CFP: The Ethics of War and Peace

Wars have always been a part of human life, as have attempts to end them.
Questions of war and peace are a constant challenge for ethics.

2014 is the centenary of the outbreak of World War I and The Ethics of War
and Peace is the theme of the annual conference of Societas Ethica. Recent
European history, especially the civil war in the former Yugoslavia, has
shown that the tensions behind World War I are still with us.

The pledge “Never again!” was not fulfilled. New wars arose, within and
outside Europe, that manifested still other origins: for example, wars
related to colonialism, imperialism and struggles for independence, to
ambitions for hegemony, to global inequalities between rich and poor, to
religious extremism, to drug trafficking, to overpopulation, to the illegal
arms trade, etc. Today we witness atrocious civil wars in the Middle East,
and the ‘war on terror’ has led to new forms of war such as the use of
drones and cyber attacks.

The realities of war in the twenty-first century are in desperate need of
thorough moral reflection. Our cultural heritages offer diverse reflective
contributions here, ranging from Sun-tsu’s Art of war and Clausewitz’s Vom
Kriege to Thomas Aquinas’ and Hugo Grotius’ theories of just war, or from
Hobbes’ analysis of aggressive human nature to Kantian attempts to set up a stable world order without wars.

Through different parallel sessions Societas Ethica will address the major
moral questions regarding war and peace. These sessions will focus on:

• the roots of war (e.g. human aggression, social life, etc.)
• theories of just war (including questions about ‘humanitarian intervention’)
• the rules of war (e.g. the treatment of prisoners – Guantanamo, hostage kidnapping – child soldiers, the arms trade, etc.)
• new forms of warfare (cyber war, the use of drones)
• war and profit (the privatization of war, arms exports, etc.)
• ending war (reconciliation initiatives, war tribunals)
• pacifism
• open channel (for PhD students only)

Contributions will concentrate on one of the topics listed above and
explicitly address moral questions related to it. Paper proposals should
contain no more than 800 words (excluding bibliography), and clearly
present a moral question or argument addressing one of the aforementioned
topics. The deadline is March 31, 2014. Papers can be presented either in
English, German, or French.

Please send in the following two documents as Word attachments to

[email protected]

Document 1: Your name, first name, email address, institutional address,
the title of your abstract, the topic under which your paper proposal
falls, and, if eligible, your application to participate in the Young
Scholars' Award competition (see information below).

Document 2: Your paper proposal including bibliography (max. 10 references)
and title with all identifying references removed.

Societas Ethica Young Scholars' Award is awarded to the best presentation
by a young scholar. Young scholars for the purpose of this competition are
doctoral students and researchers who earned their degree less than two
years ago and do not have a tenure-track academic position. For more
information about Societas Ethica Young Scholars' Award, please visit the
website at www.societasethica.info.