The Just War: An American Reflection on the Morality of War in Our Time / Edition 1

by Peter Temes

Overview

A critical history of Just War thinking, beginning with ancient epics and extending through American responses to the terrorist attacks of September 11. Mr. Temes's book proposes a radically new vision, one that respects the received tradition but takes account of the moral experience of the world today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781566636018
Publisher:	Dee, Ivan R. Publisher
Publication date:	06/30/2004
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.92(w) x 8.26(h) x 0.52(d)

Table of Contents

Part 1 Preface vii Part 2 Acknowledgments xiii Part 3 Introduction: The Dual Nature of War 3 Part 4 "We Go to War That We May Have Peace" 9 Part 5 The Fundamental Ideas Of Just War 41 Part 6 The Catholic Vocabulary of War: The Center and the Fringe of Catholic Just War Doctrine 76 Part 7 Muslim and Jewish Just War Traditions: The Center and the Fringe 94 Part 8 The Questions of Sequence and Scale 127 Part 9 Saying No and Saying Yes: Protest and the Integrity of Language in Times of War 138 Part 10 A Just War Theory for the Twenty-First Century 166 Part 11 Three Concluding Principles 180 Part 12 Afterword: On the Second Gulf War 199 Part 13 Index 207

What People are Saying About This

ARTHUR GANS

The book...is...the best single work on the subject of Just War that I have read in the past 20 years.
—CANADIAN MILITARY JOURNAL

Editorial Reviews

Lucidly and intensely Temes engages us in a carefully reasoned, historically rooted, evocative drive to justify war in terms that serve modern conditions.

Lewis M. Feldstein

In this lucid and clearly written book, Peter Temes provides a thorough and balanced assessment of Just War thinking from a variety of cultural and historical perspectives.

George Lucas

...Reading and discussing The Just War seems almost necessary.

San Francisco Chronicle

Challeng[es] us to form a new moral view of war.

Tampa Tribune

More than just a history. .. considers the idea of 'just war thinking'. .. probing the philosophy behind justifications for war.

Midwest Book Review

With this timely book Peter Temes. .. cuts through the usual polemics about a subject as urgent and complex as it is timeless.. .. A truly admirable book.

Sidney Hyman

The author takes a new look at 'just war theory.'

Forecast

The book [is] the best single work on the subject of Just War that I have read in the past 20 years.

Canadian Military Journal - Major Arthur Gans

Should be a required reading for those who beat war's drum.

The Virginia Quarterly Review

Temes's philosophical synthesis is nuanced and impressive.

Booklist

Temes's philosophical synthesis is nuanced and impressive.

Booklist

...Reading and discussing The Just War seems almost necessary.

San Francisco Chronicle

It's hard to imagine a more timely examination of the justifications of war. Should be required reading for those who beat war's drum.

Virginia Quarterly Review

The book...is...the best single work on the subject of Just War that I have read in the past 20 years.
—Major Arthur Gans

Canadian Military Journal

Temes, president of Antioch New England Graduate School and author of Against School Reform, delivers a philosophical argument about the ethics of war; he not only wants to inform readers but to convert them as well. His cause, "a personal preoccupation" as he calls it, is just war philosophy, which both accepts war as an inevitability and provides moral imperatives "not only between right and wrong but often between wrong and wrong." Although he intends the book for academics and nonacademics, he relies heavily (but quite lucidly) on a daunting roster of thinkers (Cicero, St. Augustine, Aquinas, Grotius, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, von Clausewitz, Orwell, Arendt and others) to create a moral-historical framework for examining the implications of war. Temes argues that war has evolved from the tribal orientation (with a focus on the honor of the individual) to a more modern notion (with a focus on the geopolitical concerns of the state). In this historical progression, moral burdens have slowly shifted from the individual to the state, and as a result, Temes rightly worries that "we risk a loss of the humane." As an antidote to this loss, just war philosophy condones war only when the war itself sanctifies human life, when it strengthens the principles of individual rights and when its objectives concern the future and not the past. Although a timely and intelligent commentary on the recent war in Iraq, the book's chief gift is its empowerment of the reader to make informed moral observations on future wars, which appear sadly inevitable. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly