The loss of the federally protected constitutional right to an abortion is a threat to the already tenuous autonomy of pregnant people, and may augur future challenges to their right to refuse unwanted obstetric interventions. Even before Roe’s demise, pregnancy led to constraints on autonomy evidenced by clinician-led legal incursions against patients who refused obstetric interventions. In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court found that the right to liberty espoused in the Constitution does not (...) extend to a pregnant person’s right to an abortion. With Roe’s demise, the right to request specific types of care has been vitiated. The same argument underpinning that holding may now become ballast for attacks on the traditionally more robust right, the right to refuse. Here we discuss how the elevation of fetal and embryonic rights may lead to a cascade of medical intrusions and deprivations of liberty against pregnant persons, and offer an argument opposing these improprieties. (shrink)

The Rights of War and Peace is the first fully historical account of the formative period of modern theories of international law. Professor Tuck examines the arguments over the moral basis for war and international aggression, and links the debates to the writings of the great political theorists such as Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Kant. The book illuminates the presuppositions behind much current political theory, and puts into a new perspective the connection between liberalism and imperialism.

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)

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)

This paper discusses children's right to play and its bioethical importance for children affected by war. Against the background of the current military conflicts, it analyses physical, psychological, and institutional factors that limit children's right to play in a situation involving armed conflict. Considering that the lack of institutional support of play for children affected by war constitutes a failure to fulfil our societal and political obligation under Article 31 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of (...) the Child, this paper analyses the understanding of play adopted in this legal instrument. In line with the distinctions made in the Convention, it discusses the importance of play for children's life and survival, for their health and well‐being, as well as for the recovery of trauma experienced by children affected by armed conflict. It thereby aims to contribute to the recognition and protection of this right on the grounds of bioethics and healthcare. (shrink)

Recent work in the ethics of war has done much to challenge the collectivism of the convention-based, Walzerian just war theory. In doing so, it raises the question of when it is permissible for soldiers to resort to force. This article considers this issue and, in doing so, argues that the rejection of collectivism in just war should go further still. More specifically, it defends the ‘Individual-Centric Approach’ to the deep morality of war, which asserts that the justifiability of an (...) individual’s contribution to the war, rather than the justifiability of the war more generally, determines the moral acceptability of their participation. It then goes on to present five implications of the Individual-Centric Approach, including for individual liability to attack in war. (shrink)

Several robotic automation systems, such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), are being used in combat today. This evokes ethical questions. In this paper, it is argued that UAVs, more than any other weapon, may determine which normative theory the interpretation of the laws of war (LOW) will be based on. UAVs have advantages in terms of reducing casualties for the UAV possessor, but they may at the same time make war seem more like a risk-free enterprise, much like a computer (...) game, lowering the threshold for starting a war. This indicates the importance of revising the LOW, or adding some rules that focus specifically on UAVs. (shrink)

John Rawls was the most influential political thinker of the twentieth century. This book applies his theory of justice to four perennial matters of concern that remain contested in the twenty-first century. Drawing surprising implications, this book deepens our understanding of these issues and points the way toward rational, just policy reform.

Five leading thinkers on the concept of 'rights' in an era of rightlessness Sixty years ago, the political theorist Hannah Arendt, deprived of her German citizenship as a Jew and in exile from her country, observed that before people can enjoy any of the 'inalienable' Rights of Man--before there can be any specific rights to education, work, voting, and so on--there must first be such a thing as 'the right to have rights.' The concept received little attention at the (...) time, but in our age of refugee crises and extra-state war, the phrase has become the center of a crucial and lively debate. Here five leading thinkers from varied disciplines, including history, law, and politics, discuss the critical issue of the basis of rights and the meaning of radical democratic politics today. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Basic Human Rights Public Reason Sovereignty and Self‐determination The DNSL Argument and the Minimum Respect‐for‐Justice Condition Adequate Justification Rights of Political Participation Post‐war Nation Building Promoting Political Reform Conclusion Acknowledgments Notes.

This article discusses the alleged anti-corruption effects of procurement reforms by presenting the European Act on Public Procurement and the increasing number of appeals filed by suppliers due to perceived misevaluations of tenders and perceived impairments of transparency. The delays and costs that arise from this right to appeal are studied in the Swedish context with the aim of contributing to the debate on corruption in two ways. First, instead of using the modern definition of corruption, the ancient definition (...) is introduced to explain anti-corruption efforts, focusing on corruption as deviations from a pristine standard as opposed to corruption as the abuse of public power for private gain. Second, it will be argued that the fight against corruption in the practical implementation of the European Act on Public Procurement jeopardizes efficiency and might devaluate competence. However, striving for the total elimination of corruption–an evil that has to be fought disregarding the consequences–is integral in the war against it. (shrink)

If SAMCRO can legitimately declare war, then the Sons of Anarchy may still be bad boys, but at least they' are not immoral butchers. The just war theory spells out the criteria that must be met for the use of armed force to be morally justified. They are: Just Cause, Proportionality, Necessity, Right Authority, and Likelihood of Success. To be just, a war must fulfill all six criteria. The chapter presents arguments that suggest, in principle at least, that SAMCRO (...) does have the authority to declare war against an adversary. The club is not so different from existing political institutions. Like all great television, Sons of Anarchy can teach us a lot about the real world. We do not need to condone everything SAMCRO does. But we should be careful not to condemn everything the club does either, even when it resorts to violence. (shrink)

Although not legally established, the idea that every American has a right to some level of health care has gained wide acceptance. Support for this right has developed primarily in the 50 years since the end of World War II. No mention of health care can be found in either the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution; indeed, there was little anyone could to improve health care or health outcomes in colonial times. During the 19th and early 20th (...) centuries a government role in improving public health developed when certain services, such as clean water, or certain demands upon its citizens, such as quarantine for disease, were instituted in order to achieve better and safer conditions for the health of the general populace. (shrink)

Foreword by Robert H. Bork -- Culture wars -- A distorted understanding of rights -- The right to privacy -- Griswold and contraception -- Roe and abortion -- Assisted suicide and homosexuality -- Political connections and natural consequences.

On 26 February 2020, the German Constitutional Court rejected a law from 2015 that prohibited any form of ‘business-like’ assisted suicide as unconstitutional. The landmark ruling of the highest federal court emphasised the high priority given to the rights of autonomy and free personal development, both of which constitute the principle of human dignity, the first principle of the German constitution. The ruling echoes particularities of post-war Germany’s end-of-life debate focusing on patient self-determination while rejecting any discussion of active assistance (...) to die through a lethal injection administered by a doctor. This brief report discusses the ruling in the light of the broader sociopolitical and historical context of the German end-of-life debate. (shrink)

Arguments from human dignity feature prominently in the Lethal Autonomous Weapons moral feasibility debate, even though their exists considerable controversy over their role and soundness and the notion of dignity remains under-defined. Drawing on the work of Dieter Birnbacher, I fix the sub-discourse as referring to the essential value of human persons in general, and to postulated moral rights of combatants not covered within the existing paradigm of the International Humanitarian Law in particular. I then review and critique dignity-based arguments (...) against LAWS: argument from faulty targeting process, argument from objectification, argument from underappreciation of the value of human life and the argument from the absence of mercy. I conclude that the argument from the absence of mercy is the only dignity-based argument that is both valid and irreducible to another class of arguments within the debate, and that it offers insufficient justification for a global ban on LAWS. (shrink)

In their article, ‘The Two Front War on Reproductive Rights,’ Minkoff, Vullikanti, and Marshall (2024) highlight the challenges faced by pregnant persons following the overturn of Roe v. Wade (Dobb...

The explicit articulation of a cosmopolitan conception of human security and a corresponding right to peace is a positive development in global politics, inasmuch as it decenters the state in our understanding of the human community and delegitimizes organized violence as the generally accepted means for the “continuation” of realist politics. I have argued that just war theory, when defined in suitably narrow fashion, helps to contribute to our thinking on issues of human security in several ways. First, it (...) provides a stringent normative framework for a reasonable humanitarian justification of the resort to force. Second, it enables us to conceptualize significant moral and legal constraints on war and thus on the powers of states to wage war, thereby displacing the use of force from the statist paradigm of security. Third, it contributes to the delegitimation of unjust wars, that is, military actions undertaken for any purposes other than human security. Fourth, insofar as it provides a justificatory basis for the increasing demilitarization of society, it may influence the progressive and just pacification of global politics.As long as the types of human wrongs that present the gravest threats to human security continue to haunt the global community, there remains a need to be able to respond effectively so as to protect the rights and well-being of individuals. This need poses a genuine dilemma for humanitarian morality and politics, insofar as many of the military capabilities required to defend and to aid vulnerable persons can also be the source of threats to human life and welfare. Yet the existence of this dilemma need not lead us either to apathy or to cynicism. The nexus of human security, the right to peace, and just war theory offers a resolution to the traditional security dilemma by challenging the realist rationale for aggressive militarism, and by supporting the emergence of global security structures and processes guided by the humanitarian norms of just peace. *** DIRECT SUPPORT *** A28BB021 00002. (shrink)

This book examines the ethics of the alternatives to war. It assesses the moral case for each of the alternative in their own right, and provides an overall assessment of the alternatives to war.

Before military action, and even before mobilization, the decision on whether to go to war is debated by politicians, pundits, and the public. As they address the right or wrong of such action, it is also a time when, in the language of the just war tradition, the wise would deeply investigate their true claim to jus ad bellum (“the right of war”). Wars have negative consequences, not the least impinging on human life, and offer infrequent and uncertain (...) benefits, yet war is part of the human condition. James G. Murphy’s insightful analysis of the jus ad bellum criteria—competent authority, just cause, right intention, probability of success, last resort, and proportionality—is grounded in a variety of contemporary examples from World War I through Vietnam, the "soccer war" between Honduras and El Salvador, Afghanistan, and the Middle East conflict. Murphy argues persuasively that understanding jus ad bellum requires a primary focus on the international common good and the good of peace. Only secondarily should the argument about going to war hinge on the right of self-defense; in fact, pursuing the common good requires political action, given that peace is not simply the absence of violence. He moves on to demonstrate the interconnectedness of the jus ad bellum criteria, contending that some criteria depend logically on others—and that competent authority, not just cause, is ultimately the most significant criterion in an analysis of going to war. This timely study will be of special interest to scholars and students in ethics, war and peace, and international affairs. (shrink)

In “Racial Justice Requires Ending the War on Drugs,” Earp and colleagues argue that the personal use or possession of all currently illicit psychoactive substances should be immediately decriminal...

Paraphrased within the title of this text is a note Hannah Arendt made in August 1952. After reading Carl Schmitt?s Nomos der Erde, Arendt tries to confront Schmitt?s idea of a just war. In the text I attempt to reconstruct Arendt?s readings of differing political philosophy texts within the context of her thinking concerning the relationship between violence and power, force and law. Arendt?s refusal to accept the existence of violence which can "conquer" freedom and "create" right and democracy, (...) brings contradiction to the great tradition of the followers of Marx, to whom Arendt undoubtedly belongs: how is and is revolutionary violence even possible and does violence as resistance to injustice bring justice?. Naslov ovoga teksta je parafraza jedne beleske Hannah Arendt koja je napisana avgusta 1952. godine. Posle citanja Schmittove knjige Nomos der Erde, Arendt pokusava da se suprotstavi njegovom razumevanju pravednog rata. U tekstu rekonstruisem njena razlicita citanja mnostva tekstova politicke filozofije, u kontekstu Arendtovog razlikovanja izmedju nasilja i vlasti, snage i zakona. Arendtovo odbijanje da prihvati postojanje nasilja koje moze "osvojiti" slobodu i "stvoriti" pravo i demokratiju, suprotstavlja je velikoj tradiciji sledbenika Marxa, kojoj ona nesumnjivo pripada: da li je i na koji nacin moguce revolucionarno nasilje i da li nasilje kao otpor nepravdi donosi pravdu?. (shrink)

James Turner Johnson has played a pivotal role in bringing just war thinking to the fore in international relations. This has brought with it increased interest in the relationship between the just war tradition and the laws of war. Whilst Johnson maintains that the legal rules relating to the conduct of war correspond with the requirements of jus in bello, he is more critical of the legal regime relating to recourse to force and has occasionally argued in favour of the (...) superiority of just war thinking to international law in this area. This article discusses Johnson's thinking on the relationship between ethics and law on recourse to force. It begins by outlining Johnson's approach before suggesting that it is overly critical of the post-1945 order. The paper concludes by calling for reconciliation between law and ethics. (shrink)

The United States has been waging the “War on Terror” for nearly two decades. Obscured among the more obvious costs of that war is the moral injury borne by many of the soldiers who have fought and participated in it. Unlike post-traumatic stress disorder, which is rooted in fear, moral injury is rooted in shame, shame for having committed a moral transgression, a violation of the moral code. Haunted by the memory of their misdeeds, these soldiers are plagued by all (...) manner of illness and infirmity, from anxiety and depression to substance abuse and suicide. In this article, I explore whether these soldiers have a right to forget, one that would entitle them to use pharmacological or psychological manipulation to cleanse their minds of the memory that they have dirtied their hands, and in that way relieve themselves of the anguish and torment from which they suffer. (shrink)

War is Hell is a study of the philosophy of war and peace, ranging critically from ancient peace thinking to today. The author uses a Socratic method, focused on political philosophy rather than on cultural or psychological aspects of war and peace making. The book is not a treatise on ethics, but rather an analysis of some aspects of the nature of war and peace. This book is a study of war – and by extension, peace – from the standpoint (...) of political theory. For all those who think there is too much war, and to deal with that we need to search for new ways of thinking. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe jus ad bellum criterion of right intention is a central guiding principle of just war theory. It asserts that a country’s resort to war is just only if that country resorts to war for the right reasons. However, there is significant confusion, and little consensus, about how to specify the CRI. We seek to clear up this confusion by evaluating several distinct ways of understanding the criterion. On one understanding, a state’s resort to war is just only (...) if it plans to adhere to the principles of just war while achieving its just cause. We argue that the first understanding makes the CRI superfluous, because it can be subsumed under the probability of success criterion. On a second understanding, a resort to war is just only if a state’s motives, which explain its resort to war, are of the right kind. We argue that this second understanding of the CRI makes it a significant further obstacle to justifying war. However, this second understanding faces a possible infinite regress problem, wh... (shrink)

This essay introduces four articles that form a special issue of Politics & Society titled “Right-Wing Activism in Asia: Cold War Legacies, Geopolitics, and Democratic Erosion.” The articles focus on Japan, South Korea, and Thailand. These three Asian countries present important cases to generate critical comparative insights about the patterns of Far Right mobilization, for their geopolitical histories provide common ground while institutional variations set distinctive conditions. Most importantly, all of them were shaped by the particularly sharp conflicts (...) of the Cold War in the region, and the articles in this issue demonstrate how this legacy has generated illiberal conditions in these countries today. (shrink)

Over 1000 companies have either curtailed or else completely ceased operations in Russia as a response to its invasion of Ukraine, a mass corporate exodus of a speed and scale which we’ve never seen. While corporate withdrawal appears to have considerable public support, it’s not obvious that it has done anything to hamper the Russian war effort, nor is it clear what the long-run effects of corporate withdrawal as a regularised response to war might be. Given this, it’s important the (...) evaluate the ethical merits of such a response. In this paper I critique what I take to be the two most common arguments given in favour of voluntary corporate withdrawal, which I label ‘the instrumental argument’ and ‘the clean hands argument’ respectively. After illustrating their shortcomings, I reframe corporations’ predicament as a ‘spattered hands’ case—one where they may do good by remaining in a war-waging state, but where they contribute indirectly to grave wrongdoing by doing so. Drawing on ideas from the ‘Business for Peace’ and ‘Business and Human Rights’ literature, I highlight the potentially positive role of corporate presence within war-waging countries, before highlighting four considerations which corporations ought to bear in mind when determining whether to withdraw, or whether it is the lesser evil to stay and to let their hands be spattered. (shrink)

abstract This paper begins by accepting, for argument's sake, a number of the central criticisms raised regarding the US led war in Iraq. In the remainder of the paper, it is argued that even if these criticisms are assumed to be true, the resort to war was still morally justified, both prospectively and retrospectively. The argument is made within the context of the just war tradition. It is argued that the resort to war met the conditions of sufficient just cause, (...) last resort and proportionality, and that any failings in regards to legitimate authority and right intention do not undermine the morality of that resort. More specifically, the case is made that: humanitarian considerations provided a sufficient just cause, questions of international law do not undermine the moral legitimacy of the US led coalition, and that concerns about the intentions of the US, even if valid, would not impact on moral judgements about the act of resorting to war. In arguing for the last point, it is determined that the right intention condition should not be included among the set of conditions that form the basis of the just war tradition. (shrink)

Drawing on insights of thinkers in the natural rights tradition, Draper analyzes numerous hypothetical cases including those involving a runaway trolley, then seeks to determine if killing civilians in war is ever justified. In his consideration of this issue he avoids appealing to the principle of double effect. Having considered hypothetical cases at length, he leaves it to others to decide if any option to go to war is justifiable. In this regard he himself is sceptical.

Do members of democratic societies have a moral right that others not actively prevent them from engaging in wrongdoing? Many political theorists think that they do. “It is a feature of democratic government,” Michael Walzer writes, “that the people have a right to act wrongly—in much the same way that they have a right to act stupidly”. Of course, advocates of a democratic right to do wrong may believe that the scope of this right is (...) limited. A majority in a democratic society, for example, may not have a moral right against being prevented from enslaving or arbitrarily disenfranchising a minority, or if it were to launch a wrongful aggressive war against another society. But many join Walzer in asserting that it would be wrong in principle to intervene to prevent some wrongs that democratic societies would inflict. This thesis, which we call the democratic right to do wrong thesis (DRTDWT), can be formulated as follows: DRTDWT – For democratic societies A and agents B, there is a class of wrongful policies and institutions X, such that if A chooses to implement members of this class pursuant to democratic procedures, B has a duty not to actively intervene to prevent the implementation of X. Our goal in this essay is to show that the DRTDWT should be rejected. (shrink)

An important aspect of any constitutional theory is the state's power to punish transgressions of the law, or the ius gladii. Although Grotius never formulated a complete, comprehensive constitutional theory, traces of such a theory can be found in many of his writings not explicitly devoted to constitutional law. Punishment even plays an important role in his books on war , since to punish transgressions of the law is ranked among the just causes of war.Given the fact that a state (...) may punish transgressions of the law – transgressions by individuals within and even outside the state, but also transgressions of the law by other states – the question may arise concerning the origin of such a right to punish. It will be shown that Grotius did not give the same answer to this question in his various works. As the right to punish is concerned, we find a theory that seems to be akin to the one of John Locke in the De iure praedae , one akin to the theories of the Spanish late-scholastics in De satisfactione and De imperio , and a theory coming close to what Thomas Hobbes had said on the ruler's right to punish in the De iure belli ac pacis .Of course, Grotius can only have been familiar with the theory of the Spanish late-scholastics, since those of Locke and Hobbes were still to be written by the time Grotius had passed away. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Offering Hospitality: Questioning Christian Approaches to War by Caron E. GentryAndrew C. WrightOffering Hospitality: Questioning Christian Approaches to War Caron E. Gentry notre dame, in: university of notre dame press, 2013. 200 pp. $20.00Caron E. Gentry provides a constructive proposal for transforming jus ad bellum’s last-resort criterion through the reconceptualization of hospitality as “an essential practice” (2) in international relations, one that helps jus ad bellum “operate proactively (...) instead of coercively and reactively” (35) by seeking to protect “without interest the good and the bad of humanity and humans” (3). Gentry is particularly concerned with marginalized peoples who inhabit failed states, whose realities are willfully ignored through the “abstraction” and “hegemonic masculinity” in international relations, as well as in the dominant voices in political theology (Reinhold Niebuhr, Stanley Hauerwas, and Jean Bethke Elshtain) that support an “uncritical complicity with power … unable to deal with vulnerable populations outside of the West” (27). Understood in Christian terms as a practice of “agape,” or “self-giving love,” Gentry demonstrates how hospitality may be a plausible alternative to the paradigmatic approach to power in international relations, suggesting that acting without self-interest is a path to greater and more sustainable security (62).Gentry engages an impressive array of sources to structure her argument. For her critique of international relations discourse, she turns to feminist analyses of state sovereignty to demonstrate how a masculinized understanding of power abstracts the realities of war experienced by human populations (18). Drawing on a “human security” perspective (35), Gentry suggests that the prevention of violent conflict requires a proactive practice—using tools such as the Failed State Index—that attends to the realities of vulnerable populations within states before they erupt into violent conflict (34). Her emphasis on vulnerability and the mutual need for the other reveals Emmanuel Levinas as the primary influence on Gentry’s approach. Refracted through this vision, she opts for a practice of hospitality that moves beyond the realist, pacifist, and just war traditions to cultivate a “proactive last resort” that would extend care to the needs of the vulnerable beyond one’s own borders (136).Strengthening jus ad bellum’s last-resort criterion through a reconceived, proactive practice of hospitality is Gentry’s most compelling contribution, one that is particularly insightful for practitioners and theorists of the just war tradition. Yet readers may get the sense that Gentry wants to push her [End Page 204] contribution beyond the limits of political theology to shape the normative practices of international affairs; this is where Gentry’s persuasive force begins to wane. Specifically, Gentry obscures the genuine differences between an ecclesial practice of agape, embedded in a particular understanding of the nature of God, and the international affairs of a state, embedded in a game of realpolitik, where invulnerability is the rule. In order for Gentry to stake a claim in such a context, she needs to develop a more grounded account of how states could accept vulnerability as a normative practice in order to act without self-interest.Certainly, interdependence and mutual vulnerability are the right place to start. However, this kind of change does not simply concern the dominant patterns of international relations but also involves a change in shared conceptions about basic human nature. As such, her wider contribution may be less about a comprehensive framework and more about a potentially transformational question for theorists in international relations, political philosophy, and Christian ethics alike: What will it require for populations within states to recognize their own vulnerability and dependency, to see the well-being of “the other,” including the enemy, as essential to their own security? After Gentry, any answer to this question must move beyond patterns of hegemony and abstraction, toward proactive engagement with the realities of vulnerable populations.Andrew C. WrightFuller Theological SeminaryCopyright © 2015 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)