Marc LiVecche

Marc LiVecche is the McDonald Distinguished Scholar of Ethics, War, and Public Life at Providence. He is also a non-resident research fellow at the US Naval War College, in the College of Leadership and Ethics.

Marc completed doctoral studies, earning distinction, at the University of Chicago, where he worked under the supervision of the political theorist and public intellectual Jean Bethke Elshtain, until her death in August, 2013. His first book, The Good Kill: Just War & Moral Injury, was published in 2021 by Oxford University Press. Another project, Responsibility and Restraint: James Turner Johnson and the Just War Tradition, co-edited with Eric Patterson, was published by Stone Tower Press in the fall of 2020. Currently, he is finalizing Moral Horror: A Just War Defense of Hiroshima. Before all this academic stuff, Marc spent twelve years doing a variety of things in Central Europe—ranging from helping build sport and recreational leagues in post-communist communities, to working at a Christian study and research center, to leading seminars on history and ethics onsite at the former Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi concentration camp in Poland. This latter experience allowed him to continue his undergraduate study of the Shoah; a process which rendered him entirely ill-suited for pacifism.

Marc lives in Annapolis, Maryland with his wife and children–and a marmota monax whistlepigging under the shed. He can be followed, or stalked, on twitter @mlivecche. Additional publications can be found at his Amazon author page.

All Author Content

Author Articles

Author Podcasts

Author Videos

Lady justice retribution punishment
Love’s Casuistry: A Case for Retribution

Retribution is the form love sometimes takes when nothing else will requite injustice.

Marksism – No. 64: 9/11 Recall and Afghan Drone Horror
Marksism – No. 64: 9/11 Recall and Afghan Drone Horror

This week the editors discuss Marc LiVecche’s article about 9/11 and a report about the Pentagon admitting its drone strike against an aid worker in Kabul last month was a “tragic mistake.”

rage, enmity, 9-11
An Enmity Wholesome and Wise

Commentary surrounding the 20th anniversary of 9-11 coalesced into broad themes of sorrow and rage. Both emotions were appropriate to the day.

9/11
Marksism – No. 63: 9/11 Christian Realist Reflections

In this week’s episode, the editors discuss 9/11.

Marksism – No. 62: Nation Building, Afghanistan, Niebuhr
Marksism – No. 62: Nation Building, Afghanistan, Niebuhr

This week the editors cover Henry Nau’s article about nation-building, 75-year-old reports from occupied Germany by Reinhold Neibuhr and John Baillie, a podcast with Rebeccah Heinrichs, and an event with Paul D. Miller and Jon Askonas.

Marksism – No. 61: Niebuhr, Divine Judgment, and Afghanistan

In this week’s episode, the editors discuss a 75-year-old article by Reinhold Niebuhr in relation to events in Afghanistan.

Atomic Blasts 1945 & Christian Ethics

Just war scholars and Christian ethicists address morality of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Marksism – No. 60: Afghanistan, Calvinist Politics, Hiroshima

Mark Tooley & Marc LiVecche discuss Afghanistan, Calvinism & Hiroshima.

A CH-47 Chinook helicopter crew chief keeps watch during a flight over Kabul, Afghanistan,
Tragedy and the Moral Life

Afghanistan’s fall is a shameful and unnecessary tragedy . We owe it to our warfighters and those who fought with them to do whatever good can still be done.

Marksism – No. 59: Utilitarian Christianity, Niebuhrs, Integral Disarmament, and Pope Francis

This week the editors discuss a 1946 debate between H. Richard Niebuhr and others about “Utilitarian Christianity,” and a recent discussion about “Integral Disarmament.”