The United States has a unique responsibility and opportunity to use democracy to end war; but, after 9/11, many can no longer imagine pacifism in any form. Practical Pacifism argues for an approach to peace that aims beyond religion toward a moral consensus that is developed pragmatically through dialogue aimed at overlapping consensus.
The United States has a unique responsibility and opportunity to use democracy to end war; but, after 9/11, many can no longer imagine pacifism in any form. Practical Pacifism argues for an approach to peace that aims toward a moral consensus that is developed pragmatically through dialogue aimed at overlapping consensus. Andrew Fiala is an Associate Professor of Philosophy and Humanistic Studies at the University of Wisconsin. He has written many articles for Philosophy in the Contemporary World, Metaphilosophy, Res Publica, the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and The Humanist.
Veteran scholar and peace activist David Cortright offers a definitive history of the human striving for peace and an analysis of its religious and intellectual roots. This authoritative, balanced, and highly readable volume traces the rise of peace advocacy and internationalism from their origins in earlier centuries through the mass movements of recent decades: the pacifist campaigns of the 1930s, the Vietnam antiwar movement, and the waves of disarmament activism that peaked in the 1980s. Also explored are the underlying principles of peace - nonviolence, democracy, social justice, and human rights - all placed within a framework of 'realistic pacifism'. Peace brings the story up-to-date by examining opposition to the Iraq War and responses to the so-called 'war on terror'. This is history with a modern twist, set in the context of current debates about 'the responsibility to protect', nuclear proliferation, Darfur, and conflict transformation.
In a world riven with conflict, violence and war, this book proposes a philosophical defense of pacifism. It argues that there is a moral presumption against war and unless that presumption is defeated, war is unjustified. Leading philosopher of non-violence Robert Holmes contends that neither just war theory nor the rationales for recent wars (Vietnam, the Gulf War, the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars) defeat that presumption, hence that war in the modern world is morally unjustified. A detailed, comprehensive and elegantly argued text which guides both students and scholars through the main debates (Just War Theory and double effect to name a few) clearly but without oversimplifying the complexities of the issues or historical examples.
In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, this thought-provoking essay explores the Buddha's teaching to find one prescription: not war, not pacifism but nonviolence.
With today's world torn by violence and conflict, Richard B. Miller's study of the ethics of war could not be more timely. Miller brings together the opposed traditions of pacifism and just-war theory and puts them into a much-needed dialogue on the ethics of war. Beginning with the duty of nonviolence as a point of convergence between the two rival traditions, Miller provides an opportunity for pacifists and just-war theorists to refine their views in a dialectical exchange over a set of ethical and social questions. From the interface of these two long- standing and seemingly incompatible traditions emerges a surprisingly fruitful discussion over a common set of values, problems, and interests: the presumption against harm, the relation of justice and order, the ethics of civil disobedience, the problem of self-righteousness in moral discourse about war, the ethics of nuclear deterrence, and the need for practical reasoning about the morality of war. Miller pays critical attention to thinkers such as Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, as well as to modern thinkers like H. Richard Niebuhr, Paul Ramsey, Martin Luther King, Jr., James Douglass, the Berrigans, William O'Brien, Michael Walzer, and James Childress. He demonstrates how pacifism and just-war tenets can be joined around both theoretical and practical issues. Interpretations of Conflict is a work of massive scholarship and careful reasoning that should interest philosophers, theologians, and religious ethicists alike. It enhances our moral literacy about injury, suffering, and killing, and offers a compelling dialectical approach to ethics in a pluralistic society. Richard B. Miller is assistant professor of religious studies at Indiana University.
The Individual and the Political Order examines major theoretical perspectives, both historical and contemporary, in major issues in social and political philosophy. It combines accessibility with appreciation of philosophical complexity and discusses applied issues, such as morality and war, as well as theoretical approaches to justice, rights, and democratic liberal thought.