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Recapturing the Just War for Political Theory

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WalzerMichael, Just and Unjust Wars. A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations.New York: Basic Books, 1977, 361 pp., $15.00.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Hedley Bull
Hedley Bull
Affiliation:
Oxford University
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Abstract

Michael Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations is a fine work which is right to defend the “moral reality” of war and to dismiss relativist approaches. But he does not provide a defense of his position against beliefs (for example, in absolute pacificism, in revolutionary war, or in collectivist approaches) fundamentally at loggerheads with his own. If the discussion of just war is to be more than an exchange of opinions, there must be attention to ethical foundations.

Type
Review Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 31 , Issue 4 , July 1979 , pp. 588 - 599
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1979

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References

1 See, for example, Brownlie, Ian, International Law and the Use of Force by States (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1963)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 The seminal work in this field is that of Thomas Schelling. See, for example, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1960)Google Scholar.

3 See, for example, Wight's, Martin discussion of just war and holy war in Systems of States (Leicester, England: Leicester University Press, and Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1977)Google Scholar.

4 For example, Kissinger's, HenryNuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy (New York: Harper 1957)Google Scholar.

5 Sec, for example, Stein, Walter, ed., Nuclear Weapons and Christian Conscience (London: Merlin Press 1963)Google Scholar; Ramsey, Paul, War and the Christian Conscience: How Shall Modern War Be Justly Conducted? (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press 1961)Google Scholar, and Ramsey, , The Just War: Force and Political Responsibility (New York: Scribner 1968)Google Scholar; Midgley, E.B.F., The Natural Law Tradition and the Theory of International Relations (London: P. Elek 1975)Google Scholar.

6 See Ramsey, The Just War (fn, 5).

7 See esp. Midgley (fn. 5); Donelan, Michael, ed., The Reason of States (Winchester, England: Allen & Unwin 1978)Google Scholar, chap. 4.

8 See Wight (fn. 3), 12.