The War of Ethics in the Ethics of War

September 8, 2014 - September 10, 2014
Manchester Centre for Political Theory (MANCEPT), University of Manchester

Manchester
United Kingdom

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We are convening a workshop on just war theory, titled 'The War of Ethics in
the Ethics of War' at the MANCEPT conference from September 8th - 10th.
Please find the abstract below.


MANCEPT PROPOSAL
The War of Ethics in the Ethics of War

Conveners:
Milla Vaha – Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Turku, [email protected]
Ewan E. Mellor – Doctoral Candidate, European University Institute,
[email protected]

“War is always judged twice, first with reference to the reasons states have
for fighting, secondly with reference to the means they adopt.”  This is
Michael Walzer’s canonical statement regarding the independence of the jus
ad bellum from the jus in bello which grounds the principle of the moral
equality of combatants within the just war tradition.  In recent years this
principle has come under sustained critical scrutiny from those who believe
it is morally incoherent and philosophically unsubstantiated, led by Jeff
McMahan and David Rodin, among others.  These scholars instead argue for a
principle of the moral inequality of combatants, in which combatants would
be individually judged according to the justice of the war in which they are
fighting.  This morally individualist and cosmopolitan approach to the
ethics of war would completely transform the nature and practice of war and,
concomitantly, the nature of the international system as a whole.  The
debate over the principle of the moral equality of combatants is also
closely related to a number of other debates within international political
theory and international ethics, including the debate between
communitarianism and cosmopolitanism, debates about the role and place of
individual rights in the international system, and debates about the
relationship between moral principles and political decision making.

Although philosophically powerful and persuasive, much of the revisionist
literature has been conducted at a high level of abstraction.  As such, this
workshop seeks to engage with and further the debate about the moral
equality of combatants by encouraging contributions that deal with some of
the implications of the revisionist argument from a political theory and
international relations perspective.

Ewan E. Mellor: [email protected]
Or Milla Vaha: [email protected]

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