Ethics, human rights, killing, refugees and war : a transdisciplinary inquiry into the morality and human cost of contemporary warfare, with particular emphasis on prevention

Abstract

This study is a transdisciplinary inquiry into the reasons for waging war, for fighting, and for repudiating war as an instrument of foreign policy. In Part I, its essential premise is that there are many ways for analysing the ethics and morality of war, and that to develop a comprehensive understanding of this subject one must be willing to engage with a broad range of alternate views. Though moralists usually argue about the rights and wrongs of conduct from within a given set of ethical ideas, the author's aim has been to move beyond the accepted boundaries of current philosophical argument.Questions raised include: To what extent is it morally right to adopt non-violent, pacifist or abolitionist attitudes?; How should the morality of domestic and ethnic wars be considered?; What are the human costs of war? Case studies such as the Vietnam War, the Falklands War, the Gulf War, Bosnia and Rwanda are used. In Part II, three inescapable observations add to the foundation of the thesis.First, war is not inevitable. Second, the need to prevent war is increasingly urgent.Third, preventing war is possible.Examples from 'hot' spots around the world illustrate that the potential for domestic war can be diffused through the early, skillful and integrated application of political, diplomatic, economic and military measures

Date of Award	1999
Original language	English