules, the book argues for a new interpretation of existing laws, and in some cases the implementation of completely new laws. These include recognising rights of encompassing groups to necessary self-defence; recognising a duty to rescue; and considering all persons neither in uniform nor bearing arms as civilians and therefore fully immune from attack, thus ruling out ‘targeted’ or ‘named’ killings. This book will be of much interest to students of just war theory, ethics of war, international law, peace and conflict studies, and Security Studies/IR in general.

War by Agreement

War by Agreement
Author: Yitzhak Benbaji
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 230
Release: 2019
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0199577196

"War by Agreement presents a new theory on the ethics of war. It shows that wars can be morally justified at both the ad bellum level (the political decision to go to war) and the in bello level (its actual conduct by the military) by accepting a contractarian account of the rules governing war. According to this account, the rules of war are anchored in a mutually beneficial and fair agreement between the relevant players-- the purpose of which is to promote peace and to reduce the horrors of war. The book relies on the long social contract tradition and illustrates its fruitfulness in understanding and developing the morality and the law of war"--