Rethinking the Just War: Lessons from China
Many philosophers working on the ethics of war and peace view their primary task as uncovering the "deep morality" of war (to use Jeff McMahan's term): the fundamental moral permissions, restrictions, rights, and duties that agents involved in armed conflicts have. Of course, these thinkers are aware, we should not translate these principles into laws and norms to be used in practice in a straightforward manner; various pragmatic reasons warrant departing from fundamental morality here. But they tend to think that the ideal norms and laws of war somewhat resemble war's deep morality.
In collaborative work, we test this assumption. Drawing on a number of case studies from modern Chinese history, we argue that a number of political and psychological factors require fundamentally rethinking how we regulate war. Initial studies (here and here) suggest a tendency of existing frameworks (often based on philosophical theories of warfare) to exacerbate unjust violence in ways unintended by lawmakers and norm entrepreneurs. In the future, we plan to write a book offering a more all-encompassing examination, as well as a new methodology for action-guiding philosophy more generally.
This project has been funded by a British Acadamy/Leverhulme small grant.
Many philosophers working on the ethics of war and peace view their primary task as uncovering the "deep morality" of war (to use Jeff McMahan's term): the fundamental moral permissions, restrictions, rights, and duties that agents involved in armed conflicts have. Of course, these thinkers are aware, we should not translate these principles into laws and norms to be used in practice in a straightforward manner; various pragmatic reasons warrant departing from fundamental morality here. But they tend to think that the ideal norms and laws of war somewhat resemble war's deep morality.
In collaborative work, we test this assumption. Drawing on a number of case studies from modern Chinese history, we argue that a number of political and psychological factors require fundamentally rethinking how we regulate war. Initial studies (here and here) suggest a tendency of existing frameworks (often based on philosophical theories of warfare) to exacerbate unjust violence in ways unintended by lawmakers and norm entrepreneurs. In the future, we plan to write a book offering a more all-encompassing examination, as well as a new methodology for action-guiding philosophy more generally.
This project has been funded by a British Acadamy/Leverhulme small grant.