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340Review of Roy Sorensen's Seeing Dark Things. The Philosophy of Shadows (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 86 (3): 513-515. 2008.Roy Sorensen
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168The just war idea: The state of the questionSocial Philosophy and Policy 23 (1): 167-195. 2006.This essay explores the idea of just war in two ways. Part I outlines the formation, early development, and substantive content of just war tradition in its classic form, sketches the subsequent development of this idea in the modern period, and examines three benchmarks in the recovery of just war thinking in American thought over the last four decades. Part II identifies and critiques several prominent themes in contemporary just war discourse, testing them against the context, purpose, and co…Read more
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134Abstract [Remarks at the 10th-anniversary conference for the Journal of Military Ethics, Oslo, Norway, 9 September 2011, arranged by the journal in collaboration with the Norwegian Defence University College, the Peace Research Institute Oslo, and Bj?rknes College.]
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70Toward Reconstructing the Jus Ad BellumThe Monist 57 (4): 461-488. 1973.In its classic form the doctrine of the just war, whether enunciated by theological or secular theorists, had two main components: the jus ad bellum, which defined the morally acceptable limits within which a sovereign could and even should go to war, and the jus in bello, which set limits to the conduct of war. By contrast, today the problem of just limitation of war is addressed almost entirely by legal and theoretical attempts to refine the jus in bello, while there exists only a morally trun…Read more
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66The idea of defense in historical and contemporary thinking about just warJournal of Religious Ethics 36 (4): 543-556. 2008.What is, or should be, the role of defense in thinking about the justification of use of armed force? Contemporary just war thinking prioritizes defense as the principal, and perhaps the only, just cause for resorting to armed force. By contrast, classic just war tradition, while recognizing defense as justification for use of force by private persons, did not reason from self-defense to the justification of the use of force on behalf of the political community, but instead rendered the idea of …Read more
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55Comment by James Turner JohnsonJournal of Religious Ethics 28 (2): 331-335. 2000.Comments on: “Just War Theory in Comparative Perspective: AReview Essay” by Simeon O. Ilesanmi Journal of Religious Ethics 28.1 (Spring 2000)
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51Does democracy "travel"? Some thoughts on democracy and its cultural contextEthics and International Affairs 6. 1992.Turner is optimistic that democracy does indeed "travel," but only if individuals recognize their own responsibilities within the democratic society and exercise their freedoms
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49Aquinas and Luther on War and Peace: Sovereign Authority and the Use of Armed ForceJournal of Religious Ethics 31 (1): 3-20. 2003.Recent just war thought has tended to prioritize just cause among the moral criteria to be satisfied for resort to armed force, reducing the requirement of sovereign authority to a secondary, supporting role: such authority is to act in response to the establishment of just cause. By contrast, Aquinas and Luther, two benchmark figures in the development of Christian thought on just war, unambiguously gave priority to the requirement of sovereign authority as instituted by God to carry out the re…Read more
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48Humanitarian Intervention after Iraq: Just War and International Law PerspectivesJournal of Military Ethics 5 (2): 114-127. 2006.
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46Can a Pacifist Have a Conversation with Augustine? A Response to Alain Epp WeaverJournal of Religious Ethics 29 (1): 87-93. 2001.Christians have historically differed as to whether the wrongness of an act is to be located in the objective character of the act or in the intention of the agent. By blurring this distinction, Alain Epp Weaver fails to see the real principle of consistency that unites Augustine's analyses of warfare and lying. Likewise, by not appreciating the fact that Augustine analyzes the wrongness of the act in terms of intention whereas Yoder analyzes its wrongness in terms of its objective character, We…Read more
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46Is democracy an ethical standard?Ethics and International Affairs 4. 1990.Can history serve to uphold democracy as an ethical standard of governance? The author suggests that the basic and cross-temporal cornerstones of morality, the family and religion, serve as "intermediate" social structures in attaining the central virtues of a moral democracy
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42The AI Commander Problem: Ethical, Political, and Psychological Dilemmas of Human-Machine Interactions in AI-enabled WarfareJournal of Military Ethics 21 (3): 246-271. 2022.Can AI solve the ethical, moral, and political dilemmas of warfare? How is artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled warfare changing the way we think about the ethical-political dilemmas and practice of war? This article explores the key elements of the ethical, moral, and political dilemmas of human-machine interactions in modern digitized warfare. It provides a counterpoint to the argument that AI “rational” efficiency can simultaneously offer a viable solution to human psychological and biologica…Read more
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36Contemporary Just War Thinking: Which Is Worse, to Have Friends or Critics?Ethics and International Affairs 27 (1): 25-45. 2013.
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35Grotius' Use of History and Charity in the modern Transformation of the Just War IdeaGrotiana 4 (1): 21-34. 1983.
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34Thinking comparatively about religion and war (review)Journal of Religious Ethics 36 (1): 157-179. 2008.In contrast to the period when the "Journal of Religious Ethics" began publishing, the study of religion in relation to war and connected issues has prospered in recent years. This article examines three collections of essays providing comparative perspectives on these topics, two recently authored studies of Buddhism and Islam in relation to war, and a compendious collection of texts on Western moral tradition concerning war, peace, and related issues from classical Greece and Rome to the prese…Read more
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33Paul Ramsey and the Recovery of the Just War IdeaJournal of Military Ethics 1 (2): 136-144. 2002.While the origin and development of the just war tradition until the early modern period blended concerns, ideas, and practices from the moral, legal, political, and military spheres, from the mid-seventeenth century until the mid-twentieth it largely disappeared as a conscious source of moral reflection about war and its restraint. Beginning in the 1960s, however, American theologian Paul Ramsey initiated a recovery of just war thinking in a series of writings applying the principles of discrim…Read more
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32Just War Tradition and the Restraint of War: A Moral and Historical InquiryHastings Center Report 12 (5): 40. 1982.Book reviewed in this article: Just War Tradition and the Restraint of War: A Moral and Historical Inquiry. By James Turner Johnson.
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30Thinking Historically about Just WarJournal of Military Ethics 8 (3): 246-259. 2009.This essay responds to the six essays on my thought above, doing so both directly on particularly important points and indirectly through my own reflections on how I understand my work and its development
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28‘Harsh Love’ and ForgivenessStudies in Christian Ethics 28 (3): 266-272. 2015.While Biggar in chapter 2 of his In Defence of War cites Augustine in support of an argument for forgiveness and reconciliation, this paper argues through a close look at Augustine’s Letters 95 and 139 and Book I of his On Christian Doctrine that Augustine’s view of how the Donatists should be treated focused on their punishment, not on reconciliation in the sense Biggar describes
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28Religion, Violence, and Human RightsJournal of Religious Ethics 41 (1): 1-14. 2013.Beginning with the support given by religious groups to humanitarian intervention for the protection of basic human rights in the debates of the 1990s, this essay examines the use of the human rights idea in relation to international law on armed conflict, the “Responsibility To Protect” doctrine, and the development of the idea of sovereignty associated with the “Westphalian system” of international order, identifying a dilemma: that the idea of human rights undergirds both the principle of non…Read more
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27Ad Fontes: The Question of Rebellion and Moral Tradition on the Use of ForceEthics and International Affairs 27 (4): 371-378. 2013.“Stab, smite, slay!” These are not the words of Bashar al-Assad telling his forces how they should deal with the Syrian rebel movement, or indeed those of any other contemporary political leader, but rather the words of Martin Luther exhorting the German nobility to a harsh response to the peasants' rebellion of 1524–1525. His writings show that he sympathized with many of the peasants' grievances so long as these did not issue in rebellion, but when they turned to force of arms, he responded st…Read more
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23A Practically Informed Morality of War: Just War, International Law, and a Changing World OrderEthics and International Affairs 31 (4): 453-465. 2017.
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22Getting it RightJournal of Religious Ethics 43 (1): 170-177. 2015.In addition to noting significant differences of interpretation between me and Kristopher Norris on understanding classic just war thought and judging its importance, this Comment flags errors of fact and faulty logic in the Norris essay
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20Religion and the Human Rights IdeaJournal of Religious Ethics 46 (2): 379-398. 2018.Three recent books focus, in different ways, on the idea of human rights and its relation to religion and religious ethics. All three books discussed here address criticisms of the human rights idea and seek to establish the relationship of religion and human rights with regard to the field of policy. The present discussion begins with an overview that places these three books in the larger context of the development of the human rights idea and its historical relationship with religion. It then…Read more
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17Nine Years with the Journal of Military Ethics - Change of EditorsJournal of Military Ethics 8 (4): 263-264. 2009.No abstract
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16Can Modern War Be Just?Yale University Press. 1984.Now that mankind has created the capability of destroying itself through nuclear technology, is it still possible to think in terms of a "just war"? Johnson argues that it is, and in the context of specific case studies he offers moral guidelines for addressing such major contemporary problems as terrorist activity in a foreign country, an individual’s conscientious objection to military service, and an American defense policy that requires development of weapons that may be morally employed in …Read more