Ethics, Security, and the War Machine

If pacifists are correct in thinking that war is always unjust, then it follows that we ought to eliminate the possibility and temptation of ever engaging in it; we should not build war-making capacity, and if we already have, then demilitarizationâ€"or military abolitionâ€"would seem to be the appropriate course to take. On the other hand, if war is sometimes justified, as many believe, then it must be permissible to prepare for it by creating and maintaining a military establishment. Yet this view that the justifiability of war-making is also sufficient to justify war-building is mistaken.

This book addresses questions of jus ante bellum, or justice before war. Under what circumstances is it justifiable for a polity to prepare for war by militarizing? When (if ever) and why (if at all) is it morally permissible to create and maintain the potential to wage war? In doing so it highlights the ways in which a civilian population compromises its own security in maintaining a permanent military establishment, explores the moral and social costs of militarization, and evaluates whether or not these costs are worth bearing.

Author: Ned Dobos
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 02/01/2023
Pages: 192
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.50lbs
Size: 8.20h x 5.50w x 0.60d
ISBN13: 9780192887849
ISBN10: 019288784X
BISAC Categories:
- Philosophy | Social
- Philosophy | Political
- Philosophy | Ethics & Moral Philosophy

About the Author

Ned Dobos, University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy

Ned Dobos is Senior Lecturer in International and Political Studies at The University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy. He is the author of Insurrection and Intervention: The Two Faces of Sovereignty (Cambridge 2012) and co-editor of Challenges for Humanitarian Intervention: Ethical Demand and Political Reality (Oxford 2018).