War and Moral Responsibility: A Philosophy and Public Affairs Reader

Publisher Marketing: This remarkably rich collection of articles focuses on moral questions about war. The essays, originally published in "Philosophy & Public Affairs," cover a wide range of topics from several points of view by writers from the fields of political science, philosophy, and law. The discussion of war and moral responsibility falls into three general categories: problems of political and military choice, problems about the relation of an individual to the actions of his government, and more abstract ethical questions as well. The first category includes questions about the ethical and legal aspects of war crimes and the laws of war; about the source of moral restrictions on military methods or goals; and about differences in suitability of conduct which may depend on differences in the nature of the opponent. The second category includes questions about the conditions for responsibility of individual soldiers and civilian officials for war crimes, and about the proper attitude of a government toward potential conscripts who reject its military policies. The third category includes disputes between absolutist, deontological, and utilitarian ethical theories, and deals with questions about the existence of insoluble moral dilemmas

Contributor Bio:  Cohen, Marshall Cohen is University Professor Emeritus and Dean Emeritus of the College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences at the University of Southern California. Contributor Bio:  Nagel, Thomas Thomas Nagel is University Professor, Professor of Law, and Professor of Philosophy at New York University. Contributor Bio:  Walzer, Michael Michael Walzer is Professor of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. Contributor Bio:  Hare, R M R. M. Hare is Emeritus Professor of Moral Philosophy, University of Oxford, and Professor Emeritus, University of Florida, GainesvilleContributor Bio:  Levinson, Sanford Sanford Levinson is W. St. John Garwood and W. St. John Garwood, Jr. Regents Chair in Law and Professor of Government at the University of Texas, Austin. He is the author or co-author of many books, including Framed: America's 51 Constitutions and the Crisis of Governance and Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong (And How We the People Can Correct It). Contributor Bio:  Malament, David Malament is distinguished professor of logic and philosophy of science at the University of California, Irvine. Contributor Bio:  Brandt, Richard B Brandt was a retired professor of philosophy from the University of Michigan, and a Guggenheim FellowContributor Bio:  Cohen, James Ed. Eliot A. Cohen is the Robert E. Osgood Professor of Strategic Studies at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of the Johns Hopkins University and founding director of the Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies there. A graduate of Harvard College, he received his Ph. D. in political science at Harvard in 1982. After teaching at Harvard and at the Naval War College (Department of Strategy) he served on the policy planning staff of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, coming to SAIS in 1990. His most recent book is "Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime" (Free Press, 2002): other books include (with John Gooch) "Military Misfortunes: The Anatomy of Failure in War". In 1991-93 he directed the US Air Force's official multi-volume study of the 1991 Gulf War, the "Gulf War Air Power Survey". He has served as an officer in the United States Army Reserve, and as a member of the Defense Policy Advisory Board of the Office of the Secretary of Defense as well as other government advisory bodies.