Annotation
Winter semester:
The main objective of the course is to stimulate consideration and debate over the ethical context of the use of violence in international, political and social relations. It investigates whether and under what circumstances the use of violence can be considered as morally justifiable, right or even unavoidable and when it is problematic or unacceptable. The course starts with presenting the ethical context of violent behaviour on three established levels of political research analysis – individual, state and international system.
Summer semester:
The overall goal is to encourage participants to reassess and reconsider the role of violence in politics, and in the international system. This is followed by a closer focus on the ethics of armed conflicts. Based on a tradition dating back to St. Augustine and Aristotle, the ethics of war experienced a renewed interest during the 1970s due to Michael Walzer’s seminal book, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations, and to the Vietnam War which motivated Walzer, and others, to question if and under what conditions war and the use of lethal violence can be morally permissible. The ethics of armed conflicts is also a subject of utmost importance today. Statements addressing the justice of both the resort to force and conduct in its execution are prevalent in the media and in on-going political debates. The legitimacy of the Iraq War, the humanitarian intervention in Libya, targeted killing of Taliban and al-Qaida leaders around the world, or e.g. the question of soldiers’ obligations in peacekeeping missions became issues that divide international public opinion and put strains on international politics. The aim of this course is not to give prefabricated answers to such moral questions. Instead, the goal is to explore the moral arguments, assumptions and principles that underlie the range of answers and thus make students engage critically with these questions and arguments in relation to specific cases.