PHI6012 - Just War Theory
Outline:
We will explore what individuals are permitted to do in defence of their own lives. Who counts as a legitimate target of defence? Can I kill an innocent person in self-defence? We will consider issues of culpability, responsibility and proportionality. The second part of the course will address the relationship between individual rights of defence, and the defensive rights of nations. Should we think of national defense as an expression of the defensive rights of that nation´s individual citizens? The third part of the course will discuss the role of terrorism within warfare. Can traditional Just War theory consistently condemn terrorism while permitting the `collateral damage´ killing of civilians? Why aren´t civilians legitimate targets of military action? We will also consider whether it is part of the very nature of terrorism that it is wrongful, and whether this wrongfulness is distinct from that of other (impermissible) forms of killing.
Preparatory Reading
Jeff McMahan, `The Ethics of Killing in War´, Ethics 114 (July 2004), pp. 693 - 733*
Thomas Nagel, `War and Massacre´, Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Winter, 1972), pp. 123 – 14
David Rodin, War and Self-Defence, (New York: OUP, 2002)
Judith Thomson, `Self-Defense and Rights´, Rights, Restitution and Risk, William Parent (Ed.), (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986)
Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, (New York: Basic Books, 1977)
Lecturer:
Helen Frowe
Lectures:
Mondays 4-5pm AT LT11
Tuesdays 12-1pm AT LT11
Mondays 3-4pm AT 8.25 [seminar]
Tuesdays 11-12pm AT 8.01 [seminar]
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