War

In this article, I explore the ethical permissibility of autonomous weapon systems (AWSs), also colloquially known as killer robots: robotic weapons systems that are able to identify and engage a target without human intervention. I introduce the subject, highlight key technical issues, and provide necessary definitions and clarifications in order to limit the scope of the discussion. I argue for a (preemptive) ban on AWSs anchored in just war theory and International Humanitarian Law (IHL), which are both briefly introduced below.

Rita Floyd’s The Morality of Security: A Theory of Just Securitization is an important and insightful book that delineates a theory of just securitization (modified from the jus ad bellum and jus in bello criteria in just war theory) involving three sets of principles governing the just initiation of securitization, just conduct of securitization, and just desecuritization. This book is a much- needed addition to the security studies and just war literature. Here, I apply Floyd’s just securitization theory (JST) to (...) the threat posed by white supremacy to African Americans. I argue that white supremacy meets Floyd’s definition of an objective existential threat, potentially justifying the resort to securitization by African Americans. -/- In Section 1, I argue that African Americans constitute a non-state group, before demonstrating in Section 2 that white supremacy poses an objective existential threat to this group, meeting the criterion of just cause in Floyd’s JST. In Section 3, I show that, given the failure of legal challenges and democratic processes to mitigate this threat, African Americans may be justified in resorting to extraordinary measures to combat the threat of white supremacy, including “whatever most reasonable persons would agree constitutes exceptional means and actions ... non-state state groups within states. securitization can take the form of secession, civil disobedience, acts of sabotage and resistance”. Applying Floyd’s JST to the threat of white supremacy demonstrates the value of her approach for thinking about securitization outside the traditional foci of security studies but, as I discuss in my conclusion, also reveals limitations in her theory, particularly in relation to the criterion of reasonable chance of success when applied to non-state groups resisting an unjust state. (shrink)

Obwohl dieser Band ein wenig datiert ist, gibt es nur wenige aktuelle populäre Bücher, die sich speziell mit der Psychologie des Mordes beschäftigen und es ist ein schneller Überblick für ein paar Dollar, also noch wert die Mühe. Es macht keinen Versuch, umfassend zu sein und ist stellenweise etwas oberflächlich, wobei der Leser erwartet, die Lücken aus seinen vielen anderen Büchern und der umfangreichen Literatur über Gewalt zu füllen. Für ein Update siehe z.B. Buss, The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology 2nd (...) ed. V1 (2016) S. 265, 266, 270–282, 388–389, 545–546, 547, 566 und Buss, Evolutionary Psychology 5th ed. (2015) P 26, 96–97,223, 293-4, 300, 309–312, 410 und Shackelford and Hansen, The Evolution of Violence (2014). Er gehört seit mehreren Jahrzehnten zu den beste Evolutions psychologen und deckt in seinen Arbeiten ein breites Spektrum an Verhaltensweisen ab, aber hier konzentriert er sich fast ausschließlich auf die psychologischen Mechanismen, die einzelne Menschen zum Mord führen, und ihre mögliche evolutionäre Funktion im EWR (Environment of Evolutionary Adaptation – d.h. die Ebenen Afrikas in den letzten Millionen Jahren oder so). -/- Buss beginnt mit der Erkenntnis, dass wie bei anderen Verhaltensweisen "alternative" Erklärungen wie Psychopathologie, Eifersucht, soziales Umfeld, Gruppendruck, Drogen und Alkohol usw. nicht wirklich erklären, da die Frage nach wie vor bleibt, warum diese mörderische Impulse erzeugen, d.h. sie sind die nahen Ursachen und nicht die ultimativen evolutionären (genetischen) Ursachen. Wie immer läuft es unweigerlich auf inklusive Fitness (genetische Fitness von Verwandten) und damit auf den Kampf um den Zugang zu Kumpels und Ressourcen hinaus, der die ultimative Erklärung für das gesamte Verhalten in allen Organismen ist. Soziologische Daten (und der gesunde Menschenverstand) machen deutlich, dass jüngere ärmere Männchen am ehesten töten. Er präsentiert seine eigenen und andere Morddaten aus Industrienationen und Stammeskulturen, konspeziertes Töten von Tieren, Archäologie, FBI-Daten und seine eigene Forschung über die Mordfantasien normaler Menschen. Viele archäologische Beweise häufen sich weiterhin von Morden, einschließlich der von ganzen Gruppen oder von Gruppen abzüglich junger Frauen, in prähistorischen Zeiten. -/- Nachdem ich Buss' Kommentare untersucht habe, präsentiere ich eine sehr kurze Zusammenfassung der absichtlichen Psychologie (die logische Struktur der Rationalität), die in meinen vielen anderen Artikeln und Büchern ausführlich behandelt wird. -/- Diejenigen, die viel Zeit haben, die eine detaillierte Geschichte mörderischer Gewalt aus evolutionärer Perspektive wollen, können Steven Pinkers "The Better Angels of Our Nature Why Violence Has Declined" (2012) und meineRezension, leicht im Netz und in zwei meiner jüngsten Bücher lesen. Kurz, Pinker stellt fest, dass Mord hat stetig und dramatisch um den Faktor etwa 30 seit unseren Tagen als Forager gesunken. Obwohl Waffen es jetzt für jeden extrem einfach machen, zu töten, ist Tötung viel seltener. Pinker glaubt, dass dies auf verschiedene soziale Mechanismen zurückzuführen ist, die unsere "besseren Engel" hervorbringen, aber ich denke, es ist hauptsächlich auf die vorübergehende Fülle von Ressourcen durch die gnadenlose Vergewaltigung unseres Planeten zurückzuführen, gepaart mit erhöhter Polizeipräsenz, mit Kommunikations- und Überwachungs- und Rechtssystemen, die es viel wahrscheinlicher machen, bestraft zu werden. Dies wird jedes Mal deutlich, wenn es sogar eine kurze und lokale Abwesenheit der Polizei gibt. -/- Wer aus der modernen zweisystems-Sichteinen umfassenden, aktuellen Rahmen für menschliches Verhalten wünscht, kann mein Buch "The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mindand Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle' 2nd ed (2019) konsultieren. Diejenigen,die sich für mehr meiner Schriften interessieren, können 'Talking Monkeys--Philosophie, Psychologie, Wissenschaft, Religion und Politik auf einem verdammten Planeten --Artikel und Rezensionen 2006-2019 3rd ed (2019) und Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century 5th ed (2019) und andere sehen. (shrink)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Knud Ejler Løgstrup were WWII contemporaries: Lutheran theologians and religious figures in their respective German and Danish communities; both active in the anti-Nazi resistance. Being involved in the resistance, Bonhoeffer and Løgstrup were required to rethink what it meant to be ethical, in particular in relation to disclosure and the telling of truth, in a situation of war. In this paper, we consider the grounds on which both Løgstrup and Bonhoeffer acted, their belief in a duty or (...) requirement to resist, in light of the more general problem presented by resistance as action undertaken in a state of exception. We investigate the distinction between the normativity of ordinary or stable time, and action required in a state of exception, using the specific example of truth-telling as a normative demand and its conflict with the exceptional imperative to lie. The example of truth-telling raises important questions about the role of agency and phronetic judgment in a state of exception. In order to determine a foundation for such judgment, we turn to the framework adapted by both Bonhoeffer and Løgstrup to ground their requirement to lie: Luther’s concept of three estates. We consider how their respective concepts of mandates and laws of life/sovereign expressions of life both illuminate and highlight the more general problem of the relation between norm and exceptional action. (shrink)

Are the lives of those fighting on the unjust side of a war worth less than the lives of those fighting on the just side? It is tempting to answer Yes. There is a powerful and popular rationale for this verdict: Things are intrinsically better when people get what they deserve. According to this view, the goodness of a life is the product of one’s desert-adjusted welfare. In this essay, I highlight the troubling implications that adjusting for desert has in (...) the context of war. The implausibility of these implications calls into question the core idea of the desert-adjusted account: namely, that there is some level of welfare that each person deserves, and things would go best if everyone were at these levels. (shrink)

Argues that the reasons Rawls offers in The Law of Peoples for rejecting cosmopolitanism are unpersuasive and that Rawls's resistance to cosmopolitanism is associated with other problematic features of his approach, including his stance regarding justice in warfare; an individualist, cosmopolitan approach would resolve evident difficulties in Rawls's position.

In my replies to some of my critics I argue that while the practice of terrorism is never justified, I concede that it is rarely but sometimes excused. As result, those who engage in excusable terrorism has a substantial burden of proof. They need to offer a compelling argument to show that the harm caused by their terrorist violence is actually excused by the extenuating circumstances and the goal that they are trying to achieve, so they will not be morally (...) or legally blameworthy for bringing about such harm. I am assuming that they will need to demonstrate that the alleged harm is excusable because it is necessary to accomplish a worthy goal and there is no other reasonable way to obtain such a worthy goal without deliberately harming those who can be reasonably conceived of as impeccably or objectively innocent. That is, those who are innocent beyond reasonable doubt. (shrink)

The ability of international ethics and political theory to establish a genuinely critical standpoint from which to evaluate uses of armed force has been challenged by various lines of argument. On one, theorists question the narrow conception of violence on which analysis relies. Were they right, it would overturn two key assumptions: first, that violence is sufficiently distinctive to merit attention as a category separate from other modes of human harming; second, that it is troubling in a special way that (...) makes acts of violence peculiarly hard to justify. This paper defends a narrow understanding of violence and a special ethics governing its use by arguing that a distinctive form of ‘Violent Agency’ is the factor uniting the category while partly accounting for the fearful connotations of the term. Violent Agency is defined first by a double intention (1) to inflict harm using a technique chosen (2) to eliminate or evade the target’s means of escaping it or defending against it. Second, the harms it aims at are destructive (as opposed to appropriative). The analysis offered connects the concept of violence to themes in international theory such as vulnerability, security, and domination, as well as the ethics of war. (shrink)

The words 'rebellion' and 'revolution' have gained renewed prominence in the vocabulary of world politics and so has the question of justifiable armed 'resistance'. In this book Christopher J. Finlay extends just war theory to provide a rigorous and systematic account of the right to resist oppression and of the forms of armed force it can justify. He specifies the circumstances in which rebels have the right to claim recognition as legitimate actors in revolutionary wars against domestic tyranny and injustice, (...) and wars of liberation against wrongful foreign occupation and colonialism. Arguing that violence is permissible only in a narrow range of cases, Finlay shows that the rules of engagement vary during and between different conflicts and explores the potential for irregular tactics to become justifiable, such as non-uniformed guerrillas and civilian disguise, the assassination of political leaders and regime officials, and the waging of terrorist war against civilian targets. (shrink)

When considering the persuasive characteristics and prospective influences of Darwin‐skeptic mass media, uncertainties remain about how to reciprocally promote evolutionary theory to skeptical audiences. This study aims to improve evolution advocacy by translating some of the most successful methods of science endorsement to Evolution Wars contexts. In particular, strategies used to address vaccine hesitancies and enhance immunization uptake policies are reinterpreted for those seeking to improve pro‐evolution communications to religious publics. What results are three recommendation categories described as General Guiding (...) Principles, Proximate Interventions, and Auxiliary Interventions. (shrink)

Do a threatened state’s obligations of assistance extend to the enemy’s needy people and the needy people in non-hostile countries equally? This paper examines five arguments defending the political boundary between hostile and non-hostile countries. The aid workers, defence capacity, and pre-emptive self-defence arguments highlight the unreasonable burdens for a threatened state to protect its own citizens, as a result of its assistance to the enemy’s needy people, while the limited and comprehensive negative duties arguments underscore a threatened state’s involvement (...) in harmful activities. Unfortunately, these five arguments cannot accomplish the task. Certain arguments (i.e. the aid workers argument and the negative duties approach in general) encounter the insufficiency problem by not completely denying the potential for assisting the enemy’s needy people, while other arguments (i.e. the defence capacity, the limited and comprehensive negative duties, the pre-emptive self-defence arguments) face the over-extension problem by prohibiting assistance to needy people in nonhostile countries. Therefore, when a threatened state provides assistance to needy foreigners, the distinction between hostile and non-hostile countries should not constitute a decisive reason to affect the distribution of its assistance, because it cannot clearly maintain this distinction. (shrink)

We are currently witnessing a renewal of broad public interest in the life and career of Alexander Hamilton – justly famed as an American founder. This volume examines the possible present-day significance of the man, noting that this is not the first revival of interest in the statesman. Hamilton was a major background figure in the GOP politics of the Gilded Age, with the powerful US Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Sr. drawing on Hamilton to inspire a new, assertive American role (...) in the world. Hamilton was first prominent as a soldier and aide to General Washington, and believed in centralization of power in the federal government and an energetic presidency. He founded the American financial system as the first Secretary of the Treasury, and was a great moving force of America’s first nationalist-conservative party – the Federalists. As shown here, close scholarly attention to Lodge’s biography brings out the darker sides of the celebrated hero. Hamilton’s deeper conviction was the need of an elitist “aristocratic republic,” and he was an advocate of military-commercial empire. The Gilded Age Hamilton revival helped inspire the Spanish-American war of 1898 and an American overseas empire. This book will be of interest for students and professionals in political philosophy, political science, American history and American studies. (shrink)

A complex and controversial novel, Atonement is at the core of a lively critical debate, opposing those who focus on the impossibility of Briony’s atonement – also in relation to the author’s atheist views – to those who conversely explore the redemptive quality of her “postlapsarian” painful self-fashioning. Far from concerning simply the destiny of a literary character, this debate has to do with the impact Postmodernist relativism has on both the conception of the human subject and the discourses of (...) the past, from memory to history and fiction. Discarding any potentially nihilistic interpretations of Atonement as disempowering, this article delves into Ian McEwan’s multi-layered text in order to comprehend its ambivalences, its subtle investigation of the human condition, and its status as a postmemory novel reconnecting us to the events of World War Two. (shrink)

The Austrian writer Stefan Zweig was a staunch cosmopolitan who, after the catastrophe of World War I, campaigned for peaceful cooperation between the peoples of Europe. He considered the biography of Erasmus of Rotterdam, a definite enemy of every kind of fanaticism, to be exemplary. In his novel “Triumph und Tragik des Erasmus von Rotterdam” (1934) he portrayed him as an antithesis to Luther, whose religious radicalism combined with nationalistic tendencies he detested. Zweig contrasted the cosmopolitan humanism of Erasmus with (...) the German Reformation of Luther. Under the impression of the political seizure of power by the National Socialists, which forced him to emigrate, Zweig's interest in the history of the Reformation in Europe grew. After “Maria Stuart” (1935) he saw in his novel “Castellio against Calvin” (1936) in Castellio an heir to Erasmus, who defended human freedom of conscience against the repressive theocratic Geneva regime. For Zweig, Calvin became a tyrant who in many ways resembled Hitler. (shrink)

The primary thesis of Terrorism and the Ethics of War is that terrorist acts are always wrong. I begin this paper by describing two views that I criticize in the book The first condemns all terrorism but applies the term in a biased way; the second defends some terrorist acts. I then respond to issues raised by the commentators. I discuss Joan McGregor’s concerns about the definition of terrorism and about how terrorism differs from other forms of violence againstinnocent people. (...) I respond to Sally Scholz’s challenges to my interpretation of innocence. She argues that soldiers can be innocent victims of terrorism and that both relationships and vulnerability are important to understanding innocence. Matthew Silliman questions my defense of utilitarianism and challenges two views that I defend: that all terrorist acts are wrong and that war can sometimes be right. I sketch brief responses to these important points. (shrink)

In 2014,war in the Ukraine began. In the same year, the largest number of terrorist attacks had been committed in Ukraine since 1991. A similar increase in terrorist activity was recorded twenty years earlier, in 1994, during the conflict between the Ukraine and Russia, caused by the partition of the Black Sea Fleet, which these two countries had inherited after the Soviet Union collapse. As in 1994, the wave of terrorist attacks in 2014-2015 swept on the backdrop of a new (...) conflict with Russia, now involving regular army units and irregular armed groups on the both sides. This article explores the hypothesis that Russia is using terrorism as an instrument when confronting other statesin pursuit of its geo-political goals. In the case of Ukraine, terrorism was used as an instrument to weaken the military and political potential of the Ukraine during the preparation of a large-scale military operation by regular Russian forces. To test this hypothesis, the author uses open data sources, especially the Global Terrorism Database od the University of Maryland, as well as reports of the Ukrainian General Staff, and international organizations. (shrink)

Violence and warfare in prehistory have been intensely discussed in various disciplines recently. Especially, some controversies are found on whether prehistoric hunter-gatherers had been already engaged in inter-group violence and warfare. Japanese archaeology has traditionally argued that warfare has begun in the Yayoi period with an introduction of full-fledged agriculture though people in the Jomon period, when subsistence system had been mainly hunting and gathering, had not been involved in inter-group violence and warfare. However, Lawrence Keeley, Samuel Bowles, Steven Pinker, (...) and others have recently focused on archaeological data of human skeletal remains, especially remains with some injures, arguing that prehistoric hunter-gatherers had already initiated inter-group violence and warfare. This paper aims to summarize and examine recent arguments that address the relationship between violence or warfare and human evolution based on archaeological data. In the first place, we summarize the claims of Keeley, Bowles, and Pinker that warfare had already been initiated and was commonplace among prehistoric hunter-gatherers, as well as the counter-argument of Ferguson that these original data are problematic. Secondly, we summarize the available data on human skeletal remains from the Mesolithic period in Europe (between 11,000 BC and 3,500 BC) and argue that these data support Ferguson’s argument. In particular, the available data suggests that even though inter-group violence and warfare was present during this period, it was very sporadic. Finally, we discuss the implications of this study and suggest future directions. (shrink)

Une religion est un dispositif de croyance qui peut s’employer dans le sens de l’émancipation ou être dévoyé par des dispositifs de domination, de persécution, voire de terreur. Les analyses du djihadisme sous-estiment trop souvent sa dimension religieuse, notamment messianique et apocalyptique.

In 1968, the Democratic Party of the United States held its convention in Chicago. Thousands of anti-war protestors arrived to picket the democratic process and voice their concerns over the Vietnam War for the upcoming presidential election. With prior knowledge of the coming protests, the Chicago Police Department and city administration expected violence and prepared themselves accordingly. As a result, the convention was plagued all week by violence in the streets as protestors clashed with the police. At the end, the (...) violence was declared be the result of excessive police brutality. Scholarly works on the pre-existing conditions of Chicago that lead to violence have not been fully considered. In looking at the complexity of violent protest, this essay intends to examine the leaders and their intentions – on both sides of the conflict – and determine the causes and impact of one of the most iconic political clashes in twentieth century America. (shrink)

SummaryThe practice of counterintelligence traditionally lies in its application to the function of catching spies, stopping espionage and protecting national security and the national interest. More recently though counterintelligence has matured and is frequently being deployed into fields such as counter-terrorism, however it still remains that counterintelligence is often poorly understood, and the practice of counterintelligence operations in the counter-terrorism space presents new challenges as well as conflicts of purpose with the contemporary partners of intelligence and security services such as (...) law enforcement and the military. This article, the first in a series, will discuss issues surrounding the common understanding of counterintelligence, the development and practice of offensive missions, and its role in counter-terrorism from its current functions across intelligence, military and law enforcement spheres, as well as its potential to realize new outcomes. (shrink)

When is it right to go to war? When is a war illegal? What are the rules of engagement? What should happen when a war is over? How should we view terrorism? _The Ethics of War and Peace_ is a fresh and contemporary introduction to one of the oldest but still most relevant ethical debates. It introduces students to contemporary Just War Theory in a stimulating and engaging way, perfect for those approaching the topic for the first time. Helen Frowe (...) explains the core issues in Just War Theory, and chapter by chapter examines the recent and ongoing philosophical? debates on: theories of self defence and national defence Jus ad Bellum, Jus in Bello, and Jus post Bellum the moral status of combatants the principle of non-combatant immunity the nature of terrorism and the moral status of terrorists. Each chapter concludes with a useful summary, discussion questions and suggestions for further reading, to aid student learning and revision. _The Ethics of War and Peace_ is the ideal textbook for students studying philosophy, politics and international relations. (shrink)

Why do war crimes occur? Are perpetrators of war crimes always blameworthy? In an original and challenging thesis, this book argues that war crimes are often explained by perpetrators' beliefs, goals, and values, and in these cases perpetrators may be blameworthy even if they sincerely believed that they were doing the right thing.

Kant’s theory of international politics and his right of hospitality are commonly associated with expansive projects of securing human rights or cosmopolitan governance beyond state borders. This article shows how this view misunderstands Kant’s criticism of the law of nations tradition as handed down into the eighteenth century as well as the logic of his radical alternative, which was designed to explain the conditions of possibility of global peace as a solution to the Hobbesian problem of a war of all (...) against all in the state of nature. I resolve longstanding confusion over the meaning and justification of Kant’s right of “hospitality” by showing how it functions not as a freestanding positive claim demanding enforcement but as a way of ruling out specious justifications for war against those the traditional law of nations permitted one to label “enemies.” This poses important questions for contemporary theories of global justice. (shrink)

In this paper, we are concerned with the morality of killing human shields. Many moral philosophers seem to believe that knowingly killing human shields necessarily involves intentionally targeting human shields. If we assume that the distinction between intention and foresight is morally significant, then this view would entail that it is generally harder to justify a military operation in which human shields are knowingly killed than a military operation in which the same number of casualties result as a merely foreseen (...) side effect. We argue, however, that only some cases of knowingly killing human shields should be regarded as intentionally targeting human shields, and thus only those cases face higher bars of justification. We shall formulate different principles that help us to distinguish between cases where a military operation involves the deliberate harming of human shields and cases where it does not. As we shall see, these principles are relevant in scenarios that are all too realistic and common, such as the bombing of legitimate military targets located amid civilian populations. (shrink)

This article presents estimates of the global cost of collective and interpersonal violence for the period of one year. This includes war, terrorism, homicides, assaults and domestic violence against women and children. The cost of conventionally defined interpersonal violence, that is, homicides and assault, are about 7.5 times higher than the cost due to war and terrorism. I also estimate the costs of non-fatal domestic violence against children and women and suggest that these costs are much higher than the combined (...) costs of homicide, assault, terrorism and war. The main reason is that the prevalence of these types of violence is very high: possibly as many as 16 per cent of all children are punished using violent methods and about 12 per cent of all women experience intimate partner violence. Richer societies have lower levels of violence, and there is evidence that prevalence rates have been declining over time. However, it is often unclear why this is the case. Much of the evidence from violence red... (shrink)

According to Thomas Pogge, rich people do not simply violate a positive duty of assistance to help the global poor; rather, they violate a negative duty not to harm them. They do so by imposing an unjust global economic structure on poor people. Assuming that these claims are correct, it follows that, ceteris paribus, wars waged by the poor against the rich to resist this imposition are morally equivalent to wars waged in self-defense against military aggression. Hence, if self-defense against (...) military aggression is just, then, ceteris paribus, so are defensive wars against the imposition of economic injustice. While I do not think Pogge’s analysis of the causes of global poverty is correct, I defend these inferences against various challenges. (shrink)