I address an argument in value theory which threatens to render nonsensical many debates in modern ethics. Almotahari and Hosein’s :1485–1508, 2015) argument against the property of goodness simpliciter is presented. I criticise the linguistic tests they use in their argument, suggesting they do not provide much support for their conclusion. I draw a weaker conclusion from their argument, and argue that defenders of goodness simpliciter have not responded adequately to this milder conclusion. I go on to argue that (...) moral philosophers ought to abandon the property of goodness simpliciter and focus their attention on the property of being a good state of affairs. I defend this property against Almotahari and Hosein’s criticism, and give reasons to think it is at the heart of moral theory. (shrink)

Consequentialists claim that their theory is simply that the right action is whichever one will lead to the best state of affairs - and that this formulation provides a powerful intuitive ground for accepting consequentialism. Recent arguments in value theory threaten to show that this formulation lacks either coherent meaning, because states of affairs cannot be good simpliciter, or philosophical power, because their goodness provides no reason to bring them about. I respond to two such arguments - from (...) Judith Jarvis Thomson and Richard Kraut - contending that none can be made to work in a way which undercuts consequentialism's simple formulation. (shrink)

War often comes down to one thing: money. The role of economics in the study of both peace and war is arguably then the most important single factor when it comes to the study of defence. This excellent new book from Fanny Coulomb will be of interest not only to those involved in the burgeoning field of defence economics - it will also be of vital interest to students and academics from international relations, defence studies, philosophy and political science (...) backgrounds. (shrink)

Kant is widely acknowledged for his critique of theoretical reason, his universalistic ethics, and his aesthetics. Scholars, however, often ignore his achievements in the philosophy of law and government. At least four innovations that are still relevant today can be attributed to Kant. He is the first thinker, and to date the only great thinker, to have elevated the concept of peace to the status of a foundational concept of philosophy. Kant links this concept to the political innovation of (...) his time, a republic devoted to human rights. He extends the concept by adding to it the right of nations and cosmopolitan law. Finally, Kant democratizes Plato's notion of philosopher kings with a concept of 'kingly people'. This book examines all aspects of this important, but neglected, body of Kant's writings. (shrink)

The development of the peace concept is closely related to the development of the concept of the state and hence to the efforts for elimination of war as an instrument for resolving disputes between states. In that context, war and peace are traditionally treated as mutually exclusive concepts, i.e., war implies violence, while peace, nonviolence. So, the end of war marks the beginning of peace and vice versa. Therefore, both concepts simultaneously represent the inevitable outcomes of (...) the continuous and dynamic nature of social interaction in the international system, foreshadowing future war for nations and states that are currently at peace and, on the other hand, foreshadowing peace for nations and states that are currently at war. Starting from the indicated traditional understanding of the concepts of peace and war, as well as from the fact that the establishment of peace research begins during the 80s of the XX century, the focus in the paper is specifically placed on the analysis of the peace concept through the prism of the theory of international relationships. Namely, it is indisputable that until the establishment of peace and security research and studies, issues of peace and security are generally considered and interpreted within the framework of the various theoretical approaches for international relations. Hence, the paper more specifically explores the evolutionary character of the perceptions and understanding of the peace concept, especially from the perspective of: federalism, neorealism, liberalism and functionalism. The main goal is to give an answer to the question - What is peace and how can it be achieved, according to the indicated theoretical approaches? (shrink)

Intellectual eminence apart, what did Kant, Clausewitz, Marx and Engels, and Tolstoy have in common? Professor Gallic argues that they made contributions to 'international theory' - to the understanding of the character and causes of war and of the possibility of peace between nations - which were of unrivalled originality in their own times and remain of undiminished importance in ours. But these contributions have been either ignored or much misunderstood ; chiefly because, as with all intellectual efforts (...) in unexplored fields, they were often imperfectly expressed, and were also overshadowed by their author's more striking achievements. Professor Gallic has sorted out, compared and contrasted, criticised and re-phrased the teachings of his chosen authors on peace and war. (shrink)

Oppositional constructions of peace and war and simplistic equations of peace with justice obscure the importance of activities primarily geared toward the limitation of harm. The medieval and patristic legacy of thinking with peace restricts peace to variants of a singular concept that dictates the diplomatic and domestic policy of modern states. At the same time, secular political theory has moved away from medieval clerical acknowledgment of compatibilities between turbulence and peace, producing temporally bounded (...) categories of peace and war that facilitate damage or at best allow harm to endure. In this discourse, social disruption must act as signifier for more general violence—but then is repressed on exactly the same terms, making it difficult to arrive at solutions for conflict on the ground without renouncing calls for justice and equity in the long term. (shrink)

In their theories of international order, Hobbes and Kant are not as far apart as earlier interpreters have claimed. Both consider peace between states and mutual respect for their sovereign independence to be necessary for securing domestic order. For both Hobbes and Kant, order arises from the very “independency“ of states in a manner that is different from the independence of individuals in a state of nature. Both regard the independency of states and their commitment to the prosperity of (...) their subjects as principles that support a long-term orientation toward peaceable cooperation. The most significance difference between Hobbes and Kant concerning international order arises from Kant's attributing to individuals a cosmopolitan right that makes the international order more subject to potential conflict concerning the rights of individuals, but also gives his theory a stronger normative framework for the development of shared norms than what is found in Hobbes's political theory. (shrink)

This book examines how ideas of war and peace have organized frames of reference within the history of political theory. It argues for a political philosophy that takes both conditions seriously and for a style of political theory committed to questioning rather than closure.

If we know that certain ways of making decisions are associated with real-life success, is this then how we should decide? In this paper the relationship between normative and descriptive theories of decision-making is examined. First, it is shown that the history of the decision sciences ensures that it is impossible to separate descriptive theories from normative ones. Second, recent psychological research implies new ways of arguing from the descriptive to the normative. The paper ends with an evaluation of how (...) this might affect normative theories of decision-making. (shrink)

We can conceive of peace in many different ways, and these differences are related to a variety of assumptions and practices we can adopt in our culture. This book is about those differences. Part I describes the ways in which we usually talk about peace. It argues that our conception is fundamentally obscure. We do not know what peace is and we do not know how to promote it. Part II develops an explanation of how peace (...) has been obscured. It has been obscured by a network of beliefs and institutions in our culture. Part III critically evaluates some key parts of this cultural web and argues that there is an alternative cluster of assumptions and practices which we ought to adopt. It is a cluster which is intrinsically better—regardless of whatever it may imply about peace. Part IV argues that it happens to imply that we should think of peace as an activity—a practice we can cultivate at high levels of excellent performance. It draws on Gandhian satyagraha, Quaker process and practices of "principled negotiation" using the Harvard model to illustrate. (shrink)

This book develops a notion of differences and "otherness" beyond hegemonic and hierarchical thinking as represented by the legacies of Western philosophical and political thinking. In doing so, it relates to the 20th Century phenomenological discourse, especially to Georg Simmel, Alfred Schütz, Emmanual Lévinas, and Jacques Derrida, and drafts our understanding of difference as a genuine human experience of a social and political world that is in motion and transformative, rather than static and predictable. On this basis of temporalized ontology (...) and its normative consequences, differences are drafted as a positive social and political force and as powerful capacities of transformation and change. In practical terms, this understanding is most important for our theorizing and acting upon peace, peace-building, and conflict solution. Differences appear now not as obstacle to peace and reconciliation, but as lively and constructive articulation of "otherness" and as a positive power of transformation, emancipation, and change.This book will be of interest to students of international relations, philosophy, and political theory. (shrink)

Just war's engagement with pacifism has shaped the discourse of war within and beyond Christian ethics. Less attention has been given to Christian realism's relationship to just war thought or to the possibilities such a dialogue might disclose. This essay examines certain features of the Christian realist Reinhold Niebuhr's moral, theological, and political thought to consider the promise of a Christian realist theory of justifiable war.

Christine de Pizan, one of the earliest known women authors, wrote the Livre de paix (Book of Peace) between 1412 and 1414, a period of severe corruption and civil unrest in her native France. The book offered Pizan a platform from which to expound her views on contemporary politics and to put forth a strict moral code to which she believed all governments should aspire. The text's intended recipient was the dauphin, Louis of Guyenne; Christine felt that Louis had (...) the political and social influence to fill a void left by years of incompetent leadership. Drawing in equal parts from the Bible and from classical ethical theory, the Livre de paix was revolutionary in its timing, viewpoint, and content. This volume, edited by Karen Green, Constant J. Mews, and Janice Pinder, boasts the first full English translation of Pizan's work along with the original French text. The editors also place the Livre de paix in historical context, provide a brief biography of Pizan, and offer insight into the translation process. (shrink)

According to both common wisdom and long-standing tradition, the ideal of peace is central to the morality of war. I argue that this notion is mistaken, not because peace is unachievable and utopian, though it might be for many of today’s asymmetrical conflicts; nor because the pursuit of peace is counterproductive, though, again, it might be for many of today’s conflicts; the problem, rather, is that the pursuit of peace is not a proper objective of war.

This book explores Hobbes's ideas about the internal pacification of states, the prospect of a peaceful international order, and the connections between civil and international peace. It questions the notion of a negative Hobbesian peace, which is based on the mere suppression of violence, and emphasises his positive vision of everlasting peace in a well-governed commonwealth. The book also highlights Hobbes's ideas about international coexistence and cooperation, which he considers integral to good government. In examining Hobbes's conception (...) of peace, it provides a fresh perspective on his international political thought. The findings also have wider implications for the ways in which we think about Hobbes's relationship to the realist and liberal traditions of international thought, and will appeal to students and scholars of political theory and international relations. (shrink)

For centuries, philosophers, political scientists, and jurists have struggled to understand the possibilities for justice and peace among a multiplicity of sovereign states. Like Dante, who sought to organize the world under the authority of the Holy Roman Empire, many theorists have tried to explain how sovereign states should be governed to ensure stability and peace in the absence of any established higher authority. Theories of World Governance traces the various conceptual approaches to world harmony from the close (...) of the Middle Ages to today. Considering the immediate problems of order in a decentralized world community, Cornelius F. Murphy, Jr., outlines what he believes are the essential long-term conditions for world peace. Covering a wide range of disciplines -- from theology and philosophy to jurisprudence, ethics, and sociology -- Murphy explores how theorists have reflected upon the necessary components of an effective global order. At the outset, the thought of Christian Europe was shaped by a belief in a natural order established by the Creator of the universe. However, with the advent of the Enlightenment, the connections between the human and the transcendent were severed. There was a movement from a theocentric understanding of the powers of the human mind to an intellectual outlook that blurred the distinctions between the divine and human. This study in the history of ideas examines the profound effects of the fundamental shift from transcendence to immanence upon the development of international theory. Murphy discusses the thought of Leibniz, Wolff, Kant, Hegel, and Phillip Allott, among others. The study concludes with an extended reflection on the importanceof a sound political philosophy to the future well-being of the global community. Possible improvements in the existing arrangements, such as reform of the United Nations, are discussed. Murphy suggests that in order for a society of sovereign states to be transformed into a world political community, human rights and self-governance within states must first be strengthened and, at the same time, individuals of all states must begin to realize their responsibilities toward the whole human family. (shrink)

Leo Strauss is known to many people as a thinker of the right, who inspired hawkish views on national security and perhaps even advocated war without limits. Moving beyond gossip and innuendo about Strauss's followers and the Bush administration, this book provides the first comprehensive analysis of Strauss's writings on political violence, considering also what he taught in the classroom on this subject. In stark contrast to popular perception, Strauss emerges as a man of peace, favorably disposed to international (...) law and skeptical of imperialism - a critic of radical ideologies (right and left) who warns of the dangers to free thought and civil society when philosophers and intellectuals ally themselves with movements that advocate violence. Robert Howse provides new readings of Strauss's confrontation with fascist/Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt, his debate with Alexandre Kojève about philosophy and tyranny, and his works on Machiavelli and Thucydides and examines Strauss's lectures on Kant's Perpetual Peace and Grotius's Rights of War and Peace. (shrink)

One of the central assumptions of ancient Greek ethics is that human beings have a single supreme and ultimate good – eudaimonia or “well‐being” – which includes and integrates all other final goods into an account of the good life. Thomas Hobbes was a eudaimonist who held that felicity is an overarching good giving coherence to a valuable life; he therefore agreed with the Epicureans that it is good to forgo lesser pleasures for greater future ones. Hobbes held that felicity (...) consists primarily in the mental pleasures that arise from anticipating the satisfaction of one's desires. Hobbes was proposing a reforming definition for “good” firmly grounded in his substantive theory of what goodness consists in and of what makes it the case that something has that property. The anticipatory pleasure raised in everyone's mind by the prospect of peace and its pleasures is a potential basis for agreeing about what to call good. (shrink)

This article is an attempt to develop the idea of peace education for adults through the assumption that, compared to peace education for children, educational approaches for adults are as yet undeveloped. This article also assumes that the progress of educational approaches for adults is necessary to the further development of peace education for children, as well as to the expansion of the theory. In navigating the argument around issues of peace education for adults, the (...) article uses the example of educational issues faced by Amerasians in Okinawa. The article argues that language education is a fundamental aspect of peace education for adults. It also demonstrates that the content of language education for adults is different from the content of language education for children. Furthermore, the article defends peace education for adults, through language education, as the very first step towards creating peaceful conditions for the education of Amerasians in Okinawa. (shrink)

The Philosophy of War and Exile argues that our current paradigms for thinking about the ethics of war - just war theory - and the suffering of war - PTSD theory - judge war without a proper understanding of war. By continuing the investigations of J. Glenn Gray into the meaning of how war is experienced by combatants we can find an alternative understanding of not only war, but of peace, culminating in a new theory of (...) responsibility centered around embodiment and mortality rather than praise and blame. This conception of responsibility will in turn allow us to not only ask new questions about torture, unmanned warfare, and the treatment of veterans, but also to ask new questions about what it means for noncombatants to experience as home what combatants experience as exile. (shrink)

Section 1. Introduction. The prophet of non-violence -- section 2. Women in Islam. Women in the light of hadith -- Violence against women and religion -- section 3. War and peace in Islam. Theory of war and peace in Islam -- Centrality of jihad in post Qurʼanic period -- Jihad? But what about other verses in the Qurʼan? -- Islam, democracy and violence -- A critical look at Qurʼanic verses on war and violence -- section 4. Justice (...) and compassion in Islam. Concept of justice in Islam -- Love in Sufi poetry: Maulana Rum, the poet of love -- Compassion in Islam: theology and history -- Islam and compassion: scriptural, historical and contemporary perspective -- section 5. Social issues. Science, West and Islamic origin of science -- Opening chapter of the Qurʼan and its ecological interpretation -- Islam and contemporary issues -- Religion or secularism? -- Modernity, discontent and religion -- Hindu-Muslim unity through religion? -- Religion and conflict. (shrink)

I shall argue in this paper that our thinking about the question of war and peace is vitiated at its source by a series of mistaken assumptions and intentions. These misconceptions pass as sound coin because they have the air of truisms: they appear to direct our inquiries along lines that are sure to be successful and are anyway the only ones available. At the same time, these errors are so basic that they distort both theory and practice (...) from the start: they are red herrings, putting us on a false scent from which we never free ourselves because we cannot get close enough to the quarry to recognize our mistake. It is my purpose to expose these errors and point the way to their correction. (shrink)

This article examines some arguments in favor of taking peace as a political obligation that can be found in one of the most important founders of the pacifist movement, Jane Addams. The main focus is on her 1907 book Newer Ideals of Peace, which has often been read as idealistic and outdated, and above all, as more of an activist’s manifesto than a serious contribution to either political philosophy or political theory. I point out that this owes (...) much to an ambiguity of Addams’ criticisms of the traditional and Kantian cosmopolitan defense of peace as a political ideal, the ambiguity between practical-political and conceptual problems. However, Addam’s succeeds in identifying one profound problem for traditional, even enlightended institution-centered ideals of peace, the collapse of the very ideal in cases of breaches of explicit peace-agreements among nations, because breaches of agreements are tantamount to the loss of all commitment to the other nation’s rights. It reveals that the conditions imposed by such ideals are at most necessary, but not sufficient for peace, and hence that the concept based on them is not a complete concept of lasting peaceful conditions among humans. Once it is seen as dedicated to resolving the problems entailed by this fundamental problem, Addams’ work, and in particular her focus on resources of solidarity and right-granting practices beyond and outside explicit agreements between governments can be understood as the development of a more adequate, coherent and comprehensive, while also a more actionable conception of peace. In the course of this development, Addams can also be observed to make use of crucial epistemological and more technical philosophical tools that are most closely associated with classical pragmatism, but which partly appear (albeit largely obliquely in the course of their application to a particular case) for the first time Addams’ treatise. Addams’ work is therefore of more than merely political activist interest for philosophers. Nonetheless, the article also explains her status as an important contributor to proper conceptions of world peace and the understanding of certain phenomena in the organization of public will formation precisely by pointing out that without some of her future-oriented proposals, like the inseparability of peace-policies and development, or the need to institutionally protect and foster spontaneous solidary action, the best contemporary work on peace would not have been possible. (shrink)

Despite emerging study of business initiatives that attempt to support local peace and development, we still have significant knowledge gaps on their effectiveness and efficiency. This article builds theory on business engagements for peace through exploration of the Footprints for Peace (FOP) peacebuilding project by the Federación Nacional de Cafeteros de Colombia (FNC). FOP was a business-peace initiative that attempted to improve the lives of vulnerable populations in conflict-affected regions. Through 70 stakeholder interviews, we show (...) how FOP operationalized local peace and development in four conflict-affected departments of Colombia, and examine FNC’s motivations for and effectiveness of its peacebuilding activities. Our main finding is that FOP’s success supported several existing theories on business engagement in peace both in terms of peacebuilding by business and for local economic and societal development, providing evidence in support of development–business collaborations and local peacebuilding by business under certain targeted circumstances. We relate these findings to existing literature, highlighting where existing business-peace theory is supported, where FOP challenged assumptions, and where it illuminated new research gaps. These findings serve to take business-peace theory forward and improve our understandings of what can constitute success for business-peace initiatives in Colombia and possibly other conflict-affected regions. (shrink)

Kant is often regarded as one of the founding fathers of modern liberal democracy. His political theory reaches its climax in the ground-breaking work, Perpetual Peace (1795), which sets out the basic framework for a world federation of states united by a system of international law. What is less well known is that two years earlier, in his Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason (1793/1794), Kant had postulated a very different, explicitly religious path to the politics of (...) peace: he presents the idea of an “ethical community” as a necessary requirement for humanity to become “satisfactory to God”. While many recent scholars have noted the importance of Kant’s concept of the ethical community, few recognize the force of his argument that such a community is possible only if it takes the form of a church; as a result, the precise status of his proposal remains unclear and under-appreciated. He argues in Division One, Section IV, of Religion’s Third Piece that the idea of this community can become a reality only through a “church” that is characterized by four rational requirements: unity, integrity, freedom, and the changeability of all church rules except these four unchangeable marks. Prior to Section IV, Division One portrays this ethical community as having a political form, yet an essentially nonpolitical matter. He compares it with Jewish theocracy, but observes that the latter failed to be an ethical commonwealth because it was explicitly political. Whereas traditional theocracy replaces the political state of nature (which conforms to the law, “might makes right”) with an ethical state of nature (which conforms to the law that I call, “should makes good”), or attempts to synthesize them, non-coercive theocracy transcends this distinction through a new perspective: it unites humanity in a common vision of a divine legislator whose only law is inward, binding church members together like families, through the law of love. Whereas the legal rights supported by democracy and a system of international law can go a long way to prepare for world peace, Kant’s conviction is that it will be ultimately impossible without support from healthy religion. (shrink)

s theory of cosmopolitan right is widely viewed as the philosophical origin of modern cosmopolitan thought. Hegel’s critique of Kant’s theory of cosmopolitan right, by contrast, is usually viewed as regressive and nationalistic in relation to both Kant and the cosmopolitan tradition. This paper reassesses the political and philosophical character of Hegel’s critique of Kant, Hegel’s own relation to cosmopolitan thinking, and more fleetingly some of the implications of his critique for contemporary social criticism. It is argued that (...) Hegel’s critique was neither regressive nor nationalistic, but rather that he advanced the theory of cosmopolitan right beyond the Kantian framework of formal natural law. The main proposition is that Hegel was not only the first to recognize cosmopolitanism as a definite social form of right, relative to other forms in the modern system of right, but that his ‘scientific and objective’ approach to the issue makes a substantial contribution to restoring the severed connections between the realism of war between nations and the normativism of perpetual peace. Key Words: cosmopolitanism • Habermas • Hegel • Kant • nationalism • peace • right • war. (shrink)

My article investigates the paradoxical dualism in Kelsen’s Pure Theory of Law, in which exists on the one hand a strict distinction and on the other hand a necessary relation between Is and Ought. I shall further try to answer the question whether Kelsen’s pure theory tacitly assumes in the conditions for validity of the positive legal order a basic value and underlying condition, namely, that of ‘social peace’. In order to answer that question, I will first (...) sketch why Kelsen actually differentiates Is and Ought and conceives of a relation between both categories. Then I will examine if and in what way the conditio tacita of social peace is implied in the conditions for legal validity. The concluding section will suggest what this implication possibly means for the valuation of the Pure Theory of Law and of its normative concept of the positive legal order. (shrink)