Politics, Justice, and War

As violent conflicts fester across the globe and warfare is shaped anew by terrorism and technology, Joseph Capizzi offers a rigorous re-examination of the credibility and meaning of the just war tradition. Capizzi’s book is soundly researched and cogently argued. He begins by listing three central claims: the Christian moral life is compatible with military service; the use of force is a valid instrument of politics; and the just war ethic is the “best account of the coherence of morality and the military life” (p. 1). His basic argument is that the purpose of politics—including the use of force—is the promotion of peace, or “tranquillitas ordinis,” according to Augustine (p. 12). This book orbits around Capizzi’s aim to “reclaim the just war ethic ... as an ethic of peace” (p. 5). Organized by an introduction and four chapters, the book begins by stating that the “purpose of politics is peace” (p. 7). War, as an instrument of politics, is also ordered to the end of peace. Citing Augustine’s City of God, Capizzi posits, “Normatively, as that to which war should always tend, and descriptively, as that which those at war regard themselves to be pursuing, peace is always the goal of war” (p. 8). Capizzi narrows his focus to the just war tradition after a brief comparison to the political realism of Reinhold Niebuhr and the idealism of “just peacemaking.” Instead of analyzing the goals and strategies of alternatives to war like nonviolent action or economic sanctions, Capizzi’s book argues the just war ethic is necessary to “guide the actions of communities and individuals when peace requires the use of force” (p. 6).

Economic Justice · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Idealism · Just war theory · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Spanish Civil War · Terrorism · Global Peace and Security Dynamics · Law · Philosophy · Theology and Philosophy of Evil · War, Ethics, and Justification