Statement of Project

 

In Ethics and the Use of Force James Turner Johnson argues that success in finding ways to limit the incidence and destructiveness of war-making requires engaging the classical tradition of just war while taking account of the current political, social, and technological developments that may change the nature of war. “Ever more careful efforts to refine the understanding of the jus in bello criteria or ever more strident insistence on following them,” says Johnson, is not enough.No history of just war theory could fail to note the evolution of just war theory in response to changing historical circumstances. We can trace just war thinking in the West at least back to Augustine, but to read Augustine on the justified use of force is to enter a pre-Westphalian world where the sovereignty of nation states is unrecognized. To attend to this evolution is to be reminded that the moral resources that military professionals consult in arriving at moral judgments about counterterrorism are open to revision, as are the application of professed values to the novel threats posed by contemporary terrorism. In his 2010 book, The Moral Warrior, Martin Cook put this point about the changing circumstances of military engagement provocatively by suggesting that we may be at an epochal historical turning point that necessitates a fundamental shift in our moral thinking about war. The just war theory that emerged in response to the post-Reformation Westphalian order may no longer be adequate given twenty-first century terrorist threats to civilization itself.The workshop on counterterrorism and just war theory will bring together scholars of religion, law, and security studies to explore challenges to limiting the destructiveness of contemporary warfare. Specifically, the workshop will examine the deployment of unmanned drones for use in the targeted killing of non-state actors as an example of a use of force that requires critical reexamination of just war theory. Concepts crucial to contemporary just war theory are importantly challenged by the use of targeted killing of non-state actors. For example, the categories of “self-defense, “combatants,” “non-combatant immunity,” and “imminent threat” need to be reexamined in light of current U.S. counterterrorism policy.The workshop will take place April 7-8. Each participant in the workshop has recommended a reading and will lead a group discussion of the reading he or she recommended.