Description
Highlighting the just war tradition in historical perspective, this valuable study looks at contemporary implications drawn out in the context of several important contemporary debates: within the field of religion, including both Christian and Islamic thought; within the field of debate related to the international law of armed conflicts; within the field of policy relating to the use of armed force where the issue is just war thinking vs. realism; and debates over pressing contemporary issues in the ethics of war which cross disciplinary lines. James Turner Johnson has been writing on just war tradition since 1975, developing the historical understanding of just war and seeking to draw out its implications for contemporary armed conflict. He is frequently asked to lecture on topics drawn from his work. This current book brings together a number of essays which reflect his recent thinking on understanding how and why just war tradition coalesced in the first place, how and why it has developed as it has, and relating contemporary just war reasoning to the historical tradition of just war.
Table of Contents
Introduction The Use of History for Thinking About Morality and War; Part I Two Moral Traditions on the Use of Armed Force; Chapter 1 The Just War Idea in Historical Tradition and Current Debate; Chapter 2 Just War; Chapter 3 Just War and Jihad; Chapter 4 Tracing the Contours of the Jihad of Individual Duty in Islamic Juristic Tradition; Part II Just War and International Law; Chapter 5 Grotius’ Use of History and Charity in the Modern Transformation of the Just War Idea; Chapter 6 Looking Back as a Way of Going Forward; Part III Just War and Political Realism; Chapter 7 Moral Judgment in International Affairs; Chapter 8 Reinhold Niebuhr’s Christian Realism and the Idea of Just War; Part IV Pressing Contemporary Problems; Chapter 9 The Idea of Defense in Historical and Contemporary Thinking about Just War; Chapter 10 Contemporary Warfare and the Challenge to Efforts at Restraint; Chapter 11 The Use of Armed Force and the Goal of Peace;
