In The Morality Wars, contributors from religious and non-religious backgrounds debate the origin and nature of human goodness. While the subject is often addressed by prominent figures on both sides of the believer/atheist divide on public platforms and social media, participants seldom get the opportunity to explain their viewpoints in depth. In addition to engaging the traditional conflict between science and religious faith over the content and nature of the moral conscience, the contributors also draw on and engage with figures who are often neglected when committed theologians and atheists debate each other, such as Sigmund Freud, Friedrich Nietzsche, David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Jacques Lacan.

Is patriotism a good thing in an empire? Did General Petraeus betray us or did Moveon? Does morality often serve immoral purposes? Morality Wars shows us how to understand the subtext of these questions and of all the debates about moral values and liberal versus conservative ideology. Derber and Magrass show that the moral problem today is not just lying but "immoral morality," doing evil in the name of good (e.g., Bush preemptively invading Iraq to spread liberty). The authors explore three ancient codes of immoral morality frighteningly resurrected in America today -those of empire, the politically correct, and the born again. Although the right today has recrafted historic arguments that empires bring peace, and fundamentalists battle moral decay, the authors show the Democratic Party and the left have their own IM, with Democrats supporting empire and the left its own political correctness. America's political divide today is a backlash to the progressive revolution of the 1960s and 1970s-secular, antiwar, and feminist-that created a radical break from traditional values and set the stage for current morality wars. In the spirit of de Tocqueville, this powerful book offers a rich and vivid portrait of America's political landscape, exploring ideas that can help move the nation to a new morality and politics.

"Brian Orend's The Morality of War promises to become the single most comprehensive and important book on just war for this generation. It moves far beyond the review of the standard just war categories to deal comprehensively with the new challenges of the conflict with terrorism. It thoughtfully reviews every major military conflict of the past few decades, mining them for implications of the evolving tradition of just war thinking. It concludes with a critical engagement with the major alternatives to just war thinking: pacifism and 'realism.' It is, in short, the most comprehensive and thoughtful assessment of all aspects of just war since Michael Walzer's classic Just and Unjust Wars." - Martin L. Cook, United States Air Force Academy

The Morality of the Laws of War examines the modern landscape of the ethics of war. Rudolphy assesses the conflicting theories on the legality of just and unjust combatants. While doing this, she proposes an alternative morality of war proceeding from the inescapable fact that regulating war is always a significant moral compromise.

Most of us take it for granted that wars in defence of one's political community are the quintessential just wars. Indeed, while in recent years philosophers have subjected all of our other assumptions about just war theory to radical revision, this principle has emerged largely unscathed. But what underpins the morality of defensive war? In this book, leading moral and political philosophers both show the profoundly challenging nature of that question, and advance novel answers to it. The first part exposes the deep tension between the individualist foundations of much contemporary philosophy and plausible conclusions about the morality of defensive war. The second part offers an individualist attempt to resolve that tension, while the third seeks to justify defensive war by appeal to more collectivist values.

This study is a pioneering exploration of how rabbis in the religious Zionist community in Israel constructed a body of Jewish law on war. It focuses on five leading rabbis in this camp and how they dealt with a number of key moral issues that the waging of war raised.

This book discusses the moral and legal issues relating to military drones, focusing on how these machines should be judged according to the principles of just war theory. The author analyses existing drones, like the Predator and Reaper, but also evaluates the many types of drones in development. The book presents drones as not only morally justifiable but having the potential to improve compliance with the principles of just war and international law. Realizing this potential would depend on developing a sound regulatory framework, which the book helps to develop by considering what steps governments and military forces should take to promote ethical drone use. It also critically evaluates the arguments against drones to show which should be abandoned and which raise valid concerns that can inform regulations.

This book provides a thorough critical overview of the current debate on the ethics of war, as well as a modern just war theory that can give practical action-guidance by recognizing and explaining the moral force of widely accepted law. Traditionalist, Walzerian, and "revisionist" approaches have dominated contemporary debates about the classical jus ad bellum and jus in bello requirements in just war theory. In this book, Uwe Steinhoff corrects widely spread misinterpretations of these competing views and spells out the implications for the ethics of war. His approach is unique in that it complements the usual analysis in terms of self-defense with an emphasis on the importance of other justifications that are often lumped together under the heading of "lesser evil." It also draws on criminal law and legal scholarship, which has been largely ignored by just war theorists. Ultimately, Steinhoff rejects arguments in favor of "moral fundamentalism"— the view that the laws and customs of war must simply follow an immutable morality. In contrast, he argues that widely accepted laws and conventions of war are partly constitutive of the moral rules that apply in a conflict. The Ethics of War and the Force of Law will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in just war theory, applied ethics, political philosophy, political theory, philosophy of law, and criminal and military law.

?A highly useful core text for courses in the field?as well as an invaluable reference for any serious student of the ethics of war.??Albert Pierce, U.S. Naval AcademyWhen and why is war justified? How, morally speaking, should wars be fought? The Morality of War confronts these challenging questions, surveying the fundamental principles and themes of the just war tradition through the words of the philosophers, jurists, and warriors who have shaped it.The collection begins with the foundational works of just war theory, as well as those of two competing perspectives, realism and pacifism. Subsequent selections focus on issues related to the resort to war, the conduct of war, and the judgment of war crimes. Both traditional just war concerns and those that have emerged in response to contemporary developments?such as the U.S. ?war on terror??are thoroughly covered.With articles that are crucially relevant to today?s world paired with contextual introductions to each section, the reader is ideally constructed to inform and guide students as they consider the morality of past and current military actions.David Kinsella is associate professor of political science at the Hatfield School of Government, Portland State University. He is editor of International Studies Perspectives and coauthor of World Politics: The Menu for Choice. Craig L. Carr is professor of political science at the Hatfield School of Government. He is author of On Fairness and editor of The Political Writings of Samuel Pufendorf.