Review of Frowe and Lang's new book How We Fight

Very nice review of Helen Frowe and Gerald Lang's new book How We Fight: Ethics in war. The book as a whole sounds interesting if you are into the kind of stuff discussed, which I am.

However, the reviewer makes some very important points at the end of his review which I think are worth repeating and adding to. The reviewer points out the conservative nature of the anthology and the fact that this is a problem. By this he means that the questions that are dealt with in the book are standard old questions of just war theory (JWT) and the methodology is that of technical analytic philosophy. I agree. More importantly, as the reviewer points out, good just war theory is able to guide policy makers and perhaps even soldiers make real decisions about real issues.

On that note, I'd also like to point out that although the cast of authors consists mostly of outstanding scholars, there is only one (best I can tell) of the lot who is a veteran of a military or a policy maker. Perhaps such collections would look different if they included and took into account more of such people. There are certainly no lack of scholars who have experience in militaries and with shaping military policy. 

Workshop on Analytic Just War Theory

From an email: 

Workshop on Analytic Just War Theory

Jindal Global University, New Delhi

09.30 – 17.00, 28 Feb 2015

Co-hosted by Jindal Global University, the Stockholm Centre for the Ethics of War and Peace, and the Jack and Mae Nathanson Centre on Transnational Human Rights, Crime and Security.

The past decade has seen a surge of interest in the ethics of war amongst political, moral, and legal analytic philosophers. This is due in no small part to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, to the related issues of terrorism and drone use, and the number of recent civil conflicts in which it seems third parties might be permitted or required to intervene. There is a considerable amount of scholarship being undertaken in India that addresses some of these issues from a legal perspective. But there is surprisingly little work being done on the ethics of war per se, outside of some key historical, religious, and interpretive theological debates. Indeed, at present, there is virtually no philosophical work being done on the ethics of war in the analytic tradition—even in terms of how these may relate to the laws of war that India has claimed to adhere to ever since its independence. 

This workshop is a pilot event that is intended to be part of a larger project engaging with Indian researchers who are interested in participating in the very active debate currently going on in analytic just war theory, and developing international collaborative links with those researchers. The workshop will be led by Helen Frowe (Director, Stockholm Centre for the Ethics of War and Peace) and François Tanguay-Renaud (Director, Jack and Mae Nathanson Centre). Key texts in contemporary just war theory will be assigned and form the basis of our discussion. Participants will be asked to prepare a brief comment or reaction piece, which they will be invited to present on the day. Attendance is free, but participants must register in advance by emailing jwtconference2015@gmail.com. More information can be found here. Please note that lunch will be served, and that the workshop will be followed by a dinner.

Smart weapons vs killer robots

Michael Horowitz and Paul Scharre have an interesting article about the difference between smart weapons and killer robots. Worth reading. (H/T WOTR)

Philosophy Now - war and peace issue

Philosophy Now just came out with a war and peace issue. They seemed to have put together an interesting and diverse set of contributors - including David Boersema, David P. Barash, Duane Cady, Andrew Fiala, and Dr Anja Steinbauer. It would have been nice however for them to have included someone with actual foreign policy or military experience.

Ethical decision making in networked military operations

Christine Boshuijzen's PhD thesis is an interesting project on ethical decision making in networked military operations. 

Nancy Sherman, philosopher to the military

. . . interviewed here. 

The killer robot debate - 5 myths

...at the Monkey Cage. 

When should nations kill?

A panel discussion. 

Military using deep brain stimulation

Could deep brain stimulation fortify soldiers' minds against PTSD? If if can should the military use it? S. Matthew Liao, the bioethicist, discusses ethical and related issues here. 

The most memorable conversation

The most memorable conversation this airman ever had was with the philosopher Marjorie Grene. (h/t Daily Nous)

If anyone will be in Sweden in the beginning of February. . . this looks like fun

Intensive course on the Ethics of War
Stockholm Centre for the Ethics of War and Peace
2 - 6 February, 2015
Helen Frowe and Jonathan Parry

The past twenty-five years have witnessed a remarkable rise in philosophical interest in the ethical problems raised by war. This course will provide a general introduction to the main approaches within this expanding field and explore in detail several of the most pressing and contested issues under debate, such as: Under what circumstances is it permissible to initiate a war? How should we understand the notion of proportionality? Are combatants fighting an unjust war the moral equals of those fighting a just war? Are non-combatants always illegitimate targets in war? What is the role of 'legitimate authority' in political violence? In what ways does terrorism differ from war?

The course is aimed at upper-level undergraduates and graduate students. No prior knowledge of just war theory will be assumed, but participants will be expected to do the set reading in advance. It is free and open to all interested parties. It can either be taken for ECTS credits (7.5 credits, assessed by essay), or simply audited For Fun. The course will be delivered by a combination of interactive lectures and reading group-style seminars, based on readings circulated before the start of the course. There will also be opportunities for students to give short presentations. Places will be limited, so please let us know if you want to attend by emailing helen.frowe@philosophy.su.se. Please indicate if you would like to give a presentation (these should be no longer than 20 minutes). The course will be taught in English.

For those coming from outside Stockholm, there’s a good range of affordable accommodation available through Airbnb. Aim for somewhere near a T-bana stop for hassle-free commuting to the university.

Any questions, please email Helen Frowe.
-----------------------------
Dr. Helen Frowe (www.helenfrowe.weebly.com)
Director, Stockholm Centre for the Ethics of War and Peace
Wallenberg Academy Research Fellow, Department of Philosophy, Stockholm
helen.frowe@philosophy.su.se

links

Conference about the Army Ethic here and here.

The new American Military Ethic here.

Apparently the US Army is the second largest employer of philosophy majors on LinkedIn. See here.  

research workshop

“Disappearing War”

Cinema and the politics of erasure in the war on terror

Monday 13th April 2015, Minghella Building, University of Reading, UK

Call for papers:

The war on terror and the battles that have been fought in its name have fueled a rigorous debate about the changing nature of war. Is the war on terror even a war? Should we think of the US-led invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003 as large-scale counter-terrorism / counter-insurgency operations rather than wars in the traditional sense? Highlighting the effects of technological advances, drawing on statistics and the alleged precision of modern warfare, some scholars have moved to argue that war is declining and the idea of peace is gaining traction in the world. Others, emphasizing the complex experiences of war, reject claims of war's disappearance. They argue that that it is the geography of wars that is changing and that new spaces such as counter-terrorism operations in the West are increasingly more war-like. What these emerging notions of contemporary war lack is a meaningful engagement with the full extent of collateral damage and the experience of its victims. In more theoretical terms, what is missing from the debate is a focus on the fragmentary evidence on which our knowledge of contemporary war is based. The unprecedented level of technologization and visual mediation that marks the experience of life in the here and now raises an acute question: how do we know war?

The privileged act of analyzing at a remove from the geographical theaters of war entails that we experience the characteristics of modern war by proxy. Specifically, the proliferation of visual media interventions make visible that to which we have no direct access. As a consequence, visual media becomes the new battle ground for war to take place, shaping understandings of what war is, what it does and what it does not do. Cinema, with its wide reach and powerful affective potential, has the ability to make visible to us, and in a sense allows us to experience, the wars from which we are physically removed. At the same time, the ability of cinema to select what we see engenders a necessarily partial view which carries the risk that wars’ brutality is simply erased from the picture.

The workshop seeks to address these different processes of erasure and their consequences for our understanding of modern wars: What is made visible, and what is not? How do we experience what we see and hear? What are the consequences of these impressions and experiences for our understanding of contemporary wars?

We invite 20-minute papers on the above topic, and particularly welcome those that address some of the following questions:

Battlegrounds

• Can we view the body as a site of war?

• Are hotel, boardrooms and offices the new battlefields?

• How can we characterize these recent arenas, protocols and technologies of war and counter-terrorism?

• To what extent do 9/11 and the War on Terror represent a ‘break’ or shift away from traditional conceptions of battleground and fighting?

• Are notions of absence and presence reconfigured in this new technological and geopolitical context, through war ‘at a distance’, fighting ‘by proxy’? .

Bodies and death

• To what extent do we see an avoidance of death and dying in the visualization of war and counter-terrorism?

• Are other processes of erasure at work, such as the erasure of the victims of collateral damage, such as in the so-called ‘precision bombing’ of Iraq and Afghanistan?

Technologies

• Might we view the technologies of war and of its visualization as technologies of erasure?

• Does this challenge the idea that modern war technologies allow a totalizing vision?

• What are the socio-political and cultural consequences of erasure for how we know war?

Narratives of war:

• What kind of narratives do we actually encounter about war these days?

• How do forms of fiction and non-fiction filmmaking intersect with real-world geopolitical, social and cultural narratives?

• How are narratives of loss and trauma, causality, heroism, and moral imperatives expressed, complicated and interrogated by forms of fiction and non-fiction filmmaking?

• How does cinema negotiate a path between representation and politics?

Please send proposals of 300-500 words, 5 keywords and a brief biographical note to Christina Hellmich <c.hellmich@reading.ac.uk> and Lisa Purse <l.v.purse@reading.ac.uk> by 1st September 2014. We hope to offer some travel bursaries to speakers.

The workshop is hosted by the Department of Politics and International Relations and the Department of Film, Theatre and Television under the FAHSS Rights and Representation research theme, and is supported by the Centre for Ways of War and the Centre for Film Aesthetics and Cultures at the University of Reading.

Gaza and ethics

I generally find it the epitome of colonialist hubris to think it proper to impose traditional Christian Just War principles (like proportionality, proper authority, etc) on a conflict that is largely being fought between Muslim and Jewish political entities. I will have talk about that some other time though, perhaps when I figure out what it is about Israel that makes every philosopher want to be a pundit. Here is a set of links pointing to discussions by ethicists about the Gaza conflict. I leave you, dear reader, to decide who to take seriously and who not to. (H/T for most of these to the Daily Nous. I may update from time to time.)

NPR has a discussion between Michael Walzer, Lionel McPherson, and Michael Newton here.
Michael Walzer in the New Republic here.
Jeff McMahan in Prospect here.
David Enoch in Haaretz here.
Francis Kamm in the Boston Review here.
Assaf Sharon also in the Boston Review here.
Peter Singer in Project Syndicate here.
(Related) Jason Stanley in the Frankfurter Allgemeine here.
Daniel Levine at the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland here.
Civic Engagement in Philosophy Classes here.
Samir Chopra on his blog here.

Curtis Franks at the Leiter Report here.
Jerry Haber at the Magnes Zionist here.
On Hanoch Sheinman here.
Mary Margaret McCabe here.
Asa Kasher here. 

philosophy bites podcast

Sparing civilians in war: http://philosophybites.com/2014/07/sparing-civilians-in-war.html

Call for Abstract - Ethics and Policies for Cyber Warfare

The workshop will offer a venue for discussion among ethicists, policy makers, international lawyers and military experts to consider the existing regulatory gap concerning cyber warfare and the ethical problems underpinning it.

Over the past few years, the military, international lawyers, ethicists and policymakers have shown an increasing interest in current policies and laws regulating warfare and in their particular application to cyber warfare. A growing number of experts stresses that there is a expanding vacuum of policies and regulations concerning this phenomenon and recognise the development of conceptual and ethical analyses of cyber warfare as a preliminary and necessary step for defining new and effective policies.

The issue could not be more pressing and there is a much felt and fast escalating need to share information and coordinate ethical theorising about cyber warfare with public policymaking processes. The workshop on ‘Ethics and Policies for Cyber Warfare’ is the second in a series of three workshops on this subject organised by the Centre in collaboration with the University of Oxford. The first workshop was held in Rome in November 2013 with the proceedings are available here.

The workshop is co-directed by Lt Ludovica Glorioso (NATO CCD COE) and Dr Mariarosaria Taddeo (University of Warwick).
Important Dates

Extended abstracts (2000 words): 9 September 2014
Notification of acceptance: 30 September 2014
Full paper: 31 October 2014
Submission of Papers:
Authors are required to submit via EasyChair an extended abstract of the planned paper which should describe the topic and set out the main aspects and structure of the research (up to 2000 words). Following a preliminary review and acceptance of the abstract, authors are expected to submit a full paper meeting high academic standards, which will be considered for inclusion in a volume for Oxford University Press.
For additional information, please contact ludovica.glorioso -at- ccdcoe.org.

If you are Australian and want to do a PhD in military ethics:

PhD Scholarship in Military Ethics at the University of New South Wales

UNSW Canberra - located at the Australian Defence Force Academy - is offering a 3-year PhD Scholarship for a project on 'What Motivates Enlistment, and Why it Matters'.

Traditionally the military has been thought of as an institution, not unlike the Church, whose members answer a "higher calling" to sacrifice their interests, ambitions, and if need be their lives for the sake of a greater good. But according to some historians and sociologists the military now resembles an occupation, governed by market principles, where workers exchange their labour for material reward. Careerism, a fixation on building a resume for post-military employment, and an ever greater reliance on extrinsic motivational incentives are the hallmarks of what George Moskos calls the "occupational shift" in the modern military. What are the ethical implications of the occupational shift? If soldiers are employees, do familiar employee rights and labour standards apply to them? Does the occupational shift threaten to obliterate the moral distinction between national armed forces personnel and mercenaries? Are "employee warriors" more or less likely to conduct themselve!
 s in accordance with the principles of Just War Theory?  UNSW Canberra is offering a PhD Scholarship to a suitably qualified candidate interested in pursuing these and related questions.

The successful applicant, subject to admission to the PhD degree program, will be awarded a UNSW Canberra Research Training Scholarship with an annual tax-free stipend of $26,392 (2014 rate). This scholarship is for a period of 3 years, subject to satisfactory progress reviews. Applicants should hold a Masters degree or undergraduate qualification with first class honours. Please note that this scholarship is open only to Australian citizens.


For further information please contact:

Ned Dobos

Email: n.dobos@adfa.edu.au

Phone: +61 2 6268 6273

________________________________
UNSW AUSTRALIA
UNSW CANBERRA AT THE AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE FORCE ACADEMY
PO Box 7916, CANBERRA BC 2610, Australia
Web: http://unsw.adfa.edu.au

CRICOS Provider no. 00100G

Reminder about ISME Conference submission

. . . I have two things I'd love to submit to this myself, but alas, I do not have time to write up papers or abstracts. It is a great conference. I presented something there a couple of years ago.

A reminder that the deadline for submissions for the 2014 ISME meeting 

The Ethical Dimensions of Civil War
ISME 2014
Conference Announcement and Call for Papers
October 12-15, 2014
International Society for Military Ethics

The International Society for Military Ethics is pleased to announce the theme for this year’s annual conference: “The Ethical Dimensions of Civil War.’’  

Keynote Address: “A Moral Analysis of the US Civil War,” Kit Wellman, Washington University.

The conference will take place Sunday to Wednesday, October 12-15 at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. 

150 years ago, the United States was engaged in a “great civil war.”  In observance of that fact, and in the light of numerous more recent events, ISME is pleased to accept papers on all aspects of the ethics of civil war for this year’s conference.  Papers from both historical and contemporary perspectives and dealing with both historical and contemporary issues will be considered. 

Questions to consider might include:

-          Under what conditions, and using what means, may one political entity morally separate itself from another?

-          Under what conditions, and using what means, may one political entity resist such a separation?

-          Under what conditions, and using what means, may a third political entity intervene in such a conflict?

-          What legal/moral regime ought to apply to individuals who might simultaneously be considered enemy combatants and fellow citizens?

Submissions should be sent to richard.schoonhoven@usma.edu no later than 30 June, 2014.  Abstracts are acceptable, although full papers are preferred; but please limit submissions to no more than 7,000 words.  As always, we accept high quality submissions in any area of military ethics.

----------------------------------

Don Howard, DirectorReilly Center for Science,Technology, and Values453 Geddes HallUniversity of Notre DameNotre Dame, Indiana 46556Reilly.nd.edu
FB: NDReillyCenterScience Matters Blog
574-631-1147 (Office)574-631-5015 (Program)574-631-7418 (Fax)dhoward1@nd.edu
@DonHoward2
www.nd.edu/~dhoward1
Professor of PhilosophyDepartment of Philosophy100 Malloy Hall574-631-7547 (Office)574-631-6471/7534 (Dept.)574-631-0588 (Fax)----------------------------------

The Just War Newsletter

here.

jus in bello and jus ad bellum

Does Neve Gordon confuse jus in bello with jus ad bellum? When told, as a reservist, to talk about human rights to soldiers, Neve Gordon was handed the following scenario (from today's CHE):

soldiers were seen evacuating Palestinian residents from a house in the West Bank minutes before bulldozers demolished it. The plot focused on a soldier who took a knife from the house during the evacuation. The soldiers were then asked: Was it all right to take something from the house, since the structure would be destroyed within minutes? As one soldier put it, the knife would be useless after the demolition anyway, so why not take it? Following a discussion highlighting several perspectives, the film concluded that pocketing the knife, despite the extenuating circumstances, was an act of looting and consequently forbidden.

The film focused on the ethics of taking the knife, but it ignored larger questions—not least the morality of demolishing Palestinian homes. The recent articles about Ariel University do the same. They pass over the wider context and therefore end up obfuscating the central ethical questions at stake.

But the morality of demolishing homes is not a question for soldiers. The army's goal is not to make every private a strategist, with the freedom to decide whether or not and how to obey orders, but rather to make them soldiers who do not violate the ethical codes within the parameters of their responsibilities. Any army would be ill advised to train every one of their soldiers to think about the morality of war in general. That misses the point of their job, just like Gordon seems to.

Should a soldier come into the military with a preconceived version of what wars, if any are just, that is a different matter. But is that a military's responsibility?

What do you think? Did I miss something or did he?

Some drone links. . .

This one is specifically dealing with Turkey's problems with drones, but there are a heap of useful embedded links. This is an interesting take on dones and gender and the what's-in-a-name question. And here is an important piece on the reasons why people fear UAVs. This last piece is a good place to start thinking about drones and the ethical/philosophical debate. 

Workshop: The War of Ethics in the Ethics of War

From an email:

Dear all,

We are convening a workshop on just war theory, titled 'The War of Ethics in the Ethics of War' at the MANCEPT conference from September 8th - 10th. Please find the abstract below.

Each presenter will have 50 minutes in total, consisting of a 25-30 minute presentation, followed by comments from a discussant and questions from the floor. If you are interested in participating please send an abstract or full paper by June 1st. If sending only an abstract a full paper will be required by July 15th.

Abstracts to be sent to:
Ewan E. Mellor: ewan.mellor@eui.eu
Or, Milla Vaha: mevaha@utu.fi


MANCEPT WORKSHOP PROPOSAL 

The War of Ethics in the Ethics of War

Conveners:
Milla Vaha – Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Turku, mevaha@utu.fi
Ewan E. Mellor – Doctoral Candidate, European University Institute,
ewan.mellor@eui.eu

"War is always judged twice, first with reference to the reasons states have for fighting, secondly with reference to the means they adopt." This is Michael Walzer's canonical statement regarding the independence of the jus ad bellum from the jus in bello which grounds the principle of the moral equality of combatants within the just war tradition. In recent years this principle has come under sustained critical scrutiny from those who believe it is morally incoherent and philosophically unsubstantiated, led by Jeff McMahan and David Rodin, among others. These scholars instead argue for a principle of the moral inequality of combatants, in which combatants would be individually judged according to the justice of the war in which they are fighting. This morally individualist and cosmopolitan approach to the ethics of war would completely transform the nature and practice of war and, concomitantly, the nature of the international system as a whole. The debate over the principle of the moral equality of combatants is also closely related to a number of other debates within international political theory and international ethics, including the debate between communitarianism and cosmopolitanism, debates about the role and place of individual rights in the international system, and debates about the relationship between moral principles and political decision making. 

Although philosophically powerful and persuasive, much of the revisionist debate has been conducted at a high level of abstraction. As such, this workshop seeks to engage with and further the debate about the moral equality of combatants by encouraging contributions that deal with some of the implications of the revisionist argument from a political theory and international relations perspective. It also seeks contributions that explore the implications of this debate for understanding contemporary conflicts and issues in modern warfare, where the revisionist and traditionalist approaches may lead to different conclusions. These could
include, but are not limited to, the use of drones and targeted killings, the war on terror, the detention of 'illegal combatants' at Guantanamo Bay, and so on.

Contributions are encouraged from doctoral students as well as established scholars, and papers may be early drafts or well on the way to completion.

Ewan E. Mellor

Visiting Researcher
School of Political Science and International Studies
University of Queensland

PhD Candidate
Department of Social and Political Sciences
European University Institute

http://thebarbarousphilosopher.wordpress.com/
http://eui.academia.edu/ewanemellor
http://www.linkedin/in/ewanemellor

Big grant for moral robots

The Office of Naval Research is handing out $7.5M to build robots with a sense of right and wrong. Story here. h/t Daily Nous

I am skeptical that this money is being well spent.

UPDATE: For a slightly snarkier take, see here. You may also want to read this take. 

Call for Papers - The Ethical Dimensions of Civil War

The Ethical Dimensions of Civil War
ISME 2014

Conference Announcement and Call for Papers October 12-15, 2014
 International Society for Military Ethics

The International Society for Military Ethics is pleased to announce the theme for this year’s annual conference: “The Ethical Dimensions of Civil War.’’  

Keynote Address: “A Moral Analysis of the US Civil War,” Kit Wellman, Washington University.

The conference will take place Sunday to Wednesday, October 12-15 at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana.  150 years ago, the United States was engaged in a “great civil war.”  
In observance of that fact, and in the light of numerous more recent events, ISME is pleased to accept papers on all aspects of the ethics of civil war for this year’s conference.  Papers from both historical and contemporary perspectives and dealing with both historical and contemporary issues will be considered.  Questions to consider might include:
  -          Under what conditions, and using what means, may one political entity morally separate itself from another?
  -          Under what conditions, and using what means, may one political entity resist such a separation?
  -          Under what conditions, and using what means, may a third political entity intervene in such a conflict?
  -          What legal/moral regime ought to apply to individuals who might simultaneously be considered enemy combatants and fellow citizens?  

Submissions should be sent to richard.schoonhoven@usma.edu no later than 30 June, 2013.  Abstracts are acceptable, although full papers are preferred; but please limit submissions to no more than 7,000 words.  As always, we accept high quality submissions in any area of military ethics.

----------------------------------
Don Howard, 

Director Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values
453 Geddes Hall
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
reilly.nd.edu 
Science Matters Blog
574-631-1147 (Office)
574-631-5015 (Program)
574-631-7418 (Fax)
dhoward1@nd.edu www.nd.edu/~dhoward1

Call for Papers - War in the history of ideas

Conference of the British Society for the History of Philosophy in collaboration with the Netherlands Defence Academy

 War in the History of Ideas

 Tuesday 14 October 2014

 Conference venue

Netherlands Defence Academy, Kraanstraat 4, 4811 MA Breda

 Confirmed key-note speaker professor Azar Gat, Ezer Weizmann Professor of National Security and Chair of the Department of Political Science (Tel Aviv University)

 Organised by Paul Schuurman (Erasmus University Rotterdam) and Paul Donker (Netherlands Defence Academy)

2nd Call for Abstracts

The first centennial in 2014 of the First World War forms the occasion for a one-day conference on War in the History of Ideas. The nature of war, the causes of war, its prevention, its acceptability, war as a cultural phenomenon, the relation between war and philosophy, war and religion, war and politics, war and economics and the nature of military genius have all been the object of intense scrutiny by the greatest thinkers in the history of ideas and will form as many scholarly topics during this one-day conference.

The conference will be opened by Azar Gat, author of A History of Military Thought (2001), War in Human Civilization (2206) and numerous other books and articles.

We welcome proposals for 25-minute papers (plus 10 minutes question time) on all topics bearing on the conference theme. The conference is organised for scholars and students who are interested in the wide field where the history of ideas meets the history of warfare. The papers will be presented in parallel sessions. Papers by established scholars and PhD-students are encouraged.

Please send an abstract of no more than 400 words to Paul Schuurman, schuurman@fwb.eur.nl or to Paul Donker P.Donker.02@NLDA.NL by 1 June 2014 as a pdf attachment.

In the body of the email, please state the title of your paper; your name and institutional affiliation; and your preferred email contact address.

In the subject line of the email, please state ‘War in the History of Ideas’ plus your last name.

Paul Schuurman
Erasmus University Rotterdam
Faculty of Philosophy
P.O. Box 1738
3062 PA Rotterdam
http://www.eur.nl/fw/contact/medewerkers/schuurman/

Hatfield on maritime war

Brian Leiter links to Lieutenant Joseph M. Hatfield's article on unmanned maritime warfare. Hatfield is a PhD student at Cambridge focusing on the ethics of war. Enjoy. 

Call for papers: The Ethics of War and Peace

From an email. . .
‘The Ethics of War and Peace’
Call for paper: Societas Ethica conference Maribor, Slovenia August 21-24, 2014

Wars have always been a part of human life, as have attempts to end them. Questions of war and peace are a constant challenge for ethics.

2014 is the centenary of the outbreak of World War I and The Ethics of War and Peace is the theme of the annual conference of Societas Ethica. Recent European history, especially the civil war in the former Yugoslavia, has shown that the tensions behind World War I are still with us.

The pledge “Never again!” was not fulfilled. New wars arose, within and outside Europe, that manifested still other origins: for example, wars related to colonialism, imperialism and struggles for independence, to ambitions for hegemony, to global inequalities between rich and poor, to religious extremism, to drug trafficking, to overpopulation, to the illegal arms trade, etc. Today we witness atrocious civil wars in the Middle East, and the ‘war on terror’ has led to new forms of war such as the use of drones and cyber attacks.

The realities of war in the twenty-first century are in desperate need of thorough moral reflection. Our cultural heritages offer diverse reflective contributions here, ranging from Sun-tsu’s Art of war and Clausewitz’s Vom Kriege to Thomas Aquinas’ and Hugo Grotius’ theories of just war, or from Hobbes’ analysis of aggressive human nature to Kantian attempts to set up a stable world order without wars.

Confirmed speakers:

Professor Peter Wallensteen (Uppsala University) From War Termination to Quality Peace: Conditions for Perpetual Peace

Professor Nigel Biggar (University of Oxford) On Not Always Giving the Devil Benefit of Law: 'Just war', humanitarian intervention and international law

Dr. Zorica Maros (Catholic Theological Faculty, Sarajevo) From abuse of memory to revenge. Im(possibility) of forgiveness

Dr. Siddharth Mallavarapu (South Asian University) The responsibility to Protect-UN-Program from a perspective from the South-East

Through different parallel sessions Societas Ethica will address the major moral questions regarding war and peace. These sessions will focus on:
The roots of war (e.g. human aggression, religious and ideological motivations, social life, etc.) theories of just war (religious and philosophical
Perspectives, including questions about ‘humanitarian intervention’)
The rules of war (e.g. the treatment of prisoners – Guantanamo, hostage kidnapping – child soldiers, the arms trade, etc.)
New forms of warfare (cyber war, the use of drones)
War and profit (the privatization of war, arms exports, etc.)
Ending war (peacemaking and reconciliation including religious and secular contributions, war tribunals)
Pacifism
Open channel (for PhD students only)

Contributions will concentrate on one of the topics listed above and explicitly address moral questions related to it. Paper proposals should contain no more than 800 words (excluding bibliography), and clearly present a moral question or argument addressing one of the aforementioned topics. The deadline is March 31, 2014. Papers can be presented either in English, German, or French.

Please send in the following two documents as Word attachments to johanna.romare@liu.se:

Document 1: Your name, first name, email address, institutional address, the title of your abstract, the topic under which your paper proposal falls, and, if eligible, your application to participate in the Young Scholars’ Award competition (see information below).

Document 2: Your paper proposal including bibliography (max. 10 references) and title with all identifying references removed.

Conference papers will be published in Conference Proceedings. Selected papers will be published in a special volume of the new journal De Ethica. A Journal of Philosophical, Theological and Applied Ethics.

Societas Ethica Young Scholars’ Award is awarded to the best presentation by a young scholar. Young scholars for the purpose of this competition are doctoral students and researchers who earned their degree less than two years ago and do not have a tenure-track academic position. For more information about Societas Ethica Young Scholars’ Award, please visit the website at www.societasethica.info.

http://www.societasethica.info/annual-conference-2014?l=en

Best regards

Johanna Romare

Doctoral Candidate

Scriba for Societas Ethica (European Society for Research in Ethics)

Centre for Applied Ethics

Department for Culture and Communication
Linköping University
581 83 Linköping
Sweden
Mobile: +46 73 251 11 94

Please visit us at www.liu.se/ikk/cte
Societas Ethica www.societasethica.info

Interesting set of articles

Philosophia just released their latest issue. It contains seven articles on pacifism that all look interesting. 

Call for Papers for Philosophy and Technology’s special issue on The Ethics of Cyber Conflicts

Call for Papers for Philosophy and Technology’s special issue on The Ethics of Cyber Conflicts

GUEST EDITORS

Ludovica Glorioso (NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense Centre of Excellence)

INTRODUCTION

In the age of the so-called information revolution, the ability to control, disrupt or manipulate the enemy’s information infrastructure has become as decisive as weapon superiority with respect to determining the outcome of conflicts. So much so that the Pentagon defines cyberspace as a new domain in which war is waged, alongside land, sea, air and space.

Cyber conflicts, as part of a state’s defensive or offensive strategy, are a fast growing phenomenon, which is rapidly changing the dynamics of combat as well as the role that warfare plays in political negotiations and the life of civil societies. Such changes are not the exclusive concern of the military. They also have a significant bearing on ethicists and policymakers, since existing ethical theories of war, together with national and international regulations, struggle to address the novelties of this phenomenon. The issue could not be more pressing and there is a much felt and fast escalating need to share information and coordinate ethical theorising about cyber conflicts.

This special issue of Springer’s Philosophy & Technology (http://www.springer.com/13347) follows the organization of the international workshop on Ethics of Cyber Conflict (http://www.ccdcoe.org/428.html), held on November 21-22, 2013 at the Centro Alti Studi per la Difesa (CASD) with the support of the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense Centre of Excellence.

TOPICS

We solicit the submission of papers that investigate issues concerning the way ICTs are affecting our ethical views of conflicts and warfare, as well as the analysis of just-war principles in the light of the dissemination of cyber conflicts; humanitarian military interventions based on ICTs; whether preventive acts of cyber war may satisfy jus-ad-bellum criteria; challenges of upholding jus-in-bello standards in cyber warfare, especially in asymmetric conflicts; attribution and proportionality of the response to cyber attacks; moral permissibility of automated responses and ethical deployment of military robotic weapons.

TIMETABLE

April 1, 2014: Deadline papers submissions

May 1, 2014: Deadline reviews papers

June 1, 2014: Deadline revised papers

2015: Publication of the special issue

SUBMISSION DETAILS

To submit a paper for this special issue, authors should go to the journal’s Editorial Manager http://www.editorialmanager.com/phte/

The author (or a corresponding author for each submission in case of co- authored papers) must register into EM.

The author must then select the special article type: "Special issue on The Ethics of Cyber Conflicts” from the selection provided in the submission process. This is needed in order to assign the submissions to the Guest Editors.

Submissions will then be assessed according to the following procedure:

New Submission => Journal Editorial Office => Guest Editor(s) => Reviewers => Reviewers’ Recommendations => Guest Editor(s)’ Recommendation => Editor-in-Chief’s Final Decision => Author Notification of the Decision.

The process will be reiterated in case of requests for revisions.

For any further information please contact:

Ludovica Glorioso, ludovica.glorioso@ccdcoe.org

Call for Abstracts: Just War workshop

Dear all,

We are convening a workshop on just war theory, titled 'The War of Ethics in the Ethics of War' at the MANCEPT conference from September 8th - 10th.
Please find the abstract below.

Each presenter will have 50 minutes in total, consisting of a 25-30 minute presentation, followed by comments from a discussant and questions from the floor. If you are interested in participating please send an abstract or full paper by June 1st. If sending only an abstract a full paper will be required by July 15th.

Abstracts to be sent to:
Ewan E. Mellor: ewan.mellor@eui.eu
Or Milla Vaha: mevaha@utu.fi

MANCEPT PROPOSAL
The War of Ethics in the Ethics of War

“War is always judged twice, first with reference to the reasons states have for fighting, secondly with reference to the means they adopt.” This is Michael Walzer’s canonical statement regarding the independence of the jus ad bellum from the jus in bello which grounds the principle of the moral equality of combatants within the just war tradition. In recent years this principle has come under sustained critical scrutiny from those who believe it is morally incoherent and philosophically unsubstantiated, led by Jeff McMahan and David Rodin, among others. These scholars instead argue for a principle of the moral inequality of combatants, in which combatants would be individually judged according to the justice of the war in which they are fighting. This morally individualist and cosmopolitan approach to the ethics of war would completely transform the nature and practice of war and, concomitantly, the nature of the international system as a whole. The debate over the principle of the moral equality of combatants is also closely related to a number of other debates within international political theory and international ethics, including the debate between communitarianism and cosmopolitanism, debates about the role and place of individual rights in the international system, and debates about the relationship between moral principles and political decision making.

Although philosophically powerful and persuasive, much of the revisionist literature has been conducted at a high level of abstraction. As such, this workshop seeks to engage with and further the debate about the moral equality of combatants by encouraging contributions that deal with some of the implications of the revisionist argument from a political theory and international relations perspective.

On the Military's ethics crisis

. . . in The National Interest. 

Call for Publications

Call for Publications

Theme: Is the idea of peace relevant for the age of asymmetrical
warfare?
Publication: Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory
Date: Special Issue
Deadline: 1.7.2014

__________________________________________________

Since the end of World War II, most military conflict has been
asymmetrical in nature (that is between a state actor on the one hand
and a non-state entity or network of such entities on the other).
Examples range from the Algerian War of Independence against the
French to the recent American engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan.

When this is the face of war, is the idea of peace (with its classic
cosmopolitan features regarding finality of claims, mutual
recognition, the creation of lasting legal arrangements to enforce
agreements and cooperation between former enemies) still relevant?
Does it make sense to talk about a conflict with the Taliban or Al
Qaeda terminating in a state of peace? If our idea of peace needs to
be revised, how should we revise it? Does it need to be supplemented
by other ideas? Which ideas? Can the concept of peace still serve as
a useful regulative ideal even when it becomes further and further
removed from how wars actually wind down?

Please submit papers of no more than 9,000 words to
theoriasa@gmail.com by July 1st, 2014. Papers should be formatted for
blind review and should follow Theoria's House formatting rules.
These are available here:
http://journals.berghahnbooks.com/_uploads/th/th_style_guide.pdf

Guest Editor: Nir Eisikovits, Suffolk University
Email: theoriasa@gmail.com

Call for papers

Call for Papers: 

Is the idea of peace relevant for the age of asymmetrical warfare?

A special Issue of Theoria, A Journal of Social and Political Theory

Nir Eisikovits, Suffolk University, Guest Editor

Since the end of World War II, most military conflict has been asymmetrical in nature (that is between a state actor on the one hand and a non-state entity or network of such entities on the other). Examples range from the Algerian War of Independence against the French to the recent American engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan.

When this is the face of war, is the idea of peace (with its classic cosmopolitan features regarding finality of claims, mutual recognition, the creation of lasting legal arrangements to enforce agreements and cooperation between former enemies) still relevant? Does it make sense to talk about a conflict with the Taliban or Al Qaeda terminating in a state of peace? If our idea of peace needs to be revised, how should we revise it? Does it need to be supplemented by other ideas? Which ideas? Can the concept of peace still serve as a useful regulative ideal even when it becomes further and further removed from how wars actually wind down?

Please submit papers of no more than 9,000 words to theoriasa@gmail.com by July 1st, 2014. Papers should be formatted for blind review and should follow Theoria's House formatting rules. These are available here: http://journals.berghahnbooks.com/_uploads/th/th_style_guide.pdf

Call for papers

C A L L   F O R   P A P E R S   

DE ETHICA

A JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND APPLIED ETHICS

www.de-ethica.com

Special Issue: "The Ethics of War and Peace"

 

De Ethica is a new journal seeking to publish scholarly works at the intersections of philosophical, theological and applied ethics. It is a fully peer-reviewed, open-access publication hosted by Linköping University Electronic Press. We are committed to making papers of high academic quality accessible to a wide audience.

De Ethica is published in cooperation with Societas Ethica, the European Society for Research in Ethics. Societas Ethica was founded in Basel, Switzerland in 1964; today it has more than 200 members from more than 20 countries, representing a variety of theological and philosophical traditions. The annual conferences of Societas Ethica draw speakers from across the globe and provide a lively forum for intellectual exchange. Like Societas Ethica, De Ethica aims to create dialogue across national, political, and religious boundaries.

The first issue in the 2015 volume will be devoted to the theme of this year’s Societas Ethica Annual Conference: “The Ethics of War and Peace.” (http://www.societasethica.info/annual-conference-2014?l=en) A non-exhaustive list of possible topics includes: 

• The roots of war (human aggression, religious and ideological motivations, etc.)
• Theories of just war (jus as bellum, jus in bello; religious and philosophical perspectives, including questions about humanitarian intervention)
• The rules of war (the treatment of prisoners, child soldiers, the arms trade, etc.)
• New forms of warfare (cyber war, the use of drones, etc.)
• War and profit (the privatization of war, arms exports, etc.)
• Ending war (peacemaking and reconciliation including religious and secular contributions, war tribunals)
• Pacifism

The deadline for the thematic issue is November 15, 2014. All submissions will be subjected to rigorous blind review. Submissions should be between 4,000 and 8,000 words in length. All submissions must be appropriately anonymized and should be accompanied by a separate file containing an abstract of 150 to 200 words and all relevant author information. For more information about layout, style, and the submission and review process, please see the Instructions for Authors: http://www.de-ethica.com/instructions_for_authors/default.asp  

De Ethica is committed to a speedy and author-friendly review process; in most cases, the editors will notify the authors of their decision within three months.

Please send submissions only to our assistant editor, Heidi Jokinen (submissions@de-ethica.com). General comments and enquiries about the journal should be directed to Marcus Agnafors (executive.editor@de-ethica.com) or Maren Behrensen (associate.editor@de-ethica.com).

Editor in Chief

Brenda Almond (University of Hull, United Kingdom)

Executive Editor

Marcus Agnafors (Linköping University, Sweden)

Associate Editor

Maren Behrensen (Linköping University, Sweden)

Assistant Editor

Heidi Jokinen (Åbo Akademi University, Finland)

           

Editorial Board

Göran Collste (Linköping University, Sweden)

Marcus Düwell (Universiteit Utrecht, the Netherlands)

Raimond Gaita (University of Melbourne, Australia; and King’s College London, United Kingdom)

Hille Haker (Loyola University Chicago, United States; and Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Germany)

Robert Heeger (Utrecht University, the Netherlands)

Neil Messer (Winchester University, United Kingdom)

Michael Northcott (University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom)

Philip Pettit (Princeton University, United States)

Hans Ulrich (Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany)

Peter Vallentyne (University of Missouri, United States)

Hinman reviews Primoratz on Terrorism

Lawrence M. Hinman reviews Igor Primoratz's Terrorism: A Philosophical Intriduction here. 

Teaching military ethics properly

Here is a story in the NY Times that describes a military ethics course that is being taught properly: It is being co-taught by a young, but competent philosopher (I've met Mr. Pence and I know his work) and a retired Air Force Major General. Kudos to Notre Dame for making this possible.

Too many classes in applied ethics are taught by people who either know nothing about ethics or about the subject they are talking about. Too many academic papers in applied ethics (military ethics, bioethics, computer ethics, business ethics, etc) are written by people who are experts in one and think the other is trivial. I hope Mr. Pence and MG Latiff get to take a close look at the literature in military ethics together and write something useful. 

Conference announcement: Ethics, War, and Intervention

Got this in an email:

Conference announcement: Ethics, War, and Intervention

Friday 30th May 2014

University of Birmingham

Keynote speaker: Professor Jeff McMahan

Call for abstracts:

The Institute of Advanced Studies (IAS) at the University of Birmingham is pleased to announce a one-day conference on the ethics of war and intervention. Papers on any aspect of the ethics of war, conflict and intervention will be considered. We particularly welcome papers which speak to the work of Jeff McMahan, and those which speak to some aspect of the ‘security threats’ sub-strand of our current ‘Saving Humans’ research theme (for which, please see the link below).

The IAS works to foster inter-disciplinary engagement, and wide-ranging academic partnerships. We therefore encourage papers with cross-disciplinary reach and significance, and from scholars of all levels. Reasonable travel and accommodation costs will be reimbursed for accepted speakers.

Please send abstracts of no more than 500 words by 21st March 2014 to ias@contacts.bham.ac.ukias@contacts.bham.ac.uk

>

Registration:

The conference is free of charge. However, space at the conference is limited, and registration is required. To register, please go to https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ethics-war-and-intervention-conference-the-institute-of-advanced-studies-saving-humans-tickets-10506843251.

Public lecture:

Following the conference, at 5pm, Jeff McMahan will deliver a public lecture, entitled ‘The Ethics of Humanitarian Intervention: With Comments on Syria’. This will be held at The Barber Institute of Fine Art. Admission to this event is also free, but due to anticipated demand, early registration is strongly advised. To register for the lecture, please go tohttps://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ethics-war-and-intervention-with-comments-on-syria-professor-jeff-mcmahan-tickets-10486819359.

Contact for inquiries: Jeremy Williams (j.s.williams@bham.ac.ukj.s.williams@bham.ac.uk>)

Jeff McMahan is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow of Saving Humans, Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Birmingham. He is the author of The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life (Oxford University Press, 2002) and Killing in War (Oxford University Press, 2009). He has several other books forthcoming from Oxford University Press, including a collection of essays called The Values of Lives, a book on war intended for both academic and non-academic readers called The Right Way to Fight, and a sequel to his 2002 book called The Ethics of Killing: Self-Defense, War, and Punishment.

Links:

‘Saving Humans’ at the IAS: http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/activity/ias/saving-humans/index.aspx

The ‘Saving Humans’ Blog: http://savinghumans.org

-----------------------------------------------
Dr. Jeremy Williams,
Leverhulme Early Career Fellow/Birmingham Fellow,
Department of Philosophy,
ERI Building,
University of Birmingham,
Birmingham B15 2TT.