Critiquing just war theory: an examination of arguments and a new approach

Grove, Dylan E. (2022). Critiquing just war theory: an examination of arguments and a new approach. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

Over recent years, contemporary political, international and moral theorists have neglected to defend the relationship between morality and war, terrorism and violence. The assumption has largely been that the application of morality to warfare (primarily thought the JAB/JIB) has been a universally good thing and has helped restrain the worst excesses of violence. This thesis examines this assumption more closely, looking at three major critical perspectives of morality in conflict: Machiavelli and realism, Schmitt and Legalism and Nietzsche and Amoralism. For each tradition, I look closely at the critique of JWT, LOAC and morality to offer a critique of the dominant moral theory of conflict, just war theory. As such, the thesis is a genealogy of the main amoral approaches to conflict and their key conceptual criticisms of morality, with the aim of reflecting more critically on the relationship between moral principles and their application in conflict and to highlight the validity of a new approach to conflict: the aesthetic approach, found in the continental tradition, is as a better explanation of conflict than morality while creating the beginning of a different philosophy of conflict, beyond realism and just war theory.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

Supervisor(s):