Michael Walzer is one of the world’s most eminent philosophers on the subject of war and ethics. Now, for the first time since his classic Just and Unjust Wars was published almost three decades ago, this volume brings together his most provocative arguments about contemporary military conflicts and the ethical issues they raise.The essays in the book are divided into three sections. The first deals with issues such as humanitarian intervention, emergency ethics, and terrorism. The second consists of Walzer’s responses to particular wars, including the first Gulf War, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. And the third presents an essay in which Walzer imagines a future in which war might play a less significant part in our lives. In his introduction, Walzer reveals how his thinking has changed over time.Written during a period of intense debate over the proper use of armed force, this book gets to the heart of difficult problems and argues persuasively for a moral perspective on war.

This book presents ten original essays that reassess the meaning, relevance, and legacy of Michael Walzer’s classic, Just and Unjust Wars. Written by leading figures in philosophy, theology, international politics and the military, the essays examine topics such as territorial rights, lessons from America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the practice of humanitarian intervention in light of experience, Walzer’s notorious discussion of supreme emergencies, revisionist criticisms of noncombatant immunity, gender and the rights of combatants, the peacebuilding critique of just war theory, and the responsibility of soldiers for unjust wars. Collectively, these essays advance the debate in this important field and demonstrate the continued relevance of Walzer’s work.

This is a book about justice: the justice of a nation's major institutions and the justice of the interaction of nations on the world stage. Michael Walzer, one of North America's most prominent social critics, has written acclaimed works about the morali

In this collection of essays, Michael Walzer discusses how obligations are incurred, sustained, and (sometimes) abandoned by citizens of the modern state and members of political parties and movements as they respond to and participate in the most crucial and controversial aspects of citizenship: resistance, dissent, civil disobedience, war, and revolution. Walzer approaches these issues with insight and historical perspective, exhibiting an extraordinary understanding for rebels, radicals, and rational revolutionaries. The reader will not always agree with Walzer but he cannot help being stimulated, excited, challenged, and moved to thoughtful analysis.

In recent years questions of ethical responsibility and justice in war have become increasingly significant in international relations. This focus has been precipitated by United States (U.S.) led invasions in Afghanistan and Iraq. In turn, Western conceptions of ethical responsibility have been largely informed by human rights based understandings of morality. This book directly addresses the question of what it means to act ethically in times of war by drawing upon first-hand accounts of U.S. war fighting in Iraq during the 2003 invasion and occupation. The book focuses upon the prominent rights based justification of war of Michael Walzer. Through an in-depth critical reading of Walzer’s work, this title demonstrates the broader problems implicit to human rights based justifications of war and elucidates an alternative account of ethical responsibility: ethics as response. Putting forward a compelling case for people to remain troubled and engaged with questions of ethical responsibility in war, this work will be of great interest to students and scholars in a range of areas including international relations theory, ethics and security studies.

In Thick and Thin: Moral Argument at Home and Abroad, Michael Walzer revises and extends the arguments in his influential Spheres of Justice, framing his ideas about justice, social criticism, and national identity in light of the new political world that has arisen in the past three decades. Walzer focuses on two different but interrelated kinds of moral argument: maximalist and minimalist, thick and thin, local and universal. This new edition has a new preface and afterword, written by the author, describing how the reasoning of the book connects with arguments he made in Just and Unjust Wars about the morality of warfare. Walzer's highly literate and fascinating blend of philosophy and historical analysis will appeal not only to those interested in the polemics surrounding Spheres of Justice and Just and Unjust Wars but also to intelligent readers who are more concerned with getting the arguments right.

Michael Walzer is one of the pre-eminent political theorists in the world today and also a prominent public intellectual. His conception of social justice and his work on just and unjust wars have been hugely influential in political theory and, at the same time, he has taken a public stand on many of the great issues of our time, from the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War to 9/11, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Iraq War. He stands out among political theorists and philosophers by virtue of his attention to historical reality and his sensitivity to social and political context. Convinced that philosophical debate is only useful if it is rooted in the concrete practices and morality of societies, he develops a form of social critique that is opposed to a disembodied philosophy which does not respond to concerns of ordinary people. For Walzer, it is useless to try to write a theory of justice: the challenge is to think through issues of justice in relation to the particular contexts in which people live out their lives. The core strength of his work is his practical instinct: if individuals are contextualized, critique must be too. This book takes the form of an extended conversation between Walzer and Astrid von Busekist, ranging from Walzer’s biography and political activism to his work on war, justice and Judaism. Weaving together his theoretical work and his political activism, it provides an outstanding introduction to the life and work of one of the most influential political theorists of our time.