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Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership

Resource Library


Military Ethics - Recent Journal Articles and Books (by Quarter)

Each quarter, the Center highlights journal articles and books relevant to the military ethics community.

Articles are drawn from the following journals:

  • Ethics and International Affairs
  • Journal of Military Ethics
  • Ethics
  • Philosophy and Public Affairs
  • Journal of Political Philosophy
  • Journal of Applied Philosophy
  • Journal of Philosophy
  • Journal of Moral Philosophy
  • Canadian Journal of Philosophy
  • Law and Philosophy
  • Journal of Ethics
  • Philosophia
  • Public Affairs Quarterly
  • Philosophical Perspectives
  • Ethical Perspectives
  • Journal of Practical Ethics
  • Parameters
  • Ratio Juris
  • Social Theory and Practice
Please feel free to contact Dr. Barrett (ebarrett@usna.edu) to recommend journals, articles and/or books.

 


2020 - 4th Quarter

Armstrong, Chris. "Dealing with Dictators." Journal of Political Philosophy 28, no. 3 (2020): 307-31. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopp.12206. [Argues that we should be cautious about withdrawing from trade with dictatorships.]

Buzar, Stipe. "The Principle of Double Effect and Just War Theory." Philosophia 48 (2020): 1299-312. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-020-00209-2. [Explores the relationship between the doctrine of double effect and just war theory.]

Cebula, Adam. "Collective Complicity in War Crimes: Some Remarks on the Principle of Moral Equality of Soldiers." Philosophia 48 (2020): 1313-332. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-020-00208-3. [Argues against Walzer’s assumption of the moral equality of combatants.]

Davis, Jeremy. "Toward aa Collectivist National Defense." Philosophia 48 (2020): 1333-354. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-020-00174-w. [Provides an alternative to the individualist (i.e., reductivist) view of the ethics of killing in war.]

Kosuta, Matthew. "Ethics of War and Ritual: The Bhagavad-Gita and Mahabharata as Test Cases." Journal of Military Ethics (2020). https://doi.org/10.1080/15027570.2020.1824578. [Analyzes the Bhagavad-Gita and the Mahabharata in light of the principles of jus in bello.]

Maboloc, Christopher Ryan. "The Moral Argument for Migration." Philosophia 48 (2020): 1501-513. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-020-00166-w. [Provides a defense of the right to migrate between states, and claims that states have negative duties toward refugees to protect them from harm.]

Mikalsen, Kjartan Koch. "The Irrelevance of History: In Defense of a Pure Functionalist Theory of Territorial Jurisdiction." Ratio Juris 33, no. 3 (2020): 291-306. https://doi.org/10.1111/raju.12294. [Defends a functionalist account of territorial jurisdiction rights, according to which states have rights over territory in virtue of creating conditions that enable freedom.]

Sanni, John Sodiq. "The Destruction of Historical Monuments and the Danger of Sanitising History." Philosophia (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-020-00275-6. [Argues that the destruction of historical monuments is wrong.]

Ogburn, Langdon. "Drones and War: The Impact of Advancement in Military Technology on Just War Theory and the International Law of Armed Conflict." Ethics & International Affairs (September 2020). Available online at https://www.ethicsandinternationalaffairs.org/2020/drones-and-war-the-impact-of-advancement-in-military-technology-on-just-war-theory-and-the-international-law-of-armed-conflict/. [Argues that just war theory and the international law of armed conflict must be re-imagined to take into account technological changes such as the use of drone strikes.]

Pattison, James. "Opportunity Costs Pacifism." Law and Philosophy 39, no. 5 (2020): 545-76. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10982-020-09390-7. [Argues that a neglected argument for pacificism (in the Just War tradition) is that the resources spent on war could be better spent elsewhere.]

Tomlin, Patrick. "Proportionality in War: Revising Revisionism." Ethics 131, no. 1 (2020): 34-61. https://doi.org/10.1086/709983. [Argues that revisionism, counterintuitively, implies that a war may be proportionate even if all of the acts of war are disproportionate, as well as the converse, and suggests some ways that revisionism can be revised to meet this challenge.]

2020 - 3rd Quarter

Acharya, Amitav. "The Myth of the ‘Civilization State’: Rising Powers and the Cultural Challenge to World Order." Ethics & International Affairs 34, no. 2 (2020): 139-56. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0892679420000192. [Considers whether the the rise of civilization-states is inevitable in light of the greater prominence of China, India, Turkey, and Russia.]

Attanasio, David L. "The Problem of State Territorial Obligations." Journal of Ethics (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-020-09335-1. [Argues that extant theories of territorial rights can’t explain why states have territorial obligations to (e.g.) provide minimum protection to people living there.]

Barnett, Michael. "A Problem from Washington: Samantha Power Enters the Foreign Policy Bureaucracy." Ethics & International Affairs 34, no. 2 (2020): 241-54. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0892679420000313. [Argues that there are tensions between Samantha Power’s Education of an Idealist and A Problem from Hell, and that this poses a problem for the possibility of ethics in foreign policy.]

Beebee, Helen and Alex Kaiserman. "Causal Contribution in War." Journal of Applied Philosophy 37, no. 3 (2020): 364-77. https://doi.org/10.1111/japp.12341. [A challenge for the view that civilians on an unjust side of a conflict have small causal contributions (thus immunizing them to defensive liability) is that the size of an agent’s causal contribution depends on factors extrinsic to their action and has counterintuitive implications.]

Bero, Stephen. "Holding Responsible and Taking Responsibility." Law and Philosophy 39, no. 3 (2020): 263-96. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10982-019-09371-5. [Argues that taking responsibility is morally distinct from holding responsible and is morally significant in its own right.]

Brunstetter, Daniel R. "Introduction: The Ethical, Legal, and Strategic Implications of Limited Strikes." Ethics & International Affairs 34, no. 2 (2020): 157-59. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0892679420000222. [Introduces a roundtable on limited strikes (military strikes that fall short of war).]

Brunstetter, Daniel R. "Wading Knee-Deep into the Rubicon: Escalation and the Morality of Limited Strikes." Ethics & International Affairs 34, no. 2 (2020): 161-73. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0892679420000210. [Defends an ethics of limited strikes—jus ad vim—that is supposed to be distinct from traditional just war theory.]

Burkhardt, Tim. "Epicureanism and the Wrongness of Killing." Journal of Ethics 24 (2020): 177-92. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-019-09317-y. [Argues that Epicureans have a reason not to kill people because Epicureanism might be false.]

Burri, Susanne. "Why Moral Philosophy Needs Real Cases: The Redirection of V-Weapons during the Second World War." Journal of Political Philosophy 28, no. 2 (2020): 247-69. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopp.12200. [Discusses the ethics of the British government’s use of spies to re-direct German V-weapons, and discusses this debate in light of the trolley problem.]

Burri, Susanne. "Morally Permissible Risk Imposition and Liability to Defensive Harm." Law and Philosophy 39, no. 4 (2020): 381-408. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10982-019-09368-0. [Argues that a luck egalitarian commitment to holding people responsible cannot, by itself, ground liability to defensive harm, and that what grounds an agent’s liability is her culpability, not responsibility, for threatening unjustified harm.]

Cebula, Adam. "Introduction: The Legacy and Consequences of World War I." Journal of Military Ethics 19, no. 2 (2020): 118-20. https://doi.org/10.1080/15027570.2020.1796311. [Introduces a special article series on the ethical significance of World War I, drawn from a 2018 conference by the International Centre for Intercultural and Interreligious Dialogue at the University of Warsaw.]

Cebula, Adam. "Fighting a Just War in the Midst of an Unreasonable International Strife: World War I and the Collapse of the Central European System of the Triple Imperial Dominion." Journal of Military Ethics 19, no. 2 (2020): 135-50. https://doi.org/10.1080/15027570.2020.1796309. [Discusses the jus ad bellum implications of Polish Legions’ participation in the First World War, when Poland was not an independent state.]

Christie, Lars. "Causation and Liability to Defensive Harm." Journal of Applied Philosophy 37, no. 3 (2020): 378-92. https://doi.org/10.1111/japp.12377. [Provides counter-examples to the view that causal responsibility for an unjust threat is a necessary condition for liability to defensive harm.]

Dumsday, Travis. "Alexander of Hales on the Ethics of Vigilantism." Philosophia 48 (2020): 535-45. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-019-00093-5. [Applies Alexander of Hales’ view to the ethics of vigilantism in general (not specific to a just war context, but claims it’s related to that context as well).]

Eckert, Amy E. "The Changing Nature of Legitimate Authority in the Just War Tradition." Journal of Military Ethics 19, no. 2 (2020): 84-98. https://doi.org/10.1080/15027570.2020.1793479. [Defends the view that non-state actors may permissibly wage war by including some of them under the scope of legitimate authorities.]

Fabre, Cécile. "The Morality of Treason." Law and Philosophy 39, no. 4 (2020): 427-61. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10982-020-09392-5. [Informational treason (passing along secret information to foreign actors without authorization) is sometimes morally obligatory (and so also permissible); and, even when it’s wrong, beneficiaries are sometimes obliged to make use of it.]

Fazal, Tanisha M. "Lengthening the Shadow of International Law." Ethics & International Affairs 34, no. 2 (July 2020). Available online at https://www.ethicsandinternationalaffairs.org/2020/lengthening-the-shadow-of-international-law/. [Reviews Noah Weisbord’s The Crime of Aggression and Tom Dannenbaum’s The Crime of Aggression, Humanity, and the Soldier, and advances a skeptical view that criminalizing aggression will advance the normative agendas of either author.]

Frowe, Helen and Massimo Renzo. "Introduction: Symposium on Causation and War." Journal of Applied Philosophy 37, no. 3 (2020): 341-45. https://doi.org/10.1111/japp.12432. [Motivates studying causation in war by pointing to its importance to the subject of moral liability to defensive harm, and introduces the articles in the symposium.]

Fung, Archon. "Four Levels of Power: A Conception to Enable Liberation." Journal of Political Philosophy 28, no. 2 (2020): 131-57. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopp.12196. [Argues for a fourfold distinction within the concept of “power.”]

Happel, Robin. "Cyber Resilience in an Age of Climate Chaos." Ethics & International Affairs (July 2020). Available online at https://www.ethicsandinternationalaffairs.org/2020/cyber-resilience-in-an-age-of-climate-chaos/. [Explores the ways climate change makes national infrastructure more vulnerable to cyberattacks.]

Heinze, Eric A. and Rhiannon Neilsen. "Limited Force and the Return of Reprisals in the Law of Armed Conflict." Ethics & International Affairs 34, no. 2 (2020): 175-88. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0892679420000246. [Argues that the ban on reprisals to limited strikes has largely been ignored by states recently, and that this means that limited strikes and reprisals are likely to lead to military escalation and international instability.]

Kobyliński, Andrzej. "Just and Unjust Memory? The Moral Obligation to Remember All Victims of Wars and Totalitarian Regimes." Journal of Military Ethics 19, no. 2 (2020): 151-62. https://doi.org/10.1080/15027570.2020.1797987. [Analyzes what the author identifies as a moral obligation to remember victims of wars and totalitarian regimes, and argues that we insufficiently remember the victims of 20th century Communism.]

Lazar, Seth. "Duty and Doubt." Journal of Practical Ethics 8, no. 1 (2020): 28-55. http://www.jpe.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/JPE0053-Lazarr.pdf. [Develops a simple decision theory for deontological decision theory under uncertainty (such as the fog of war).]

Lupton, Danielle L. "The Reputational Costs and Ethical Implications of Coercive Limited Air Strikes: The Fallacy of the Middle-Ground Approach." Ethics & International Affairs 34, no. 2 (2020): 217-28. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0892679420000209. [Argues that same features that make limited air strikes attractive to forces seeking to coerce another party also undermine limited air strikes’ effectiveness as a coercive tool of foreign policy.]

Pearlman, Wendy. "Syrian Views on Obama’s Red Line: The Ethical Case for Strikes against Assad." Ethics & International Affairs 34, no. 2 (2020): 189-200. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0892679420000234. [Provides an ethical (as contrasted with a legalistic) case for limited strikes against the Assad regime in Syria.]

Popović, Petar. "Hans Morgenthau and the Lasting Implications of World War I." Journal of Military Ethics 19, no. 2 (2020): 121-34. https://doi.org/10.1080/15027570.2020.1794509. [Uses Morgenthau’s thought to defend the view that the end of World War I ushered in a new revolutionary/revisionist era of international politics that extends to the present day.]

Rocheleau, Jordy. "Legitimate Authority as a Jus Ad Bellum Condition: Defense of a Procedural Requirement in Just War Theory." Journal of Military Ethics 19, no. 2 (2020): 99-117. https://doi.org/10.1080/15027570.2020.1799486. [Argues that legitimate authorization is a necessary condition of jus ad bellum.]

Sartorio, Carolina. "More of a Cause?" Journal of Applied Philosophy 37, no. 3 (2020): 346-63. https://doi.org/10.1111/japp.12370. [Argues that we should be skeptical that causal contribution comes in degrees when assessing liability in war.]

Straight, Jasmine Rae. "The Right to Self-Defense Against the State." Philosophia (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-020-00212-7. [Argues that restrictions on gun ownership rights undermine the important function of the Second Amendment to allow individuals to defend themselves against the state.]

Stoner, Ian. "Barbarous Spectacle and General Massacre: A Defence of Gory Fictions." Journal of Applied Philosophy 37, no. 4 (2020): 511-27. https://doi.org/10.1111/japp.12405. [Defends having a taste for gory fictions against candidate arguments that such tastes are immoral.]

Tadros, Victor. "Distributing Responsibility." Philosophy & Public Affairs 48, no. 3 (2020): 223-61. https://doi.org/10.1111/papa.12163. [Defends the view that moral responsibility is itself something that can be distributed by institutions, and that this distribution may be just or unjust.]

Tomlin, Patrick. "Distributive Justice for Aggressors." Law and Philosophy 39, no. 4 (2020): 351-79. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10982-019-09373-3. [Claims that a distinct concept of “narrow proportionality shortfall” is relevant to choosing how to distribute harm among aggressors in conflicts.]

Vilmer, Jean-Baptiste Jeangène. "A Matter of Balance: A French Perspective on Limited Strikes." Ethics & International Affairs 34, no. 2 (2020): 201-15. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0892679420000258. [Adopts a French perspective on the use of limited strikes, and defends a consequentialist rationale for such strikes, i.e., that they should be preventative rather than retributive.]

2020 - 2nd Quarter

Alexander, Larry. "Culpably Creating the Conditions of Justified Acts: Another Look." Philosophia (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-020-00211-8. [Examines how minor culpability in acts giving rise to justified defense affects whether those acts of defense are justified.]

Bass, Gary J. "Just and Unjust Proliferation." Ethics 130, no. 3 (2020): 349-83. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/707213. [Argues that the main justifications for nuclear proliferation are flawed, and defends a limited just war standard for assessing the acquisition of nuclear weapons.]

Beaton, Eilidh. "Against the Alienage Condition for Refugeehood." Law and Philosophy 39, no. 2 (2020): 147-76. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10982-019-09366-2. [Argues that refugee status in international law should not be dependent on being physically outside of the country one is claiming refugee status from.]

Bellamy, Alex J. "Introduction: Taking World Peace Seriously." Ethics & International Affairs 34, no. 1 (2020): 43-5. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0892679420000039. [Motivates scholarly attention to world peace.]

Bellamy, Alex J. "Thinking about World Peace." Ethics & International Affairs 34, no. 1 (2020): 47-56. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0892679420000027. [Argues that world peace is possible, though not inevitable, and something that every generation should strive for.]

Binkley, John C. "Revisiting the Revolt of the Generals." Parameters 50, no. 1 (2020): 23-37. https://search.proquest.com/openview/d0084ebc74b645ab88744670479b591d/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=32439. [Examines the public criticism of the Iraq War in 2006 as a new era in civil-military relations.]

Crespo, Ricardo. "Currency Warfare and Just War: The Ethics of Targeting Currencies in War." Journal of Military Ethics 19, no. 1 (2020): 2-19. https://doi.org/10.1080/15027570.2020.1779432. [Argues, within the lens of jus in bello principles, that waging war on another country’s currency is inherently indiscriminate but may be proportionate.]

Cronkhite, Amanda B., Wenshuo Zhang, and Leslie Caughell. "#Fakenews in #Natsec: Handling Misinformation." Parameters 50, no. 1 (2020): 5-22. https://search.proquest.com/openview/668546654ad5bf62a3e53f9768105078/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=32439. [Uses agent-based modeling to study how misinformation spreads.]

Firchow, Pamina. "World Peace is Local Peace." Ethics & International Affairs 34, no. 1 (2020): 57-65. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0892679420000088. [Since the majority of contemporary conflicts are no longer interstate, explores how world peace involves finding ways to achieve local peace in conflict-prone region, and examines the way external states should respond to local conflict.]

Fleming, Sean. "A Political Theory of Treaty Repudiation." Journal of Political Philosophy 28, no. 1 (2020): 3-26. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopp.12195. [Argues that being responsive to public attitudes trumps rational consistency when determining whether a state may permissibly repudiate a treaty.]

Forsberg, Lisa and Anthony Skelton. "Achievement and Enhancement." Canadian Journal of Philosophy 50, no. 3 (2020): 322-38. https://doi.org/10.1017/can.2019.43. [Denies the objection to biomedical enhancements that they would undermine the value of the achievements of those so advanced.]

Gleditsch, Nils Petter. "Toward a Social-Democratic Peace?" Ethics & International Affairs 34, no. 1 (2020): 67-75. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0892679420000076. [Defends a version of democratic peace theory that incorporates having a market economy, an active and competent state, close international cooperation, and the reduction of discrimination and group-based inequality.]

Grayling, A. C. "Toward Peace." Ethics & International Affairs 34, no. 1 (2020): 77-84. https://doi.org/10.1017/S089267942000009X. [Argues that peace on a global scale would be possible if peoples and states were to make investments comparable to their military expenditures in promoting mutual cultural understanding.]

Griffiths, Zachary E. "Are Retired Flag Officers Overparticipating in the Political Process?" Parameters 50, no. 1 (2020): 39-49. https://search.proquest.com/openview/1834bbc0f6412a89b48a710dd72a2306/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=32439. [Argues that political activities (including candidate endorsements) do little damage to democratic political institutions.]

Litwin, Oren J. "Weaponized Noncombatants, Child Soldiers, and Targeting Innocents." Journal of Military Ethics 19, no. 1 (2020): 56-68. https://doi.org/10.1080/15027570.2020.1771842. [Advances a novel theory of noncombatant immunity, and argues that morally innocent persons can be threats, and so valid military targets, if they are part of a coercive social structure that is itself a threat.]

Lonsdale, David J. "The Ethics of Cyber Attack: Pursuing Legitimate Security and the Common Good in Contemporary Conflict Scenarios." Journal of Military Ethics 19, no. 1 (2020): 20-39. https://doi.org/10.1080/15027570.2020.1764694. [Analyzes several ethical dimensions of cyber attacks.]

López, Roger G. "Self-Knowledge and the Elusive Pleasure of Vengeance." Philosophia 48 (2020): 289-311. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-019-00077-5. [Argues that vengeance fails to provide fulfillment in some cases because it occludes self-knowledge.]

Mokrosinska, Dorota. "Why Snowden and Not Greenwald? On the Accountability of the Press for Unauthorized Disclosures of Classified Information." Law and Philosophy 39, no. 2 (2020): 203-38. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10982-019-09367-1. [Argues that there is no moral reason for treating members of the press who publish unauthorized leaks differently from leakers.]

Pevnick, Ryan. "The Failure of Instrumental Arguments for a Human Right to Democracy." Journal of Political Philosophy 28, no. 1 (2020): 27-50. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopp.12197. [Argues that there cannot be an instrumental justification for a human right to democracy.]

Restrepo, Daniel Alejandro. "In Defense of Mercy." Journal of Military Ethics 19, no. 1 (2020): 40-55. https://doi.org/10.1080/15027570.2020.1738981. [Argues that soldiers should use mercy when confronted with enemy combatants who clearly pose no danger.]

Saniotis, Arthur and Jaliya Kumaratilake. "Amphetamines, Cognitive Enhancement and their Implications for Medical Military Ethics." Journal of Military Ethics 19, no. 1 (2020): 69-75. https://doi.org/10.1080/15027570.2020.1776479. [Outlines some important questions regarding the ethics of amphetamines and medical military physicians.]

True, Jacqui. "Continuums of Violence and Peace: A Feminist Perspective." Ethics & International Affairs 34, no. 1 (2020): 85-95. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0892679420000064. [Argues that feminist theory’s broader conception of violence is helpful in understanding what global peace would genuinely require.]

Walton, Andrew. "Trade Justice: An Argument for Integrationist, not Internal, Principles." Journal of Political Philosophy 28, no. 1 (2020): 51-72. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopp.12198. [Defends the view that the gains from trade should be distributed in light of other resources a country possesses to ensure that its population has a decent standard of living.]

2020 - 1st Quarter

Betz, Adam Thomas. "The Priority Problem for the Associativist Theory of Ethics in War." Journal of Moral Philosophy 17, no. 1 (2020): 1-32. https://doi.org/10.1163/17455243-20180014. [Argues that the associative duties account of the permissibility of killing innocents in war is incompatible with the intuitively correct view of the priorities among soldiers’ protective duties.]

Hussain, Waheed. "Pitting People against Each Other." Philosophy & Public Affairs 48, no. 1 (2020): 79-113. https://doi.org/10.1111/papa.12158. [Argues that competitive institutions are permissible when they exist within the backdrop of institutions of mutual care that instantiate civic friendship.]

Moore, Margaret. "Is Canada Entitled to the Arctic?" Canadian Journal of Philosophy 50, no. 1 (2020): 98-113. https://doi.org/10.1017/can.2019.8. [Argues that the kinds of rights countries can claim over unoccupied territories are different than the kinds of rights they can claim over territories their states occupy, and that these rights have different justifications.]

Zanetti, Véronique. "Proportionality and Compromises." Journal of Moral Philosophy 17, no. 1 (2020): 75-97. https://doi.org/10.1163/17455243-20182843.


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