This chapter analyses Simmel’s worldview during his last years (ca. 1910 – 1918). It argues that under the influence of life philosophy, he developed a peculiar philosophical formula in which unity and contradictions (dualisms) coexisted on two different planes without cancelling another. Various forms in which this idea is addressed are analysed through Simmel’s writings on Goethe, Rembrandt and his essays on the First World War. The chapter argues that initially this approach allowed Simmel to subscribe to an encompassing universalism which he found in Goethe. However, via his preoccupation with Rembrandt and especially in his polemics about the First World War, he used this formula to move in the opposite direction: that is, it allowed him to justify single-mindedness and the fanaticism of action. Thus, the question of whether this worldview should be seen as the ultimate philosophical solution to the question of unity versus variety, or rather represents the highest degree of philosophical aporia, remains unresolved.

This chapter assess four accounts of the relationship between the morality and the law of war and the implications that each has for the retention or replacement of two key features of the latter: the equality of combatants, and noncombatant or civilian immunity.Michael Walzer defends these features of the law of war on the grounds that they mirror the content of the true morality of war.In contrast, Jeff McMahan, Adil Haque, and David Rodin argue that in its commitment to the equality of combatants and noncombatant immunity, the law of war deviates from the content of the true morality of war.While Rodin argues that the law of war ought to be reformed so as to mirror the (revisionist) morality of war, McMahan and Haque both defend it on the grounds that combatants will generally do better at acting as morality requires if they follow the existing law of war.Finally, Henry Shue and Janina Dill reject the assumption shared by all of the aforementioned theorists that the law of war should aim to minimize the violation of individual rights.Instead, they argue that it should serve the humanitarian goal of reducing the harm war causes.