Just War 101

In war, “necessity” can be a reason to restrain fighting as well as a justification for it

Just war morality demands that ethical judgements must take into account certain cold, unrelenting, and frustratingly immovable facts. Wisdom matters.

The last essential requirement for a just war is to have a properly oriented set of intentions. These include rescue, justice, punishment, peace, and victory

Just War encompasses two overlapping but distinct forms of justice. Complex questions of desert accompany both, sometimes tragically.

The presence of certain kinds of evil in the world–including aggression against the innocent–signal the possibility that war must be.

The just war tradition offers a view of politics conceiving of sovereignty as a moral responsibility through the just causes of war can be met and overcome.

As should already be clear from this series’ first three essays (here, here, and here), the Christian realist just war…

Thomas Aquinas is a pivotal thinker — historically and conceptually — in the development of the Christian realist just war tradition

The Christian realist just war tradition is primarily concerned with aiding reflection on how to meet the obligations of of love through, not despite, war