This book comprises essays that focus on a range of thinkers that challenge the boundaries of the just war tradition.

The ethics of war scholarship has become a rigid and highly disciplined activity, closely associated with a very particular canon of thinkers. This volume moves beyond this by presenting thinkers not typically regarded as part of that canon, but who have interesting and potentially important things to say about the ethics of war. The book presents twenty profile essays on an eclectic cast of heretics, humanists, and radicals, from Epictetus to Rosa Luxemburg to Frantz Fanon and Judith Butler. The book asks whether there is a good reason for the marginalisation of these thinkers and what ethics of war scholars might benefit from engaging with them. Some of these thinkers engage directly with-to augment or criticise-the just war tradition, while others contribute to military thinking across the ages and push the boundaries of what was acceptable in war. Many proffer alternative moral frameworks regarding the legitimacy of political violence. The present volume thus invites scholars to reconsider the ethics of war in a way that challenges the standard delineation between just war theory, realism, and pacifism, and to reflect on how those positions might inform our own approach to these matters.

This book will be of much interest to students of just war theory, ethics of war, war studies and International Relations.

About the Author

Daniel R. Brunstetter is Professor in Political Science at University of California, Irvine, USA. He is author of two books and editor of two volumes, including Just War Thinkers (2018).

Cian O'Driscoll is Professor of International Relations at the Australian National University (ANU), Canberra, Australia. He is author of two books and editor of three volumes, including Just War Thinkers (2018).

Reviews

"In an exciting break with convention, Just War Thinkers Revisited replaces the usual protagonists with an unexpected ensemble of radicals, heretics and nonconformists, whose work is often pushed to the margins or neglected altogether. Engaging with these intellectual outsiders allows the contributors to the collection to revamp tired ethical debates, reinvent accepted ethical assumptions, and reimagine settled ethical concepts."

Thomas Gregory, Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, University of Auckland, New Zealand

"A much welcome - and delightfully lyrical - disruption of entrenched categories in the Just War tradition. The authors mobilize thinkers and ideas from a broader spectrum of political philosophy than is the norm, and in so doing, they pay heed to the ethos of thinking ethically about war. The volume is a refreshing departure from endless reinterpretations of traditional texts in the understanding that these, albeit important, can take us only so far in understanding war and violence. And it is a step forward in coming to terms with the political power of the Just War tradition itself."

Elke Schwarz, Reader (Associate Professor) in Political Theory, Queen Mary University London

Book Information
ISBN 9781032550329
Author Daniel Brunstetter
Format Paperback
Page Count 384
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd