In the seminal Just and Unjust Wars; Michael Walzer famously considered the ethics of modern warfare; examining the moral issues that arise before; during; and after conflict. However; Walzer and subsequent scholars have often limited their analyses of the ethics of combat to soldiers on the ground and failed to recognize the moral responsibilities of senior political and military leaders.In Just War Reconsidered: Strategy; Ethics; and Theory; James M. Dubik draws on years of research as well as his own experiences as a soldier and teacher to fill the gaps left by other theorists. He applies moral philosophy; political philosophy; and strategic studies to historical and contemporary case studies to reveal the inaccuracies and moral bankruptcy that inform some of the literature on military ethics. Conventional just war theory adopts a binary approach; wherein political leaders have moral accountability for the decision to go to war and soldiers have accountability for fighting the war ethically. Dubik argues; however; that political and military leadership should be held accountable for the planning and execution of war in addition to the decision to initiate conflict.Dubik bases his sober reassessment on the fundamental truth that war risks the lives of soldiers and innocents as well as the political and social health of communities. He offers new standards to evaluate the ethics of warfare in the hope of increasing the probability that the lives of soldiers will not be used in vain and the innocent not put at risk unnecessarily.
#207864 in Books Univ Pr of Kentucky 1995-04Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.50 x 6.50 x .75l; #File Name: 0813119065245 pages
Review
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. The Who in the Where?By Cabin DwellerCassius Clay has been a fringe interest for me since I discovered; probably from Shelby Foote; that Muhammad Ali was actually named for a reputable abolitionist; not a slave owner like Ali fancied. This work by Stanley Harrold points out what I still had not considered; that Clay was not only an abolitionist but in the rare category of agitator among Southern slave-owners. But now that I’ve read the book; I know there was no such thing as this agitation in Mississippi; Louisiana; Alabama; and Georgia; nor Texas nor Arkansas; all places not mentioned in the discussion. Actually the best to be hoped for is Quakers approaching border states; Northerners emigrating to border states; and Clay. On Clay; Harrold writes proof of his deliberate style of academic timidity; suggesting this work was a dissertation. On page 138; Clay “enlisted in the war against Mexico†and perplexed his Northern partners. But this had been stated multiple times already. On page 140; Clay “appeared to falter in 1846;†by enlisting to join the war in Mexico. Five pages later; those abolitionists from the church as well as those from political circles are “joined in the general abolitionist disappointment with Clay’s enlistment†against Mexico. Instead of exploring Clay or this controversial decision to fight in the war known to be the South’s expansion of slavery; the author dwells on a limited amount of information at the expense of overdosing on theory. The first chapter of the book is not readable; for example: “This precise distinction between immediate abolitionists and nonextensionists has been very useful in clarifying our understanding of who the abolitionists were; what their relationship to northern culture was; and how the antislavery movement developed.†Much of this book is not about the subject but about perception over the decades and historians who wrote articles now and then; as if anybody is having one conversation to include a hundred years of abstract interpretation and suggestions of meaning. Whoever highlighted the book before I read it stopped highlighting very soon. On the issue of slave revolts to count; there are two in addition to Nat Turner’s; the Amistad and the Creole. Neither qualifies as an American slave revolt since the first; technically; was of Africans in transit and the second only for being aboard a ship. Madison Washington; a name nobody knows; led the revolt aboard the Creole. In a chapter entitled “John Brown’s Forerunners;†stories became personable when theory was pushed aside. Calvin Fairbank and Delia Webster practiced in slave stealing. They were arrested and served time; but public opinion led to early releases. Former slave Lewis Hayden was the benefactor. Amos Dresser and David Nelson also put their lives on the line to agitate from behind enemy lines.12 of 13 people found the following review helpful. Excellent study of oft-neglected antislavery in the South.By Glenn M. HardenStanley Harrold's well-written work is an important contribution to antislavery historiography. Taking to task those historians who see antislavery as primarily a movement to reform Northern society; Harrold demonstrates that Northern and Southern abolitionists were active in the South up until the Civil War. Furthermore; Harrold makes a convincing case that the very real abolitionist presence in the Upper South was a "precipitative cause of secession and the Civil War." For Harrold; the Southern response to the abolitionist threat was neither irrational or exaggerated. I commend Harrold's work to any student of antislavery or the antebellum South.1 of 8 people found the following review helpful. Five stars to .com for having this fresh new work of historyBy Rebel CryYears of revisions and the theories on education being dominated by government and puritans have concreted a world of myths around the War against the States that most of us are snared. Abraham Lincoln; not so much for the champion of emancipation (unless as a campaign slogan) but for his defeating of any rights of sovernity from the government; he is remembered like a Roman titan. Jefferson Davis is reduced to less than Lincoln's shadow.Raceism as it exists all over our country today was just the same back then. And at one point or another the majority of Northern states groomed the instituion of slavery until more profits were to be had in the importation. (And many do not consider that banning of the international slave trade in the Southern states created one of the riffs that would iventually lead to war. Even so the North continued as merchants of flesh. Before the war in New Orleans Judah P. Benjamin who would later become a Jewish Confederate secretary of state lead a case defending a group of Africans that had revolted against their capturers on the high seas (no; not the Amisted). As the shipping company demanded full compistation and revenge; Juda Bnejamin exlaimed; " "What is a slave? He is a human being. He has feeling and passion and intellect. His heart; like the heart of the white man; swells with love; burns with jealousy; aches with sorrow; pines under restraint and discomfort; boils with revenge and ever cherishes the desire for liberty." He went on to say that they; like us; would conqure liberty of the chance presented itself.This history has been buried in a brutal way. The Abolitionists the South does not suggest that the majority of the population on both sides of the Potomac had old school rules of understanding their world. But for once it is not a side long page by page "concentrating on the mote in thy brother's eye rather than the beam in mine own" study we see so much in history telling. An industrial changing and growing North and the lazy; mean; fire breathing South. One story or another.I think the student reading this work will also appreciate the variety of sources the author researched.
