The seminar looks at war and other forms of large-scale political violence from a normative point of view. In the first part of the seminar we will discuss standard just war theory and its main opponents (pacifism, realism). In the second part of the seminar, we will learn about more recent developments in just war thinking, including attempts to extend the reach of the normative framework to non-paradigmatic contexts such as terrorism or to technology-driven changes in the nature of warfare.

Preparatory Reading

Orend, Brian (2016): War. In: Zalta, Edward N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2016). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2016/entries/war/

Assignments and Credits

6 CP (TP 1, GS): term paper (15-20 pp.) or oral exam (30 min.)
3 CP (TP 2, GS): presentation (15 min.) with written elaboration (5 pp.) or short term paper (8-10 pp.)