This study argues for three main theses: (1) Immanuel Kant’s ethics is a social ethics; (2) the basic premises of his social ethics point to a socialist ethics; and (3) this socialist ethics constitutes a suitable platform for criticizing and improving Karl Marx’s view of morality. -/- Some crucial aspects of Kant’s social ethics are that we must promote the “realm of ends” as a moral society of co-legislators who assist each other in the pursuit of their individual ends, which (...) requires in turn that we seek the realization of the republican state and peace between the nations. Thus, hope for progress, as supported by the enthusiasm engendered among the spectators of the French Revolution, becomes pivotal to Kant’s ethics as well as other moral feelings such as moral indignation and solidarity with the victims of oppression. -/- Kant views the moral society in the final instance as an “inner” unification of good wills. In a decisive elaboration of Kant, the neo-Kantian Hermann Cohen argues that all our social institutions, and notably economic enterprises, must instantiate the “realm of ends,” leading him to support cooperative socialism in Wilhelmine Germany. In his own words, Kant “is the true and real originator of German socialism” (1896). -/- There are important evaluative similarities between Kantian socialist ethics and Marx, such as a condemnation of capitalism as a system of servitude and an understanding of the ideal society as a cooperative society, but only Marx contends that the ideal society does not set a moral task and that there is a dialectic operative in human history that inevitably leads to communist society. This dogmatic Hegelian understanding of history must be replaced by Kantian regulative understanding of progress in support of revolutionary praxis as moral praxis. -/- We need a “Kantianization” of Marx, as Cohen and other neo-Kantian socialists also proclaimed in the three decades leading up to World War I. This study concludes with “A Historical Note on Kantian Ethical Socialism,” addressing, among others, Cohen, Karl Vorländer, Eduard Bernstein, and Kurt Eisner and the Munich Revolution of 1918. Their voices were largely silenced by the rise of fascism, and this study hopes to show that their voices still need to be heard. -/- Awarded the 1985 Johnsonian Prize in Philosophy. (shrink)

The just war tradition is an evolving body of tenets for determining when resorting to war is just and how war may be justly executed. Rethinking the Just War Tradition provides a timely exploration in light of new security threats that have emerged since the end of the Cold War, including ongoing conflicts in the Middle East, threats of terror attacks, and genocidal conflicts within states. The contributors are philosophers, political scientists, a U.S. Army officer, and a senior analyst at (...) the Center for Defense Information. They scrutinize some familiar themes in just war theory from fresh and original angles, and also explore altogether new territory. The diverse topics considered include war and the environment, justice in the ending of war, U.S. military hegemony, a general theory of just armed-conflict principles, supreme emergencies, the distinction between combatants and noncombatants, child soldiers, the moral equality of all soldiers, targeted assassination, preventive war, right authority, and armed humanitarian intervention. Clearly written and free of jargon, this book illustrates how the just war tradition can be rethought and applied today. Contributors include Mark Woods, Eric Patterson, Harry van der Linden, John Lango, Frederik Kaufman, Pauline Kaurin, Reuben Brigety II, Rachel Stohl, Michael Brough, Whitley Kaufman, Jordy Rocheleau, Hartley Spatt, and Robert Hoag. (shrink)

This book chapter addresses two questions. First, can targeted killing by drones in non-battlefield zones be justified on basis of just war theory? Second, will the proliferation and expansion of combat drones in warfare, including the introduction of autonomous drones, be an obstacle to initiating or executing wars in a just manner in the future? The first question is answered by applying traditional jus ad bellum and jus in bello principles to the American targeted killing campaign in Pakistan; the second (...) question is answered on basis of principles of “just military preparedness” or jus ante bellum, a new category of just war thinking. It is concluded that an international ban on weaponized drones is morally imperative and, certainly, that an international treaty against autonomous lethal weapons should be adopted. (shrink)

Drone warfare, particularly in the form of targeted killing, has serious legal, moral, and political costs so that a case can be made for an international treaty prohibiting this type of warfare. However, the case would be stronger if it could be shown that killing by drones is inherently immoral. From this angle I explore the moral significance of two features of this technology of killing: the killing is done by remote control with the operators geographically far away from the (...) target zone and the killing is typically the outcome of a long process of surveillance. I argue that remote control killing as such might not be inherently wrong but poses the risks of globalizing conflict and prioritizing troop protection above civilian safety, while the “deadly surveillance” aspect of drone killing makes it most clearly intrinsically wrong. (shrink)

This paper questions the extension of the common notion of violence, i.e., “subjective violence,” involving the intentional use of force to inflict injury or damage, towards social injustice as “systemic violence.” Systemic violence is altogether unlike subjective violence and the work of Slavoj Žižek illustrates that conceptual obfuscation in this regard may lead to an overly broad and facile justification of revolutionary violence as counter-violence to systemic violence, appealing to the ethics of self-defense. I argue that revolutionary violence is only (...) justified to counter subjective violence inflicted or organized by the state. Thus I reject in conclusion Žižek’s further defense of revolutionary violence as retributive and as “shock therapy” necessary to disrupt the old society. (shrink)

The Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, has already caused large amounts of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and will continue to do so for many years after hostilities have ceased mainly because of the emissions linked to the rebuilding of destroyed or damaged housing, public buildings, infrastructure, factories, and the like. My aim in this paper is to discuss how in a time of climate emergency such emissions of war should impact the political morality of states initiating, continuing, (...) and ending war (through a just and enduring peace) as understood by just war theory (JWT). My point of departure is a study by Lennard de Klerk and six co-authors detailing the emissions of the first year of the Russo-Ukrainian war. (shrink)

The neo-Kantian Hermann Cohen famously wrote that Kant “is the true and real originator of German socialism.” This paper seeks to explicate Cohen’s socialist reconstruction of Kant’s ethics and show that this reconstruction overcomes some weaknesses of Kant’s ethics. In conclusion, the paper discusses the contemporary relevance of Cohen’s cooperative socialism.

Just War Theorists have neglected that a lack of “just military preparedness” on the side of a country seriously undermines its capability to resort justly to military force. In this paper, I put forth five principles of “just military preparedness” and show that since the new Obama administration will seek to maintain the United States’ dominant military position in the world, it will violate each of the principles. I conclude on this basis that we should anticipate that the Obama administration (...) will add another page to the United States’ history of unjust military interventions. (shrink)

Under Review: Matthew T. Huber. Climate Change as Class War. Building Socialism on a Warming Planet. Brooklyn, NY: Verso, 2022. Paperback, pp. 312. $24.95. ISBN 978-1-78873-388-5.

The neo-Kantian Hermann Cohen famously wrote that Kant “is the true and real originator of German socialism.” This paper seeks to explicate Cohen’s socialist reconstruction of Kant’s ethics and show that this reconstruction overcomes some weaknesses of Kant’s ethics. In conclusion, the paper discusses the contemporary relevance of Cohen’s cooperative socialism.

My main aim in this paper is to arrive at a defensible form of Marxian or socialist political universalism through a critical examination of Marx's own political universalism. In the next section, I will outline several moral errors that Walzer ascribes to political universalism, including Marx's, and show that Walzer largely misdirects his criticisms because what primarily accounts for Marx committing the errors is his Hegelian metaphysical conception of history, not his political universalism as such.

President Barack Obama has clearly placed himself in the just war tradition, and so we may ask how successful has President Obama in fact been as just war theorist? His justification of the recent NATO intervention in Libya shows that the record is at best mixed. More broadly, Obama’s failure as just war theorist is at least partly a failure of the theory itself: as long as this theory does not address issues of “just military preparedness,” it will fail to (...) place real constraints on American resort to military force. (shrink)

Many contemporary liberals adhere to the "liberal peace project" -- that is, the idea that world peace can be realized through the spread of political liberalism, or capitalist democracy. The LPP is based on projecting toward the future the well-documented fact that secure modern democracies have never fought wars with one another. A spirit of optimism prevails among LPP proponents, bolstered by the recent uprise in democracies, and they argue that their cause can be advanced by a liberal foreign policy (...) that promotes free trade and human rights. I argue that the LPP is flawed by not recognizing that the stability of new democracies and the emergence of additional democratic states require a fundamental regulation of the growing global economic market. It should include global labor rights, a "Tobin tax" or a "global resources dividend" that generates capital for investment in developing countries, and global environmental measures. I conclude that lasting world peace necessitates global justice and a democratization of international institutions. (shrink)

Should the U.N. Security Council use its coercive powers to bring about effective climate change mitigation? This question remains relevant considering the inadequate mitigation goals set by the signatories of the Paris Climate Accord and the ramifications of U.S. withdrawal from the Accord. This paper argues that the option of the unsc coercing climate change mitigation through military action, or the threat thereof, is morally flawed and ultimately antithetical to effectively addressing climate change. This assessment is based significantly on the (...) application of jus ad bellum principles of just war theory, incorporating some feminist critiques of this theory. (shrink)

My main objective in this paper is to show that Hermann Cohen's ethics offers an important but hitherto neglected contribution to the- current debate within Anglo-American ethics on the moral status of the modern business corporation.

International law grants to legitimate combatants the right to kill enemy soldiers both in wars of aggression and defensive wars. A main argument in support of this “combatant’s privilege” is Michael Walzer’s doctrine of the “moral equality of soldiers.” The doctrine argues that soldiers fighting in wars of aggression and defensive wars have the same moral status because they both typically believe that justice is on their side, and their moral choices are equally severely restricted by the overwhelming coercive powers (...) of the state, including propaganda, conscription, and harsh penalties for the refusal to fight. Recently, this doctrine has been convincingly refuted, at least with regard to aggressor soldiers who are part of professional volunteer armies in democratic societies. However, Walzer’s critics have not challenged combatant’s privilege, primarily for a variety of pragmatic reasons. This paper examines these reasons, finds them not decisive, and articulates a modest proposal for denying, under some conditions, combatant’s privilege to aggressor soldiers, making their very participation in a war of aggression a war crime. It is concluded that unrestricted combatant’s privilege is in tension with the aim of the United Nations “to save succeeding generationsfrom the scourge of war.”. (shrink)

Editors’ Introduction: Radical Philosophy and Politics Amid the Climate Crisis and the Coronavirus Pandemic for Radical Philosophy Review.

This essay is part of a symposium on Cheyney Ryan’s The Chickenhawk Syndrome: War, Sacrifice, and Personal Responsibility . Ryan’s reply to his critics can be found on pp. 181-89 in Radical Philosophy Review, Volume 13, Issue 2, 2010.

In this paper I question the morality of U.S. military supremacy or hegemony in terms of what constitute the legitimate use of military force and the proper preparation for using such force. I first discuss in a somewhat synoptic fashion how American hegemonic military force has been justified in dishonest ways and wrongly executed. Next, I show that Just War Theory needs to be revised in order to come to a convincing assessment of U.S. military hegemony and its use of (...) military force. This leads me to propose “just military preparedness,” consisting of five principles of just military preparedness, as a new category of JWT. The failure of the United States to satisfy the principles puts into question its very capability of justly resorting to military force, of lawfully executing force, and of establishing a just peace after war. The principles also point to a more humane alternative of how the United States could meet security threats and sustain a peaceful international order. (shrink)

Justice requires that high consumption in affluent societies be slowed down for the sake of eradicating extreme poverty in the developing world and improving the condition of its very moderate consumers. A slowdown of high consumption for the sake of ending worldwide poverty can be realized through a social regulation of the global economy. This social regulation should include labor standards, environmental measures, rules for global capital investments, and a distributive schema that shifts some of the wealth obtained from globalization (...) from the rich countries to the developing world. To avoid that the social regulation of the global economy would have a regressive impact on lower-income groups in the affluent societies, a progressive consumption tax should be adopted with a standard deduction large enough so that these groups would not have to pay any tax at all. Attempts to slow down high consumption through a social regulation of the global economy will meet two institutional limits, the sovereign state and capitalism. In the final instance, justice and joyful simplicity for all humans may require cosmopolitan democracy and socialism. (shrink)

My main aim here is to examine what the significance is of the communitarian critique of liberalism for Hermann Cohen's political philosophy. I will conclude that Cohen's socialist Kantianism can successfully meet this critique. Also, I will argue that his political philosophy can better deal with some of the problems that communitarians detect in our Western democracies than can communitarianism itself. One crucial reason for this is that Cohen completes the original Kantian liberal project by making all agents fully autonomous (...) in the economic sphere. (shrink)