Summary |
Conflict resolution covers a broad range of dispute processes. In this scope conflict resolution encompasses management, peacebuilding, and relations scaling from barking dog disputes (conflict between neighbors) to the use of atomic weapons in international and global wars. Philosophy can help to address and think critically about challenges to resolving disputes, creating the conditions for peaceful relations, and understanding the dynamism of security threats. Philosophical inquiry into conflict can examine the agency and morality of the parties to dispute, their goals (as well as the contexts for those goals), and the frameworks used for judging parties and actions. Metaphysics can help to articulate the material and substantive features of conflict and resolution as well the emotions that are frequently involved. Ethics can help to define and explain the parameters for interventions, monitoring and evaluation of processes, provide guidance in developing praxis, legal judgments, predictions, and recommendations. The practice of conflict resolution dates to the earliest writings in recorded history. Texts from world religions are one source of this wisdom; they include instructions on styles of conflict management and advice for the application of justice and enforcement of the rule of law. Thucydides’ (416 BC) “Melian Dialogue” is, for example, one of the earliest works on foreign policy and international relations. This section, at its core, conceives of conflict resolution as analytical problem solving where one or more party experiences a threat (or perceived threat) to an interest, want, or need. |