In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:166 HUME'S INTEREST IN NEWTON AND SCIENCE Many writers have been forced to examine — in their treatments of Hume's knowledge of and acquaintance with scientific theories of his day — the related questions of Hume's knowledge of and acquaintance with Isaac Newton and of the nature and extent of Newtonian influences upon Hume's thinking. Most have concluded that — in some sense — Hume was acquainted with and (...) influenced by Newton's thought in particular and scientific thought in general. The genesis of this paper is the recent point of view put forward by Peter Jones which challenges the many permutations of this almost ritualistic standard line by removing Hume entirely from the Newtonian and the scientific scenes of thought. Jones argues that Hume knew less about Newton and science, and needed to know less about Newton and 2 science, than he believes is required by the above interpretation. Indeed, Jones argues that Hume's fundamental assumptions, which, according to Jones, derive ultimately from a form of Ciceronian humanism, drive a "wedge" between Newton's thought and that of 3 Hume. Even Hume's introductory remarks in the Treatise about his universal "science of man" are, for Jones, a declaration of independence from the materialistic trend (as Jones sees it) of Newtonian 4 science and not, as so many commentators have maintained — however tenuously or strongly evidence for linkage of Hume's project with Newtonian or scientific thought. Jones baldly argues that Hume totally lacked interest in science in general and in Newton and Newtonian science in particular. Following J. H. Burton's observation that Hume's work is surprisingly free from the "opinions" of contemporary scientists, 167 Jones states there is no evidence that Hume ever studied science at the University of Edinburgh or that he "pursued" scientific studies of any formal sort. Regarding Newtonian scientific thought, he emphasizes the paucity of specifically Newtonian scientific textbooks in the early eighteenth century 7 which might have been available for Hume to study and argues that nowhere in Hume's writings is there evidence of precise and detailed knowledge of Newton's science beyond what is available in Q Chamber's Cyclopaedia. Jones acknowledges that, in the Introduction to the Treatise, Hume utilizes a "general version" of Newton's "Regulae Philosophandi" from the beginning of Book III of Newton's Principia. Nevertheless, in Jones' view, Hume's fundamentally humanistic orientation separates him completely from g any Newtonian influence. Finally, according to Jones, Hume does not betray the least bit of knowledge of Newton's mathematics and its role in Newton's experimental methodology. On this evidence Jones grounds his central claim of Hume's "total lack of interest in contemporary science." What references there are to Newton and to science in Hume's works Jones finds "traceable to essentially literary predecessors such as Fontenelle or Montesquieu, or to standard works of theologians ] 2 or free-thinkers." The absence of clearly direct references to what Jones feels are scientific works results both from Hume's "total lack of interest in science" and from his commitment to a form of Ciceronian humanism which is "inimical" to what Jones finds to be the obvious materialistic tendencies of 13 science in the early modern period. Jones' account of the Ciceronian and French contexts of Hume's thought is excellent. But his claim that Hume had no interest whatsoever in science 168 is simply too strong and finally forces us to view science in Hume's day as equivalent to science in our own time, a manifestly anachronistic point of view. Throughout this paper, my argument will be conditioned by my view that Hume's interest in science cannot be separated from his epistemology or his religious scepticism. Hume's interest in science was precisely that of a man of letters of the eighteenth century vitally engaged in determining the proper use of scientific methodology in establishing the limits of the secular science of man once it has 14 been freed from the fetters of theology. Hume's interest in theological and epistemological issues inevitably gave rise to a strong interest on his part in the science of his day and in Newton's contributions... (shrink)

After nearly 76 years following the UN Charter, the dominant feature of the multilateral international order has shifted from a focus on states’ sovereignty to the rights of the individual. It is now widely accepted that human rights are not the province of any one state’s domestic affairs, but of importance to the entire international community. The UN Security Council sits atop the supra-state order, and holds the ultimate authority to initiate consensus-based, collective action so as to limit or prevent (...) gross human rights violations. Yet, many times the Security Council is slow to act, and consensus is exceedingly rare. This begs the question: in the face of gross human rights violations and Security Council inaction, is unilateral humanitarian intervention justified? The present state of international law on the matter is unsettled and controversial to many. What follows is a discussion on the development of international law relating to unilateral humanitarian intervention, the permissibility of intervention for gross human rights violations, and justification for intervention under existing international law. I conclude that under the present multilateral regime, unilateral humanitarian intervention is legally justified, despite fears that the principle may be invoked for the purposes of cloaking acts of aggression. (shrink)

This piece was written circa 1982–83, drawing in part on material from my PhD thesis (The Problem of the Single Case, Cambridge, 1981). In the thesis I proposed what would now be called an expressivist account of judgements of the form ‘It is probable that p’. One chapter, on which this paper builds, tried to defend the view against the Frege-Geach argument. This piece earned a revise and resubmit from Philosophical Review, but was never resubmitted. Parts of it made their (...) way into my ‘Semantic Minimalism and the Frege Point’, in Tsohatzidis, S.L.(ed.), Foundations of Speech Act Theory: Philosophical and Linguistic Perspectives, Routledge, 1994, pp. 132–55 (reprinted in Naturalism without Mirrors, Oxford, 2011, ch. 3) – though that paper favours a different approach to the Frege-Geach argument, leaning more heavily on semantic minimalism. I’m putting this piece online to facilitate self-citation. (shrink)

This article discusses the legal concept of excessive use of force by analyzing a particular incident that took place in Israel in the summer of 1997: eighty families, faced with dire housing needs, squatted in vacant apartments in an immigrant absorption center in the town of Mevasseret Zion near Jerusalem. After a period of failed attempts to persuade the families to leave the apartments peacefully, the police moved to evacuate the families, and did so by use of massive (...) class='Hi'>force. In the article I describe the violent measures used by the State, and analyze the media portrayal of the squatting and the evacuation. I argue that both these forceful measures and the media portrayal of the squatting and evacuation cumulatively took part in constructing the squatters as criminal deviants rather than political protesters. I claim further that we should understand the concept of use of force not only as a means to achieve certain ends by the state, but also as a mechanism through which the state constructs a social problem and presents it in a manner beneficial to its own interests. Excessive use of force, in this sense, is not just a disproportionate response to a real or perceived threat posed by an individual or group, but a means by which the state fosters a belief that the individual or group present some danger, which must be tackled through the use of a certain level of force. By drawing a line between the legitimate and illegitimate use of force, the state affirms its monopoly on violence, which ultimately can be used to suppress political resistance. (shrink)

The question of the use of force and its relation to political power has resurfaced in an era of terror attacks and wars against terror. The liberal conceptualization of this relation is limited by the bipolar understanding of force as either legitimate or illegitimate. Turning to the history of the Irgun, a Jewish underground movement, and its struggle against the British Empire in 1947 Palestine, this article seeks to expand the understanding of force beyond the liberal paradigm. (...) The article offers a new model for understanding the use of force by the liberal nation-state and distinguishes between four different modes of force: violence, legality, terror, and empire. Whereas the liberal paradigm is limited to a conception of force as either justified and, hence, just, or unjustified and, hence, unjust, one may think of two additional forms of force, which, at first, may seem paradoxical: the unjust but justified force of terror and the force of empire, which is just but not in need of justification. Rather than using these forms as stable categories, the article seeks to understand the ways in which the uses of force became destabilized in times of political contestation. The article concludes by pointing out the broader implications of this model for the political analysis of the liberal nation-state and its use of force. (shrink)

Preventive use of force may be defined as the initiation of military action in anticipation of harmful actions that are neither presently occurring nor imminent. This essay explores the permissibility of preventive war from a cosmopolitan normative perspective, one that recognizes the basic human rights of all persons, not just citizens of a particular country or countries. It argues that preventive war can only be justified if it is undertaken within an appropriate rule-governed, institutional framework that is designed to (...) help protect vulnerable countries against unjustified interventions while also avoiding unacceptable risks of the costs of inaction. The key to ensuring the fairness of rules governing the preventive use of force is accountability.This essay proposes a scheme that would make those promoting and those rejecting the preventive use of force more accountable. The proposal contains the following crucial features:States proposing preventive war are required to enter into a contract with a diverse body of states as a condition for authorization of their actions;Prior to taking preventive action, states must make an evidence-based case to the UN Security Council, and agree in advance to submit themselves to an evaluation by an impartial body after the preventive action occurred;Both proponents of action and those opposing it will be held accountable ex post for the accuracy of their prior statements and the proportionality of their actions;Sanctions will be imposed against intervening states or states that opposed preventive action, respectively, depending on the findings of the ex post evaluation.If preventive action were blocked in the Security Council, states seeking to engage in preventive action could then present their case in a different body–a coalition of democratic states–with its own ex post and ex ante accountability procedures. (shrink)

According to the traditional view, preventive uses of force between states and preventive killings of individuals, to be legal, have one basic requirement in common, namely, the requirement of the immediacy of the threat posed. The U.S. National Security Strategy of September 2002, the so-called Bush doctrine, and the so-called Israeli policy of "targeted killing" challenge precisely this core requirement for the preventive use of force against states and against individuals. The author argues that abandonment of the traditional (...) standard is unwarranted, even when taking into account the new kinds of threats that have arisen in recent times. Such abandonment, he argues, would risk transforming indispensable foundations of the international law on the use of force and on human rights. (shrink)

A long-standing common-law policy holds that anyone may lawfully use force to repel or arrest a criminal threatening property, and a fortiori that force may be used to defend one’s own property. But there are limits to these powers. In cases where some amount of violence is justified but excessive force is used, some common-law jurisdictions will deny any defence to murder. Killing through excessive force is neither justified nor excused. Other jurisdictions will allow a partial (...) defence, excusing from the fullest penalty and reducing the offence to manslaughter or unlawful homicide, on the ground that the actor should be punished for a grievous miscalculation. By analyzing the relationships between persons and property and investigating the historical development of self-help doctrines, the principles defining excessive force here may be reduced to four. First, property cannot easily be conceived as a value worth protecting by force where there is no accompanying threat to the person. Second, the law may nonetheless see a presumptive identity between an owner’s person and his property which is external to his person, so that violent defence of property becomes justified even without a threat to bodily or personal safety. Third, intentionality and purpose play an important role in attributing legal blame for excessive force in protecting property, and the test of allowable quantum of force is not objective. Finally, the legal and ethical issues are transformed when we move from individual to collective property. Judgments concerning state and international legality regarding excessive force may derive only limited guidance from the contours of criminal law and private law. Yet, much of international conflict today is carried out by private actors who do not wear uniforms or wrap themselves in the shield of state immunity, and the domestic legal dimension thus begins to have purchase on issues of excessive force in war and communal conflict. (shrink)

There are barriers of perception between Sudanese Muslims for whom the sharia is a source of authority and identity and others who see it as an oppressive means of dominating Sudan's minority populations. I make a distinction between process and substance in law, and show that a flawed process has contributed to a perception of international law as an instrument of powerful states, which has obscured its legislative and procedural usefulness to the Sudan as a member of the United Nations. (...) Similarly a distortion of due process in Sudan's sharia has created a substance derived from the legacy of medieval Arabia rather than applied legal methodology. One consequence of this is that Sudan's Civil Wars have been given the attributes of offensive jihad against its diverse non-Muslim populations. I argue that offensive jihad was a legal construction designed to meet the challenges of medieval Arab society, with little basis in the fundamental sources of Islamic law or in contemporary legal methodology. I advocate a return to due process as a partial solution to the impasse between Muslim and non-Muslim identities in the Sudan, and show how international law can be improved by accommodating other legal traditions. (shrink)

Drawing from the complete normative resemblance between the questions of moral justification of the use of force and the moral justification of deception, the author finds in Kant's ethics an example of theoretical inconsistency. He shows that Kant's conclusion about the situational moral permissibility of forcible compulsion necessarily entails a decision in favor of the moral permissibility of lying for philanthropic reasons, which Kant denies.

Acts of civil disobedience, which imply the open violation of a legal directive, often result in the forceful imposition of a choice upon others (e.g. blockades). This is sometimes justifiable, within a democracy, in cases of ‘democratic deficit’, namely, when fundamental rights of an oppressed minority are at stake. In this article, I claim that the use of physical force, in a democracy, may also be justified by the rights of (at least some of) the very people upon whom (...) force is applied. Focusing on the nature of civil disobedience as a ‘form of address’, I argue: (1) using physical force to address others in the democratic arena does not entail infringing upon their status as autonomous agents; (2) using physical force to address others in the democratic arena may contribute to the fulfilment of a positive duty to promote the autonomy of (at least some of) those very people upon whom force is applied. This is not a defence of paternalism: I claim that using force against others, in the democratic arena, may be constitutive of a behaviour that treats others with the respect due to their status as autonomous agents. (shrink)

This paper critically explores the growing assertiveness with which liberalism has approached questions of the just use of force since 9/11. The liberal position rests upon broad claims about the centrality of human rights concerns to considerations of the justice of war. The claim is that a liberal-cosmopolitan respect for human rights forces us to reconsider the conservative, generally prohibitive, position on the use of force defended by traditional just war theory and enshrined in international law. This argument (...) is has been most fully developed by Allen Buchanan in several important books and papers and it is Buchanan’s position that forms the basis for the critique of the assertive cosmopolitan attitude to the use of force that is offered in this article. The paper shows that both the just war tradition and those who theorize the ethics of the law of armed conflict have taken the moral and political reality of human rights seriously (in a manner that directly addresses Buchanan’s core argument) but that there remain compelling reasons to defend a conservative approach to the use of force. (shrink)

On the supposition that one’s ethics and politics are fundamentally dignitarian in a broadly Kantian sense—as specifically opposed to identitarian and capitalist versions of Statism, e.g., neoliberal nation-States, whether democratic or non-democratic—hence fundamentally non-coercive and non-violent, then is self-defense or the defense of innocent others, using force, ever rationally justifiable and morally permissible or obligatory? We think that the answer to this hard question is yes; correspondingly, in this essay we develop and defend a theory about the permissible use (...) of force in a broadly Kantian dignitarian moral and political setting, including its extension to non-violent civil disobedience in the tradition of Martin Luther King, Jr; and perhaps surprisingly, we also import several key insights from Samurai and Martial Arts ethics into our theory. (shrink)

Under what conditions does the existence of risk and uncertainty about possible threats license the use of military force? What consultative procedures should be required in order to legitimate the preventive or preemptive use of force?

This thesis examines the key moral principles that should govern decision-making by police and military when using lethal force. To this end, it provides an ethical analysis of the following question: Under what circumstances, if any, is it morally justified for the agents of state-sanctioned security institutions to use lethal force, in particular the police and the military? Recent literature in this area suggests that modern conflicts involve new and unique features that render conventional ways of thinking about (...) the ethics of armed conflict, and the use of lethal force, as inadequate or redundant. In particular, there is an increased concern with the moral difficulties created by “non-standard” cases. This is where the police or military are obliged to operate outside their conventional contexts. In such non-standard cases, on what moral basis can (or should) state actors – especially the police and military – use lethal force? One approach argues that there is nothing morally exceptional about the use of lethal force by police or military. This says the only available moral justification for using lethal force is killing in self-defence or defence of others. In contrast, I use an institutional approach to develop a moral framework for the state’s morally exceptional use of lethal force. The institutional approach is concerned with the ends (telos) or purpose of a social institution. It says that the moral purpose of a social institution alters the moral responsibilities of its agents; what is referred to as role morality. My analysis demonstrates that there is an important moral distinction between justified killing in self-defence and state-sanctioned uses of lethal force. My claim is that police and military uses of lethal force are not morally justified in the same way as the average person’s use of lethal force (i.e. self-defence or defence of others). Instead, I argue that the state-sanctioned institutional role of police and military give these state actors special moral duties, and therefore exceptional moral justification, for using lethal force. I argue that the institutional end of the police is the preservation of public safety. This includes using lethal force where it is necessary to protect life and prevent serious injury to jurisdictional inhabitants. In contrast, a morally responsible state uses military force to defend the “common good.” That is, when it is necessary to defend the peaceful functioning of a state from armed threats or other forms of political violence. I then conclude that non-standard cases require the addition of jus ad vim (or the just use of military force short-of-war) as a hybrid element to the moral framework for the state-sanctioned use of lethal force. This provides a better way of applying ethics to the use of military force when defending the common good against serious threats in non-standard cases. This is because jus ad vim complements the conventional military paradigm by permitting the use of military capabilities to defend the common good. But, at the same time, it inhibits the move towards the more destructive levels of violence characteristic of conventional warfighting. (shrink)

While in Western discourse terrorism first referred to the “Reign of Terror” imposed by the Jacobin state in France, in recent decades it has become increasingly associated with non-state actors. Studies on the undertheorized concept of “state terrorism” have by and large neglected its role in liberal democratic states. In this essay I attempt to re-establish the link between the state and terror by challenging the Weberian definition of the state as holding “the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical (...) force.” In 1990, the European Parliament called upon each of its member states to dismantle the formations popularly known as “Gladio,” the clandestine organizations stationed in NATO countries during the 1950s to counter potential Soviet invasions. Investigations ranging from Italy’s Operation Gladio in 1990 to the recent Ergenekon Affair in Turkey reveal that many terrorist activities were perpetrated by those intrastate clandestine military networks. The aim of the essay is thus to bring the agentival state back into terrorism studies through an analysis of Gladio operations in Cold War Europe. (shrink)

When, where, and how should the promotion of human rights and democracy abroad figure in American foreign policy? A compelling way for liberals to influence this debate is to underscore a Wilsonian agenda's relevance to national security.

To say that the matter of the legality of the armed conflict against Iraq in 2003 was divisive is an understatement. The primary justification given by the UK government for the lawful nature of the Iraq war was an implied mandate from the Security Council. The implied mandate was said to be derived from a combination of Security Council Resolutions 678 and 1441. Many international lawyers remain unconvinced that such a mandate can be inferred from those resolutions. There is agreement (...) among both supporters and opponents of the war in Iraq that Saddam Hussein’s regime had an appalling human rights record. This was known to the coalition governments; indeed, Tony Blair expressly made the "moral case" for war on the basis of Hussein’s human rights violations. The legal justifications offered for the conflict by the UK government, however, did not refer to humanitarian intervention. This paper investigates whether it is possible that, despite the fact that the justification was not raised by the UK, it can provide a defence to any claims that the UK acted unlawfully, or that individuals committed an international crime, by initiating the attack on Iraq. (shrink)

This volume collects Allen Buchanan's previously published articles with a focus on ethics and international law, specifically with regard to human rights, the legitimacy of international institutions, and the ethics of force across borders. The work fits together tightly in its systematic interconnections, and collectively it makes the case for a holistic and systematic approach to issues that are at the forefront of current discussions in political and legal philosophy- issues that have traditionally been seen as separate.

Kosovo captured the attention of policy makers, ethicists, journalists, peace and human rights activists, military analysts, and international relations scholars. Something new happened there. This review covers books by Noam Chomsky, Howard Clark, Michael Ignatieff, and others.

Since the early 1990s, an increasing number of troops have been deployed in peacekeeping missions all around the world. The mixed success and high-profile failures of several missions have provided peacekeepers and scholars with a wealth of experience from which to generate knowledge and understand key lessons. In this article I use the Rwandan case to explore the issue of the use of force to protect unarmed civilians that have become the target of violence. In particular, I focus on (...) the moral responsibilities implied in such operations. I contend that in order for peacekeepers to be effective, they need to subscribe to, and be motivated by a peacekeeper ethos. The core element of this ethos is the protection of human life. Those peacekeepers who, through experience and education, internalize this ethos will be the best prepared for the difficult task they face. This article emphasizes the importance of sharpening moral autonomy among peacekeepers, in order to provide them with the skills they need to be more effective in saving lives. To illustrate this point, I analyze the slaughter of more than 2000 refugees at the ETO school in Kigali, Rwanda; a UN site protected by Belgian peacekeepers in 1994. (shrink)

Early Victorian analogical arguments were used to order the natural and the social world by maintaining a coherent collective experience across cultural oppositions such as the ideal and material, the sacred and profane, theory and fact. Maxwell's use of analogical argument in ‘On Faraday's lines of force’ was a contribution to that broad nineteenth-century discussion which overlapped theology and natural philosophy. I argue here that Maxwell understood his theoretical work as both a technical and a socially meaningful practice and (...) that embedding his use of analogy in the social and intellectual context of Victorian Britain provides a means of telling a sociocultural history of Maxwell's development of a new cognitive tool: a way of thinking on paper analogous to thinking with objects in the laboratory. (shrink)

. The perpetrator as person: Theological reflections on the just war tradition and the use of force by police. Criminal Justice Ethics: Vol. 14, No. 2, pp. 37-56.

In this paper I shall examine a variety of situations in which human agents make use of force. Section I will be concerned with the use of force in medical contexts, Section Ii with the use of force in defence of property, and Section in with the use of force in resolving international disputes. I shall argue that the boundary between what is and is not morally permissible needs to be, drawn more stringently than is commonly (...) supposed. While agreeing that in some medical contexts and in some situations where defence of property is involved the use of force may be necessary and even morally required, I shall suggest that in the absence of any suitably constituted world court the use of force in attempting to resolve international disputes creates a morally different situation. (shrink)

W. B. Gallie; I *—The Presidential Address: Rationality and the Use of Force, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 71, Issue 1, 1 June 1971, Pages 1–.

W. B. Gallie; I *—The Presidential Address: Rationality and the Use of Force, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 71, Issue 1, 1 June 1971, Pages 1–.

This paper aims to explore whether there are any legal limits to the use of force, in particular when force is used for political reasons. How plausible is it to expect people to limit their options when they feel that what they’re doing paves the way towards paradise? In this light, much of the law of armed conflict would seem to be inadequate, based as much of it is on the premise that force is non-political. To the (...) extent then that limits are conceivable, these may stem from the individual morality of those engaged in battle rather than from any grand legal designs. (shrink)

I defend the view that a significant ethical distinction can be made between justified killing in self-defense and police use of lethal force. I start by opposing the belief that police use of lethal force is morally justified on the basis of self-defense. Then I demonstrate that the state’s monopoly on the use of force within a given jurisdiction invests police officers with responsibilities that go beyond what morality requires of the average person. I argue that the (...) police should primarily be concerned with preserving public safety. As a consequence, police have additional moral permissions to use lethal force. But this also means that the principle of restraint is inherent to the policing function and therefore police are obliged to go to greater lengths to avoid killing. I concede that the just use of police force can be made difficult in extreme situations such as a mass riot. In such cases, police should take proportionate actions necessary to protect the lives of inhabitants by restoring order, which might include calling on military support. I conclude with a cautionary note opposing militarization of the policing role. (shrink)

Both Rawls and Walzer argue for a supreme emergency exemption and are commonly thought to do so for the same reasons. However, far from ‘aping’ Walzer, Rawls engages in a reconstruction of the exemption that changes its focus altogether, making clear its dependence on an account of universal human rights and the idea of a well-ordered society. This paper is therefore, in the first instance, textual, demonstrating that Rawls has been misinterpreted in the case of supreme emergency. In the second (...) instance the approach is reconstructive, providing a reinterpretation of Rawls that fits his treatment of supreme emergency with his broader commitments in just war and international relations. This reinterpretation enables us to draw out a pattern of argument that Rawls appears to share with a much more strident liberal cosmopolitanism. (shrink)

In his recent authoritative Helmholtz and the Conservation of Energy, Kenneth Caneva has claimed that earlier authors had invoked the principle of conservation of living force only in cases of a system returning to an earlier state, or of one without Newtonian forces. Relaying on texts in the tradition of the French Analytical Mechanics form Lagrange to Coriolis, I argue that this was not the case, and that the principle had been formulated and used for cases where living (...) class='Hi'>force proper (mv2) was not conserved but its sum with an integral function (refers today as potential) was constant. In addition. I show that contrary to Caneva’s claim, the principle had been connected to the impossibility of creating power out of nothing. The two points indicate a stronger link between the analytical tradition and Helmholtz and his readers than usually portrayed, and the significant contribution of mechanics to the emergence of energy conservation. On a methodological level the use of living force shows that a common term and even a concept, like energy, is not always needed for its successful employment. (shrink)

Book Review: Noam Lubell, Extraterritorial Use of Force against Non-State Actors.

Have we any obligations beyond our own borders? What form do these take? These questions are addressed through a concept of comparative justice indebted to the just war tradition and the equal moral regard of persons.

To whom do we owe obligations of distributive justice? In the last decade a number of distinguished political theorists — such as David Miller and Yael Tamir — have defended a nationalist account of our distributive obligations. This paper examines their account of distributive justice. In particular, it analyses their contention (a) that individuals owe special obligations to fellow‐nationals, (b) that these obligations are obligations of distributive justice and (c) that these obligations are enforceable. Miller and Tamir's justifications, I argue, (...) do not support these claims. Moreover, I argue, (a) and (c) should only be accepted in a greatly qualified form and (b) should be rejected altogether. The paper thus concludes that the nationalists' preferred account of distributive justice is untenable. (shrink)

The article analyses how robotisation as the latest advance in military technology can depersonalise the methods of killing in the 21st century by turning enemy soldiers and civilians into mere objects devoid of moral value. The departing assumption is that robotisation of warfare transforms military operations into automated industrial processes with the aim of removing empathy as a redundant?cost?. The development of autonomous weapons systems raises a number of sharp ethical controversies related to the projected moral insensitivity of robots regarding (...) the treatment of enemies and civilian population. The futurist vision of war as a foreign policy instrument entirely?purified? of the risk of morally wrong actions is in opposition with the negative effects of the use of drones. The author concludes that the use of lethal robots in combat would eventually remove enemy soldiers and civilians from the realm of ethical reasoning and deprive them of human dignity. Decision to kill in military operations ought to be based on human conscience as the only proper framework of making decisions by reasoning whether an action is right or wrong. (shrink)

The Bush doctrine of preventive and pre-emptive strikes triggered a debate in academic and governmental circles about the possible legitimization of those concepts in international politics and possibly international law. This essay gives an overview of the practice of preventive and pre-emptive strikes, both before and after the Cold War. Further, it sketches the above-mentioned debate and the underlying trends explaining it. Finally, it assesses the new doctrine in light of a possible future incorporation of the concepts of preventive and (...) pre-emptive strikes into international law. A distinction will be made between three kind of preventive strikes: counter-terrorist, counter-proliferation, and preventing humanitarian disasters. (shrink)

The paper focuses on metaphorical representation of military activities of the US-led international coalition and of ISIL which are construed on the basis of systematic metaphors drawn from the com...

Gentili’s conceptualization of war as a conflict between states attempted to limit the legitimacy of war to external wars only, thus precluding the legitimacy of civil wars. It reflected both the emergence of sovereign states and the vision of international law as a law among polities rather than individuals. The conceptualization of war as a dispute settlement mechanism among polities rather than a punishment for breach of the law of nations and the idea of the bilateral justice of war humanized (...) the conduct of warfare and the content of peace treaties. The idea of perfect war excluded brigandage, piracy, and civil wars from its purview. Some scholars have suggested that perfect war had a dark side, legitimizing imperial expansion. Others have cautioned that Gentili explicitly opposed imperial expansion rather adopting anti-imperialist stances. This article suggests that these ambivalent readings of the Gentilian oeuvre reflect the ambivalence of the early modern law of nations. Under the early modern law of nations, aggression for the sake of empire was clearly unjust; nonetheless, imperial expansion took place. Whereas ‘a law which many transgress[ed] [wa]s nonetheless a law’, there was a wide divide between theory and practice.1. (shrink)