No Just War for the Empire

Radical Philosophy Today 4:27-37 (2006)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Although international law and the Charter of the United Nations define a doctrine of just war, some critics have argued that the U.S. has become an empire that can no longer be bound by such doctrine. On the contrary, I maintain that we must retain just war doctrine as a normative base from which to critique the U.S. and its preemptive wars against terrorism. Neither the Afghanistan nor the Iraq war has been a just war. By its imperialist intentions and barbarous actions, the U.S. government has shown itself no longer to be a legitimate authority with the moral justification to begin or conduct a war. Such subversion of democratic deliberation requires a moral force to mobilize resistance from below. Since no war initiated by the undemocratic elite of the U.S. Empire could possibly be just, we have a conscientious obligation to become revolutionary pacifists against any wars called by such an illegitimate government. In contrast to universal pacifism, a context-justified revolutionary pacifism can be defended as a coherent moral and political position.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive

    This entry is not archived by us. If you are the author and have permission from the publisher, we recommend that you archive it. Many publishers automatically grant permission to authors to archive pre-prints. By uploading a copy of your work, you will enable us to better index it, making it easier to find.

    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 102,120

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

The U.S. War in Iraq, Just War Theory and Neoconservatism.Rodney G. Peffer - 2008 - Proceedings of the Xxii World Congress of Philosophy 40:115-151.
On the So‐Called War on Terrorism.Tom Rockmore - 2004 - Metaphilosophy 35 (3):386-401.
Strict Just War Theory and Conditional Pacifism.Emily Crookston - 2005 - Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 79:73-84.
Strict Just War Theory and Conditional Pacifism.Emily Crookston - 2005 - Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 79:73-84.
Can There Be a Just War?Karsten J. Struhl - 2006 - Radical Philosophy Today 2006:3-25.

Analytics

Added to PP
2011-01-21

Downloads
47 (#482,373)

6 months
3 (#1,344,664)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Ann Ferguson
University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references