Explores the moral dimensions of the current global role of the U.S. military.

Explores the moral dimensions of the current global role of the U.S. military.

No longer holders of a discretionary right to intervene, all States are now burdened with the responsibility to take action under the doctrine of responsibility to protect …. [Potential intervener...

At various times in history, a single power finds itself, at least for its region and time, a 'sole remaining superpower'. This paper explores the parallels between Athens' superpower status at the end of the Persian War and the US's superpower status in the contemporary world. Athens mismanaged her situation in ways that precipitated her own demise in the Peloponnesian War. The question of what might be analogous to Athens' conduct in contemporary US policy is explored to serve as a (...) kind of 'cautionary tale' for modern US strategy. (shrink)

Although military personnel are required to follow all legal orders, morally the traditional contract between soldier and state rests on shared assumptions about the purposes for which national militaries will and will not be used.

Volume 18, Issue 4, December 2019, Page 353-353.

Volume 19, Issue 1, April-May 2020, Page 76-76.

Just peacemaking proposes that it is a creative "third way" between just war and pacifism for Christian engagement with international affairs. It claims that its proposals result from the convergence of a number of important characteristics of the contemporary international scene that cumulatively make this a "kairos" for novel and creative modes of reflection and action. Further, it claims to offer workable and realistic counsel for action in the contemporary world of international relations. This paper critically assesses both claims. It (...) reviews various interpretations of the direction of contemporary international affairs and raises some cautions about too enthusiastic an embrace of just peacemaking's vision of cooperative internationalism. It then focuses specifically on situations that invite intervention in the name of humanitarian concerns. There, the author finds some elements of just peacemaking to be an important supplement to the capabilities of military forces to intervene effectively and to transition successfully to nation-building activities that are necessary if intervention is to have a lasting positive effect. (shrink)

Review of "Ethics, Killing and War" ; "The Ethics of War and Peace: Religious and Secular Perspectives" ; "The Laws of War: Constraints on Warfare in the Western World" ; and "War and Law Since 1945".

This small volume from Claudia Hauer results from an interesting and important intersection of her professional experiences. Trained in Classics, Hauer has spent most of her career at St. John’s Co...

This small volume from Claudia Hauer results from an interesting and important intersection of her professional experiences. Trained in Classics, Hauer has spent most of her career at St. John’s Co...

Volume 19, Issue 2, July - August 2020, Page 163-164.

Volume 18, Issue 3, October 2019, Page 261-262.

Volume 18, Issue 2, July 2019, Page 164-164.

Journal of Military Ethics, Volume 11, Issue 4, Page 271-272, December 2012.

1 Evidence-based policy requires researchers to provide the answers to ecological questions that are of interest to policy makers. To find out what those questions are in the UK, representatives from 28 organizations involved in policy, together with scientists from 10 academic institutions, were asked to generate a list of questions from their organizations. 2 During a 2-day workshop the initial list of 1003 questions generated from consulting at least 654 policy makers and academics was used as a basis for (...) generating a short list of 100 questions of significant policy relevance. Short-listing was decided on the basis of the preferences of the representatives from the policy-led organizations. 3 The areas covered included most major issues of environmental concern in the UK, including agriculture, marine fisheries, climate change, ecosystem function and land management. 4 The most striking outcome was the preference for general questions rather than narrow ones. The reason is that policy is driven by broad issues rather than specific ones. In contrast, scientists are frequently best equipped to answer specific questions. This means that it may be necessary to extract the underpinning specific question before researchers can proceed. 5 Synthesis and applications. Greater communication between policy makers and scientists is required in order to ensure that applied ecologists are dealing with issues in a way that can feed into policy. It is particularly important that applied ecologists emphasize the generic value of their work wherever possible. (shrink)

A few years ago, this page of the Journal of Military Ethics offered Martin Cook’s and Henrik Syse’s penetrating essay about the nature of military ethics. That piece continues...

In medieval Europe, knights were permitted to settle disputes through trial by combat. This was a practice whereby members of the noble class who were accused of a crime could defend themselves not...

In recruitment, promotion, admission, and other forms of wealth and power apportion, an evaluator typically ranks a set of candidates in terms of their perceived competence. If the evaluator is prejudiced, the resulting ranking will misrepresent the candidates’ actual ranking. This constitutes not only a moral and a practical problem, but also an epistemological one, which begs the question of what we should do – epistemologically – to mitigate it. The article is an attempt to begin to answer this question. (...) I first explore the presuppositions that must obtain for individual interventions to likely yield positive epistemological effects in ranking situations. I then compare these with the corresponding presuppositions of a novel, ‘post hoc’ approach to deprejudicing due to Jönsson and Sjödahl (Episteme 14(4):499–517, 2017), which does not attempt to change evaluators but attempts to increase the veracity of the rankings they produce after the fact (but before the rankings give rise to discriminatory effects) using statistical methods. With these two sets of presuppositions in place, I describe the limitations imposed by each presupposition on its intervention, compare presuppositions across the two kinds of interventions, and conclude that the two kinds of interventions importantly complement each other by having fairly disjoint, but non–conflicting, presuppositions. The post hoc intervention can thus complement an individual intervention (and vice versa) in situations where both are applicable (by adding further increases in veracity), but also by applying to situations where that intervention is not applicable (and thereby increase veracity in situations beyond the reach of that intervention). (shrink)

Shaking the respect for history? -- Imprisoned by history -- The historical unconscious -- History: a self-centred science -- History: deception as cultural practice.

Fragments of extensional Martin-Löf type theory without universes,ML 0, are introduced that conservatively extend S.A. Cook and A. Urquhart'sIPV ω. A model for these restricted theories is obtained by interpretation in Feferman's theory APP of operators, a natural model of which is the class of partial recursive functions. In conclusion, some examples in group theory are considered.

The situation of historical knowledge: the historicized world -- The technology of historical knowledge: management-systems -- The logic of historical knowledge: causality, rationality, identity -- The organization of historical knowledge: categorical coordinators; rhetorical strategy -- The purpose of historical knowledge: comprehension.