Description
Book SynopsisWar is about individuals maiming and killing each other, and yet, it seems that it is also irreducibly collective, as it is fought by groups of people and more often than not for the sake of communal values such as territorial integrity and national self-determination. Cécile Fabre articulates and defends an ethical account of war in which the individual, as a moral and rational agent, is the fundamental focus for concern and respect--both as a combatant whose acts of killing need justifying and as a non-combatant whose suffering also needs justifying. She takes as her starting point a political morality to which the individual, rather than the nation-state, is central, namely cosmopolitanism. According to cosmopolitanism, individuals all matter equally, irrespective of their membership in this or that political community. Traditional war ethics already accepts this principle, since it holds that unarmed civilians are illegitimate targets even though they belong to the enemy community.
Trade Reviewambitious and innovative * The Guardian *
It is a landmark in the field. * Seth Lazar, Ethics *
an excellent book which anyone interested in the morality of war ought to read. * Saba Bazargan, MIND *
Table of ContentsIntroduction ; 1. Cosmopolitanism ; 2. Collective Self-Defence ; 3. Subsistence Wars ; 4. Civil Wars ; 5. Humanitarian Intervention ; 6. Commodified wars ; 7. Asymmetrical Wars ; Conclusion ; Works cited ; Index
