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Kopel on Evolving Christian Attitudes Towards Personal and National Self-Defense

David B. Kopel (Denver University – Sturm College of Law) has posted Evolving Christian Attitudes Towards Personal and National Self-Defense. The abstract follows.

This Article analyzes the changes in orthodox Christian attitudes towards defensive violence. While the article begins in the 19th century and ends in the 21st, most of the Article is about the 20th century. The article focuses on American Catholicism and on the Vatican, although there is some discussion of American Protestantism.

In the nineteenth and early in the twentieth centuries, the traditional Christian concepts of Just War and of the individual’s duty to use force to defend himself and his family remained uncontroversial, as they had been for centuries. Disillusionment over World War One turned many Catholics and Protestants towards pacifism. Without necessarily adopting pacifism as a Read more

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Balkaran & Dorn on Violence in the Vālmiki Rāmāyana

On September 3, the Journal of the American Academy of Religion published Violence in the Vālmı̄ki Rāmāyana : Just War Criteria in an Ancient Indian Epic by Raj Balkaran (University of Calgary) and A. Walter Dorn (Royal Military College of Canada and Canadian Forces College). The abstract follows.

When is armed force considered justified in Hinduism? How do Hindu legitimizations of warfare compare with those of other religions? The Just War framework, which evolved from Roman and early Christian thought, stipulates distinct criteria for sanctioning the use of force. Are those themes comparable to the discourse on violence of ancient India? This article examines the influential Sanskrit epic Vālmıki Rāmāyana in order to broach these questions. This analysis demonstrates the presence in the ancient work of all seven modern Just War criteria—namely (1) Just Cause, (2) Right Intent, (3) Net Benefit, (4) Legitimate Authority, (5) Last Resort, (6) Proportionality of Means, and (7) Right Conduct. This study also shows the extent to which the criteria and the larger discourse in the Vālmıki Rāmāyana are distinctly couched within Indic ethical parameters, drawing particularly upon the moral precept of ahimsā (nonviolence). This article identifies both similarities and differences between the epic’s criteria for warfare and those of the Just War framework. By comparing representations of violence in the Vālmıki Rāmāyana to modern Western legitimizations of force, this study advances the inclusion of Hindu thought into the global discourse on the ethics of war and peace.

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Roy, “Hinduism and the Ethics of Warfare in South Asia”

Here’s something at the intersection of religion and statecraft about the Hindu tradition of the philosophy of war (compare, e.g., just war theory in the Catholic tradition): Hinduism and the Ethics of Warfare in South Asia: From Antiquity to the Present (CUP 2012) by Kaushik Roy (Jadavpur University).  The publisher’s description follows.

This book challenges the view, common among Western scholars, that precolonial India lacked a tradition of military philosophy. It traces the evolution of theories of warfare in India from the dawn of civilization, focusing on the debate between Dharmayuddha (Just War) and Kutayuddha (Unjust War) within Hindu philosophy. This debate centers around four questions: What is war? What justifies it? How should it be waged? And what are its potential repercussions? This body of literature provides evidence of the historical evolution of strategic thought in the Indian subcontinent that has heretofore been neglected by modern historians. Further, it provides a counterpoint to scholarship in political science that engages solely with Western theories in its analysis of independent India’s philosophy of warfare. Ultimately, a better understanding of the legacy of ancient India’s strategic theorizing will enable more accurate analysis of modern India’s military and nuclear policies.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

March and Modirzadeh on the Islamic Law of War

Andrew March (Yale) and Naz Modirzadeh (Harvard) have posted Ambivalent Universalism? Jus ad bellum in Modern Islamic Legal Discourse, on SSRN. The abstract follows.

In this paper, we discuss the trajectory of modern Islamic legal discourse on jus ad bellum questions, challenging the ideas that the choice is between either a defensive or an aggressive jihad doctrine, and that declaring and waging war is regarded in Islamic law as properly a matter to be monopolized by legitimate state authorities.

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Hashmi (ed.), “Just Wars, Holy Wars, & Jihads”

Here is a very interesting collection of essays on religious perspectives on military engagements of various kinds: Just Wars, Holy Wars, & Jihads: Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Encounters and Exchanges (OUP 2012), edited by Sohail H. Hashmi (Mount Holyoke).  The publisher’s description follows.

Just Wars, Holy Wars, and Jihads explores the development of ideas of morally justified or legitimate war in Western and Islamic civilizations. Historically, these ideas have been grouped under three labels: just war, holy war, and jihad. A large body of literature exists exploring the development of just war and holy war concepts in the West and of jihad in Islam. Yet, to date, no book has investigated in depth the historical interaction between Western notions of just or holy war and Muslim definitions of jihad. This book is a major contribution to the comparative study of the ethics of war and peace in the West and Islam. Its twenty chapters explore two broad questions:

1. What historical evidence exists that Christian and Jewish writers on just war and holy war and Muslim writers on jihad knew of the other tradition?

2. What is the evidence in treatises, chronicles, speeches, ballads, and other historical records, or in practice, that either tradition influenced the other?

The book surveys the period from the rise of Islam in the early seventh century to the present day. Part One surveys the impact of the early Islamic conquests upon Byzantine, Syriac, and Muslim thinking on justified war. Part Two probes developments during the Crusades. Part Three focuses on the early modern period in Europe and the Ottoman Empire, followed by analysis of the era of European imperialism in Part Four. Part Five brings the discussion into the present period, with chapters analyzing the impact of international law and terrorism on conceptions of just war and jihad.

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The USCCB Urges Nuclear Disarmament Policy

This month, the USCCB’s Department of Justice, Peace, and Human Development (the “JPHD”) released a statement urging the Obama Administration to move decisively toward nuclear disarmament.  The JPHD referenced both the massive expense of maintaining the United States’ nuclear arsenal—money better spent aiding the poor—and Catholic just war principles, which would forbid the use of such disproportionately destructive weaponry.  On these bases, the JPHD went so far as to urge not just reduction in nuclear capability to a level of bare deterrence, but actual, complete nuclear disarmament

Please follow the jump to read a copy of the form letter the JPHD urged Americans to e-sign before March 31, 2012, when Obama will be making once-per-decade decisions about whether and how much to cut the United States’ nuclear arsenal. Read more