DETAILS

This workshop will present basic ethical principles from Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions of thought about war and peace. In considering these principles, Dr. Alexander will also explain how ethical thinking about war in the international sphere has coalesced into the set of principles called the “just war tradition.” The group will then consider how principles in the just war tradition might apply to complicated contemporary issues of warfare that don’t fit the “classic” model of a state (or some political group equivalent to a state) going to war against another state. The case studies will involve asymmetric warfare after the Russian invasion of Ukraine; the civil war in El Salvador that involved a rebel group fighting against an oppressive government; and a summary of some instances of state terror or state-sponsored terror.