In tribute to the philosophy of Bat-Ami Bar On, this article draws upon her Arendtian analysis of fascism to explore recent dynamics of ethnic nationalism in the US. Whereas Bar On analyzed the problem of citizen-soldiers, this study extends analysis toward the citizen culture-soldier, suggesting that recent dynamics in the US are suggestive of a Cultural Revolution that threatens the inclusive practice of citizenship required of democracy. Bar On’s work motivates philosophers to not be lulled into acceptance of anti-democratic (...) practices of citizenship. The values of respect, equality, and equity suggest that another form of citizenship should be practically pursued. (shrink)

In the last two books of the Politics, Aristotle articulates an education program for his best regime in contrast to what he takes to be the goal and practices of Sparta’s educational system. Although Aristotle never refers to his program as liberal education, clearly he takes its goal to be the production of free male and female citizens. By contrast, he characterizes the results of the Spartan system as ‘crude’, ‘slavish’, and ‘servile’. I argue that Aristotle’s criticisms of Spartan (...) education elucidate his general understanding of Sparta and provide an interpretative key to understanding Politics 7–8. But although Aristotle contrasts the goals and methods of Spartan education with that of his own best regime, the citizens of his best regime are more like Spartan citizen-soldiers than Athenian participatory-citizens. (shrink)

ExcerptA 1988 Die Welt “video tip” that revisited Bernhard Wicki's film The Bridge (1959) declared it one of the earliest confrontations with Germany's Nazi past.1 The film is seen as an initiating, even originary moment of the engagement with Germany's difficult past that would famously, and contentiously, mark the 1960s and 70s. Of course the piece's presupposition is complete nonsense. It provides stark testimony as to how one historical moment frequently conjures a past that never was, for cultural and political (...) purposes entirely its own. In this case, the later understanding of the film projects onto the past a public…. (shrink)

Manuel M. Davenport PROFESSIONALS OR HIRED GUNS? LOYALTIES ARE THE DIFFERENCE . In The Contemporary literature of professional ethics, two different ways of ...

ABSTRACTCentral to the mainstream Sikh identity is the concept of ethically-justified force, used as a last resort. There is no place for absolute pacifism in this conception of ethical living. Fighters and martyrs occupy an important place in the Khalsa narrative, and Sikhs are constantly reminded of the sacrifices and heroism of their co-religionists of the past. This article explores how the Sikh warrior identity is manifested in the contemporary world. It examines the Sikhs who, in the 1980s and 1990s, (...) were involved on both sides of the Punjab crisis: those militants who fought for a Sikh homeland and those Sikhs in the Indian army who suppressed the insurgency. The article also looks beyond the militants and soldiers to Sikhs employed in modern security-related professions, the broader issue of Sikh symbols relating to the use of force, and violence within the Sikh diaspora. An examination of the Sikhs in various parts of the world reveals additional uses and consequences of ideology, w... (shrink)

If called upon would you fight in a war you thought unjust? This article attempts to explain why the majority of military officers and soldiers when faced with this question do fight despite moral misgivings they may have. I will explain why on one hand officers are morally obligated to refuse unjust orders in jus in bello cases, but on the other hand it can be argued that they are also obligated to follow orders they believe to be unjust (...) concerning jus ad bellum. The war in Iraq has and continues to presents military officers and their soldiers with a particularly difficult moral dilemma. As citizens of a democratic government it is important that we understand why our military officers act in ways that may seem counter to what we believe is right. (shrink)

THE JUST WAR THEORY OBLIGES CITIZENS OF A DEMOCRACY TO OPPOSE war unless it is being waged as a last resort and their nation possesses a just cause, the right intent, legitimate authority, and the probability of success without inflicting disproportionate harm. However, several contemporary Hollywood combat films suggest that the only real moral duties in wartime belong to soldiers, who are to defend and protect their comrades in arms. At the same time, by consistently presenting the obligation (...) to "support the troops" as the public's principal wartime duty and as the final answer to any criticism of the war, proponents of the Bush administration's war in Iraq have exported this "warrior's ethic" home from the battlefield and substituted it for the just war theory. As a result, citizens are no longer expected to critique their government's call to arms but are instead expected to exhibit loyalty to the troops by supporting the war. (shrink)

As social creatures, human beings possess a number of identities. A young woman, for example, is a daughter and a member of a particular ethnic group. She is also likely to be a citizen, a friend,...

As with other aspects of post-Minoan Crete studies there has been a tendency to accept a pan-Cretan economic model. A Dorian aristocracy, served by pre-Dorian serfs and their descendants, depended upon the produce of their private kleroi for membership in an andreion and citizen status. The elite preserved their political, social, and economic position by discouraging the development of a market economy on Crete in favor of a subsistence economy based upon agriculture, animal husbandry, and hunting. Discouraged were production of (...) coinage, elite display, and manufacture for export . Specialist craftsmen and other kinds of wage earners were either foreigners or members of a dependent population. (shrink)

There is a long history and growing evidence base that the use of drugs, such as anabolic-androgenic steroids, to enhance human performance is common amongst armed forces, including in Australia. We should not be surprised that this might have occurred for it has long been predicted by observers. It is a commonplace of many recent discussion of the future of warfare and future military technology to proclaim the imminent arrival of Super Soldiers, whose capacities are modified via drugs, digital (...) technology and genetic engineering, in ways that increase their performance exponentially. This is what some observers have referred to as the “Gladiator Model” wherein the aim is to create soldiers able to perform feats of which ordinary citizens are not capable. One key aspect of this “gladiator project” is the use of illicit drugs to enhance performance. Could we use drugs, such as steroids or amphetamines, to enhance performance? Should we use such drugs? In this paper we explore the ethics of creating Super Soldiers, and raise issues of consent, coercion and the extent to which such use is permitted or condemned by just war theory. We conclude that much will depend on the extent to which such use is harmful to the soldiers themselves and this is still an open question. (shrink)

The principle of absolute sovereignty may have been consigned to history, but a strong presumption against foreign intervention seems to have been left in its stead. On the dominant view, only massacre and ethnic cleansing justify armed intervention, these harms must be already occurring or imminent, and the prudential constraints on war must be satisfied. Each of these conditions has recently come under pressure. Those looking to defend the dominant view have typically done so by invoking international peace and stability, (...) or the value of communal self-determination. But the internal aspect of legitimacy has been overlooked in all of this. If a government insists on defending the human rights of foreigners, it must also be sure not to violate the rights of its own citizens in the process. I argue that the current presumption against humanitarian intervention cannot be substantially relaxed for internal reasons, or given the obligations that states owe to their own constituents. (shrink)

In his account of the Persian Wars, the 5th century historian Herodotus reports an exchange between the Persian monarch Xerxes and a deposed Spartan king, Demaratus, who became what Lattimore later classified as a “tragic warner” to Xerxes. On the eve of the battle of Thermopylae, Xerxes asks how a small number of free Spartiates can stand up against the massive ranks of soldiers that Xerxes has assembled. Herodotus has Demaratus reply: So is it with the Lacedaemonians; fighting singly (...) they are as brave as any man living, and together they are the best warriors on earth. Free they are, yet not wholly free; for law is their master (ἐλεύθεροι γὰρ ἐόντες οὐ πάντα ἐλεύθεροι εἰσί· ἔπεστι γάρ σφι δεσπότης νόμος), whom they fear much more than your men fear you. This is my proof—what their law bids them, that they do; and its bidding is ever the same, that they must never flee from the battle before whatsoever odds, but abide at their post and there conquer or die. (Hdt. 7.104) As the outcome of Thermopylae makes clear, Demaratus is hardly guilty of boasting. But Greek political theorists were not only fascinated by the Spartans who fought at the battle of Thermopylae in 480; they also wondered how slightly more than a century later Sparta was ignobly defeated by Thebes at the battle of Leuctra in 371, after which Spartan hegemony collapsed. How did Sparta field citizen-soldiers in the 5th century who were without parallel in their bravery and military prowess? And why did Sparta, predominantly under the same political organization, collapse just over a century later? Such are the main questions that Xenophon, Plato, Aristotle, and Plutarch—what Cartledge (1999, 313–14) has characterized as “political-theoretical” laconophiles—seek to answer in their writings about Sparta. (shrink)

"A meticulous, well-tuned examination of what Janowitz says is the decline of civic thought in America, and what might be done to restore it.... The patriotism Janowitz proposes to reconstruct is not the sort of narrow nationalism your political science professor may have warned you about—patriotism as 'the last refuge of a scoundrel.' It is instead a patriotism that intelligently appreciates life in a democratic land."—Robert Marquand, _The Christian Science Monitor_ "In _The Reconstruction of Patriotism,_ Morris Janowitz... places a national-service (...) program on the national agenda.... Like William James, Janowitz envisions government enrolling young people to work for a year or two at subsistence pay, doing jobs that benefit society—working with, say, 'conservation, health, or old-age problems.' He believes that we need a service program because since the end of the Second World War our citizens have become more keenly aware of their rights than of their obligations, and generations are growing up with little or no understanding that they are members of a national community and have responsibilities to it—that they must give as well as take.... Because it reopens discussion of our wider obligations and how to fulfill them, Mr. Janowitz's thoughtful book is in itself a national service."—Naomi Bliven, _The New Yorker_ "Morris Janowitz examines an issue that seldom is subject to social and political analysis—patriotism. His thesis is clear: The long-term trend in politics has been to enhance citizen rights without effective articulation of citizen obligations. A meaningful balance between the two, he contends, must be restored.... The strength of this study lies in Janowitz's persuasive argument that the durability and vitality of democratic institutions require that a sense of community, or shared values, be preserved. Without civiz consciousness, he rightly observes, social and political fragmentation ensues.... A lucid and impressively researched polemic."—W. Wesley McDonald, _American Political Science Review_ "Janowitz addresses a seminal issue: how to restore the sense of shared civic responsibility that has fallen victim in recent years to our growing preoccupation with individual rights and the rise of special-interest groups.... Central to his prescription is the revival of the concept of the citizen soldier, whose importance since pre-Revolutionary War days Janoqitz discusses at length. He concludes, 'There can be no reconstruction of patriotism without a system of national service.'... An important book. I highly recommend it."—_Washington Monthly_. (shrink)

Alienation between the U.S. military and society has grown in recent decades. Such alienation is unhealthy, as it threatens both sufficient civilian control of the military and the long-standing ideal of the 'citizen soldier'. Nowhere is this issue more predominant than at many major universities, which began turning their backs on the military during the chaotic years of the Vietnam War. Arms and the University probes various dimensions of this alienation, as well as recent efforts to restore a closer relationship (...) between the military and the university. Through theoretical and empirical analysis, Donald Alexander Downs and Ilia Murtazashvili show how a military presence on campus in the form of ROTC, military history and national security studies can enhance the civic and liberal education of non-military students, and in the process help to bridge the civil-military gap. (shrink)

War has been conceptualised from a military perspective, but also from ethical, legal, and philosophical viewpoints. These different analytical perspectives are all necessary to understand the many dimensions war, the continua on which war is situated - from small-scale to large-scale, from limited in time or long, from less to extremely destructive, with varying aims, and degrees of involvement of populations. Western civilisations have conceptualised war in binary ways denying the variety of manifestations of war along these continua. While binary (...) definitions are necessary to capture different conditions legally, they hamper analysis. The binaries include inter-State and intestine war, just war and unjust war, citizen-soldiers and professionals, civilians and combatants. Yet realities have mostly straddled such demarcations. Even citizen-armies have usually included professionals, civilians have been treated as enemies and sometimes even formally defined as enemies, and rules have not conformed with binary distinctions, if they were respected at all. While customary rules governing the conduct of war have been turned into International Law, this is the only aspect of war that has developed in a fairly linear way, while the rise, disappearance, and renaissance of the just war tradition has been anything but linear. This non-linearity also applies to the brutality with which war has been fought, especially towards civilians, who for long stretches of European history must have been the main victims of war, notwithstanding increasing protection they were afforded in theory by customary law. To understand war, we must shed some of these binaries. (shrink)

_Justice and the Just War Tradition_ articulates a distinctive understanding of the reasons that can justify war, of the reasons that cannot justify war, and of the role that those reasons should play in the motivational and attitudinal lives of the citizens, soldiers, and statesmen who participate in war. Eberle does so by relying on a robust conception of human worth, rights, and justice. He locates this theoretical account squarely in the Just War Tradition. But his account is (...) not merely theoretical: _Justice and the Just War Tradition_ has a variety of practical aims, one of the most important of which is to serve as an aid to moral formation. The hope is that citizens, soldiers, and statesmen whose emotions and aspirations have been shaped by the Just War Tradition will be able to negotiate violent communal conflict in ways that respect the demands of justice. So _Justice and the Just War Tradition_ articulates a theoretically satisfying and practically engaging account of the reasons that count in favor of war. Moreover, Eberle develops that account by engaging contemporary theorists, both philosophical and theological, by according due deference to venerable contributors to the Just War Tradition, and by integrating insights from military memoire, the history of war, and the author's experience of teaching ethics at the United States Naval Academy. (shrink)

This innovative book proposes that what we think of as “moral conscience” is essentially the exercise of reflective judgment on the goods and ends arising in interpersonal relations, and that such judgment constitutes a form of taste. Through an historical survey Mitchell shows that the constant pendant to taste was an educational and cultural ideal, namely, that of the gentleman, whether he was an ancient Greek citizen-soldier, Roman magistrate, Confucian scholar-bureaucrat, Renaissance courtier, or Victorian grandee. Mitchell argues that it was (...) neither an ethical doctrine nor methodology that provided the high cultures with moral and political leadership, but rather an elite social order. While the gentry in the traditional sense no longer exists, it nevertheless made significant historical contributions, and insofar as we are concerned to understand the present state of human affairs, we need to grasp the nature and import of said contributions. (shrink)

Scholarly discussions of the live burials of Gauls and Greeks in the Forum Boarium in the mid- and late Republic replay the debate on Roman imperialism; those supporting the theory of “defensive” imperialism connect religious fears with military ones, while other scholars separate this ritual and the “enemy nations” involved in it from the actual enemies of current warfare in order to corroborate a more aggressive sense of Roman imperialism. After reviewing earlier interpretations and the problems of ancient evidence for (...) these Roman instances of “human sacrifice,” I propose a new reading based on a ritual parallel, a slightly earlier Greek oracle related to purification from avenging spirits. As burials of symbolic former enemies haunting Rome, the ritual suggests an insight into the experience of constant warfare and close-contact killing by citizen-soldiers in an aggressively imperialistic state. Especially with the disappearance of captive killings in the symbolic context of aristocratic burials and the emergence of Hellenistic epic to address elite glory, the live burials could have been critical in providing psychological closure to the once-soldiers back in Rome. Remarkably, the ritual offered an outlet in the religious realm for sentiments unwelcome in the Roman army: in the larger dynamic of the military and religious spheres, the strict world of military discipline was complemented by a religious realm that was much more open to external influence and innovation. (shrink)

The migration and settlement of 11 million unauthorized immigrants is among the leading political challenges facing the United States today. The majority of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. have been here for more than five years, and are settling into American communities, working, forming families, and serving in the military, even though they may be detained and deported if they are discovered. An open question remains as to what to do about unauthorized immigrants who are already living in the United (...) States. On one hand it is important that the government sends a message that future violations of immigration law will not be tolerated. On the other sits a deeper ethical dilemma that is the focus of this book: what do the state and citizens owe to unauthorized immigrants who have served their adopted country? -/- Earned Citizenship argues that long-term unauthorized immigrant residents should be able to earn legalization and a pathway to citizenship through service in their adopted communities. Their service would act as restitution for immigration law violations. Military service in particular would merit naturalization in countries with a strong citizen-soldier tradition, including the United States. The book also considers the civic value of caregiving as a service to citizens and the country, contending that family immigration policies should be expanded to recognize the importance of caregiving duties for dependents. This argument is part of a broader project in political theory and public policy aimed at reconciling civic republicanism with a feminist ethic of care, and its emphasis on dependency work. As a whole, Earned Citizenship provides a non-humanitarian justification for legalizing unauthorized immigrants based on their contributions to citizens and institutions in their adopted nation. (shrink)

Several elements suggest that Polybius’ description of the Roman army in Book VI of his Histories depicts a rather outdated military system, making it hard to accept it as an up-to-date portrait of the legions by the mid-second century BC. After all, the Roman army had been experiencing a series of changes since the mid-third century that were affecting both the army’ structure and how citizens experienced military service. This paper argues that the famous episode of Spurius Ligustinus (Livy (...) 42.34) contains several suggestions about the nature of these changes and their social ramifications. Although Livy embellished his source for rhetorical reasons, this episode still offers crucial evidence not only on the Roman army but especially, through the figure of Ligustinus himself, on the mid-Republican citizen-soldiers. Through a careful examination of key sections of this episode this paper aims to explore how, by this point, the army already presented features traditionally associated with Gaius Marius and his reforms, thus further emphasizing the outdatedness of Polybius’ description. By offering the very unique profile of an individual Roman citizen of the mid-second century and his relationship with military service, the speech of Ligustinus depicts a more believable and up-to-date representation of military service during the crucial decades of Roman Mediterranean expansion. (shrink)

Soldiers sign contracts to obey lawful orders; they also swear oaths to this end. The enlistment contract for the Armed Forces of the United States combines both elements: -/- '9a. My enlistment is more than an employment agreement. As a member of the Armed Forces of the United States, I will be: (1) Required to obey all lawful orders and perform all assigned duties … (4) Required upon order to serve in combat or other hazardous situations.' -/- We standardly (...) think that these oaths and contracts give soldiers new moral reasons to fight. Many also think that soldiers who are ordered to fight by legitimate states have moral reasons to obey those orders, just in virtue of their provenance. -/- We generate these reasons through our voluntary decisions—to sign the contract or swear the oath; to form the institutions and give the orders. They are therefore additional moral reasons, on top of the reasons that we have prior to those voluntary decisions. Simply because they are additional, these reasons seem limited in force and scope. In particular, they arguably cannot override pre-existing commitments. For example, if I already have a duty not to kill an innocent person, my promising to breach that duty seems irrelevant to whether doing so is permissible. Similarly for orders issued by legitimate states: the citizens of a legitimate state have pre-existing moral reasons not to kill the innocent; by what alchemy could their state's orders allow combatants to override those reasons? If additional reasons could make prohibited acts permissible, as Sidgwick observed, ‘we could evade any moral obligation by promising not to fulfil it, which is clearly absurd’ (Sidgwick 1981). -/- We might conclude that the contracts soldiers sign, the oaths they take and the orders they receive have weight only when they pertain to acts that soldiers are already allowed to do. Perhaps these additional reasons can require actions that would otherwise be merely permissible, but they cannot license otherwise prohibited actions. If this is right, then it radically limits the relevance of contracts, oaths and authority to the ethics of war, since almost all conflicts involve soldiers breaching some pre-existing moral duties. -/- This is obviously true for soldiers fighting on the unjust side in a war, since almost all the killing they do is unjust. But in all actual wars soldiers on the just side also kill at least some innocent victims, whether as part of an unjust subordinate aim, as ‘collateral damage’, or simply because their adversaries are not sufficiently responsible for unjustified threats to be liable to be killed. If additional reasons cannot make otherwise prohibited acts permissible, then they are practically irrelevant to the ethics of killing in war, at least in this sense: if fighting is impermissible without regard to the contract, oath and authority of their state, then fighting is simply impermissible. -/- This is a tempting conclusion. In this paper, however, I argue that even if it is true at the level of objective permissibility, it is false for subjective permissibility. And since subjective permissibility is where (at least some of) the action is in the ethics of war, this is a significant result. I explain first why additional reasons can make otherwise subjectively prohibited acts permissible, then why just war theorists should care more than they seem to about subjective permissibility. Although I focus throughout on the ethics of war, my arguments generalise to all kinds of additional reasons. (shrink)

Nowadays, the concepts of soldier and war have changed due to terrorism and the war on terrorism. According to the literature, to prevent terrorism, it is possible to use more violence, but how can we grant the safety of many versus the dignity of a few? In Israel, in order to protect civilians against possible terrorist attacks, Palestinian ambulances that would reach the Israeli hospitals (or the Palestinian hospitals in East Jerusalem) must be quickly controlled. However, many times, at the (...) checkpoint, patients have to wait for an Israeli vehicle that will take them to Israel. This procedure causes many delays in medical emergency. How to avoid that terrorists may receive better care than Palestinian civilians may just because they are already on the Israeli side of the Separation Wall? How is it possible to ensure the life and safety of many, without denying the right to healthcare to somebody? How to decide when the State requirements conflict with traditional medical duties? Is it acceptable to provide health care to a terrorist? What should be done when it is uncertain whether the ambulance transports weapons besides patients? These questions call upon the core role of the doctor and of the medical profession: taking care of all sick persons. The care is the starting point of ethics. If we do not care about other human beings we do not have a real moral comprehension of any human ideal or action. For this reason we can say that the care is the premise of morality. The rights of all citizens, including the claim to public security, grounds on the care for each individual who needs help. (shrink)

The creation of a citizen militia is a characteristic pretension of the Renaissance republicanism. The republic cannot lack defense nor defend themselves with mercenary armies. For Machiavelli, Guicciardini or Giannotti the citizen has a set of virtues, like austerity, discipline, patriotism or bravery, that make him the best soldier. Therefore, the Republican regime needs the citizens to be soldiers, because the military discipline itself is a means necessary to forge such civic virtues without which no republic can survive.

Because the goal of military medicine is salvaging the wounded who can return to duty, military medical ethics cannot easily defend devoting scarce resources to those so badly injured that they cannot return to duty. Instead, arguments turn to morale and political obligation to justify care for the seriously wounded. Neither argument is satisfactory. Care for the wounded is not necessary to maintain an army's morale. Nor is there any moral or logical connection between the right to health care (a (...) universal human right) and the duty to defend one's nation (a local political duty). Once badly wounded, soldiers enjoy the same right to medical care as any similarly ill or injured individual. National health care systems grasp this point and offer few additional health care benefits to veterans. In the United States, however, lack of universal health coverage skews the debate to focus on special entitlements for veterans without considering the health care rights that other citizens enjoy. (shrink)

Since Jonathan Shay's work with Vietnam veterans, moral injury has largely focused on the harm done to soldiers' moral character through their participation in warfare. This essay argues for the inclusion of noncombatants in the scope of inquiry involving moral injury. Specifically, it argues for the necessity of ordinary citizens assuming responsibility for the moral injury done to soldiers and civilians alike in the post‐9/11 wars.

Introduction : war, politics, democracy -- Democratic security -- Citizens and soldiers : the difference uniforms make -- A modest case for symmetry : are soldiers morally equal? -- Leaders and the gambles of war : against political luck -- War, democracy, and sSecrecy : secret law -- Must a democracy be ruthless? : torture and existential politics -- Humanitarian intervention and the new democratic holy wars -- Drones and democracy -- Democracy and the death of norms (...) -- Democratic states in victory : vae victis? -- Looking backward : democratic transitions and the choice of justice. (shrink)

This paper reconsiders whether Aquinas is rightly read as a double-effect thinker and whether it is right to understand him as concurring with Paul’s dictum that evil is not to be done that good may come. I focus on what to make of Aquinas’s position that, though the private citizen may not intend to kill a man in self-defense, those holding public authority, like soldiers, may rightly do so. On my interpretation, we cannot attribute to Aquinas the position that (...) aiming to kill in self-defense is prohibited where so aiming is the only way to stay alive. Instead, for the private citizen though not for the public authority, it is aiming to kill as an end in itself, over and above the aim of saving one’s life, that is prohibited. Accordingly, we also cannot attribute to Aquinas the third condition of the principle of double effect in its textbook formulation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:US War-Culture, Sacrifice and Salvation by Kelly Denton-BorhaugStephen M. VantasselUS War-Culture, Sacrifice and Salvation Kelly Denton-Borhaug oakville, ct: equinox, 2011. 279 pp. $34.95In US War-Culture, Sacrifice and Salvation, Kelly Denton-Borhaug uses cultural and linguistic analysis in order to understand the place of war in American culture and discourse. She begins by noting that war culture is so deeply embedded in America’s ethos that its citizens are generally (...) unaware of the extent to which the United States has been militarized, with both weapons and ideology. With sobering detail, Denton-Borhaug documents how the military has penetrated and shaped institutions ranging from colleges to industry. She explains how militarization is exemplified in the consumer and civilian culture through video games and the rise of a surveillance state. By way of this analysis, the author makes the case that Dwight Eisenhower’s fear concerning the influence of the military-industrial complex has fully been realized in modern America.Denton-Borhaug then addresses what she considers to be the ideological fountainhead for America’s militarism: the Christian doctrine of substitutionary atonement. In short, as Christianity teaches that an innocent man had to sacrifice himself to save humanity, so also American war-culture ideology teaches that soldiers, citizens, and the country must sacrifice on the battlefield in order to achieve national or political salvation. Denton-Borhaug suggests that politicians and others draw on the notion of the necessity of sacrifice as a way to convince people to support militarized conflict and to endure the inevitable hardships that result. By analyzing US political rhetoric between 2001 and 2003, Denton-Borhaug makes a compelling case that the Bush administration used sacrificial images of victims and abusers to set up a simple black-and-white ethical paradigm to justify the war in Afghanistan and Iraq.From there Denton-Borhaug turns to feminist theological and linguistic analysis to deconstruct the language of sacrifice in political discourse. She argues that when sacrifice in war is seen as a necessity, the brunt of its effects is often borne by the weakest groups in society. The sacrifice motif also sets up a problematic model of active masculine protectors and passive women in need of protection, which leaders often exploit to convince the public to “trust them.” [End Page 201]If Denton-Borhaug simply asked Christian leaders to guard against the use of Christian theology to justify national or political war-making interests, I doubt few would object to her case. In fact, I commend her for drawing attention to these critical issues and arguing for tactics that encourage peacemaking. Unfortunately, Denton-Borhaug argues that the solution to the political use of sacrificial theology is to jettison it, or at least to marginalize its use in Christian teaching. She proposes that we replace it with a theology of work, a cure that may be even worse than the disease she diagnoses and that is, moreover, not logically required to achieve the peacemaking she promotes. In this regard Denton-Borhaug could have been more transparent about her own presuppositions. For example, she clearly leans toward nonviolence, leaving readers to wonder whether genocide, nuclear buildup, and state-sponsored terrorism are the only justifications for war (222). Moreover, I am not completely convinced that America’s use of sacrificial language is an unvarnished harm. I suspect that at least some of the United States’ use of sacrificial language stems from a desire to avoid language that glorifies war. Would America be better off if we used militaristic terms like “Death to Afghanistan” that emphasize domination, rather than the suffering associated with “sacrifice”?Despite these weaknesses, Denton-Borhaug’s book is a valuable antidote for Christians who have grown too comfortable with America’s military-industrial complex and ideological war-culture machine. We would do well to take seriously her exhortation to work to remove the roots of war in our effort to create a world of peace.Stephen M. VantasselKing’s Evangelical Divinity SchoolCopyright © 2015 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Just war theory has traditionally accepted revolutionary overthrow of an undemocratic government as a just cause but not foreign intervention for the same purpose. For many contemporary cosmopolitan theorists this asymmetry involves an indefensible inconsistency. For example, Ned Dobos argues that it is only a potential foreign intervener’s duty to its own citizens and soldiers, not any additional duty of non-intervention, that places additional restrictions upon the use of force across borders. I defend insurrection/intervention asymmetry, arguing that due (...) to several intersecting practical difficulties, intervention has a higher threshold of just cause. I argue that interven­tion’s high costs and low likelihood of success, intervener’s limited ability to evaluate the validity of democratic intervention, and the effects of intervention on the international system, lead to a stronger presumption against intervention than revolution. In particular, democratization is a just cause for revolution but not humanitarian intervention. (shrink)

Larry May argues that the best way to understand war crimes is as crimes against humanness rather than as violations of justice. He shows that in a deeply pluralistic world, we need to understand the rules of war as the collective responsibility of states that send their citizens into harm's way, as the embodiment of humanity, and as the chief way for soldiers to retain a sense of honour on the battlefield. Throughout, May demonstrates that the principle of (...) humanness is the cornerstone of international humanitarian law, and is itself the basis of the traditional principles of discrimination, necessity, and proportionality. He draws extensively on the older Just War tradition to assess recent cases from the International Tribunal for Yugoslavia as well as examples of atrocities from the archives of the International Committee of the Red Cross. (shrink)

Whether refusal is an act of civil disobedience meant to challenge the state politically as a form of protest, or an action which reflects a deep moral objection to the policies of the state, selective conscientious objection presents the state and its citizens with a number of difficult legal and moral challenges. Appeals to authority outside of the state, whether religious or secular, influence both citizenship and the behavior of the government itself. As Israel raises funds to defend IDF (...) officers from charges of human rights violations in the United Kingdom, it may find itself in need of a better defense against those citizens hesitant to be placed in harm's way, militarily and legally. At some point in the future it may find itself unable to field soldiers for whom service in the Occupied Territories is prohibited by inviolable secular or religious law. And for those who will continue to argue that they cannot abide service in an army of occupation, an expression sounded in 1968 by Yeshayahu Leibowitz, the moral crisis of an individual conscience rent between obligations to the state and obligations to self, will linger along with the pain of a conscience nurtured and then rejected by this democratic society. (shrink)

The conventional dictionary definition of a term is important to the citizen and soldier obeying laws and judging actions that might fall under the term. The “Convention Against Torture” is both binding U.S. law and gives a clear, conventional definition of torture. But the Bush Administration’s standards for interrogating foreign detainees, originating from the Attorney General’s office, failed to respect the prohibitions of torture in the Convention and two other important international human rights documents. I criticize these standards on seven (...) grounds. The directives from President Bush and his Administration thus ordered or allowed most of the terrible recent tortures of Afghanis and Iraqis at Bagram Air Force Base, Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prisons. (shrink)

In the year of Eubulus' archonship at Athens, Timoleon the Corinthian, who had been chosen by his fellow citizens to command at Syracuse, prepared for his expedition to Sicily. He hired seven hundred mercenaries and having put his soldiers aboard four triremes and three fast sailing ships departed from Corinth. Following the coastal route he picked up three further ships from the Leucadians and Corcyreans and then with ten ships in all crossed the Ionian gulf to Italy. Thus (...) far Diodorus Siculus 16. 66. 1–2. In the course of the crossing, Diodorus continues, a peculiar and miraculous event befell Timoleon, with the supernatural order coming to the support of his enterprise and foreshadowing his eventual fame and the glory of his achievements. I now quote Diodorus' own words: δι' λης γρ τς νυκτς προηγετο λαμπάς καιομένη κατ τν ορανόν μέχρι ο συνέβη τν στόλον ες τν ταλίαν καταπλεσαι In translation: ‘throughout the whole night he was preceded by a torch that blazed in the sky until the flotilla reached land in Italy’. No more than a single night would, of course, have been required in order to accomplish the crossing of the gulf, with Timoleon presumably heading from Corcyra for the Iapygian promontory as was normal procedure in such transits. Diodorus goes on to recount that Timoleon, who had been informed in Corinth that Demeter and Persephone would accompany him on his voyage, recognized the actual assistance of the two goddesses, dedicated his best ship to them and named it Sacred vessel of Demeter and Kore. After diplomatic activity at Metapontum and Rhegium Timoleon proceeded from Italy to Sicily, where he landed at Tauromenium still in the year of Eubulus. (shrink)

Honoring Russell Hardin’s seminal contributions to the study of collective action, this paper describes several collective action problems faced by the citizens of American colonies and states in the years leading up to 1787, and demonstrates how they occasionally and temporarily managed to overcome them. In particular, the paper considers the cooperative or non-cooperative behavior of colonies and states in three arenas: contributions of soldiers and money in wars; participation in the non-importation, non-exportation, and non-consumption movements directed against (...) Great Britain; and trade relations among the states after independence. I observe that whereas farmers, planters, and artisans were willing to forsake their self-interest, under the influence of quasi-moral or social norms, merchants and politicians were not. Finally, I conclude that cooperation was rooted in the anger and enthusiasm of the first movers, who triggered the conditional cooperation of other citizens, and could easily unravel. (shrink)

Virgil, in his description of the establishment of a new city by Aeneas for those Trojans who wished to remain in Sicily, is thinking of the Roman practice of colonial foundation: ‘Meanwhile Aeneas marked out the city with the plough and allocated the houses ’. We may note the personal role of the founder, the ploughing of the ritual first furrow, the organized grants to the settlers and the equality of treatment implied in the use of lot . Virgil was (...) writing at the end of the first century B.C. at a time of great activity in land distribution, but the Romans had been founding colonies from the mid fourth century. Each colony involved the creation of an urban area and the settlement of people on the surrounding agricultural land, and so perpetuated the city state, which was central to ancient life and culture. Indeed a colony was a smaller image of Rome itself. In the early Republic, colonies, either of Latins or of Roman citizens, were established on the periphery of Roman territory, largely for military and strategic reasons. Between 200 and 173 B.C. more than 40,000 may have received plots of land, amounting to about 1,000 square miles of territory. Later, the motives for colonial foundations became more complex, being closely connected with increasing economic and political problems. There can have been few more important aspects in the development of colonies than the need to find land for discharged troops. These in the main were rank and file soldiers who would expect equal shares in land allocations. (shrink)

Commemoration of a field service held by 1200 Jewish soldiers protected by their gentile comrades on Yom Kippur of 1870 during the siege of Metz in the Franco-Prussian war played an important role among German Jews as a symbol of acceptance and integration into the society as citizens with equal rights. Based on a short note in several newspapers it became very fast a very common commemoration among Jews. But it was a pious fraud of an act that (...) never happened in the described way. Although this was known and already published in late 1870 it did not hamper the spreading. In recent years this tradition of commemoration was revitalized. This time even in combination with a wrong date: the day when the French garrison of Metz surrendered. Moreover, it is described even by officials as an act of traditional religious tolerance in the German armed forces. (shrink)