Just War and Ordered Liberty

When is war just? What does justice require? Miller draws from the intellectual history of just war to assess contemporary warfare.

Paul D. Miller (Author)

9781108834681, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 7 January 2021

200 pages
16 x 23.5 x 2 cm, 0.54 kg

'Paul D. Miller's latest book is a well-written, well-crafted meditation on both the actual and intellectual history of the justice of political violence. Gripping current cases – from drones to cyber to Syria – are considered. Combining his own extensive military intelligence expertise (especially in Afghanistan) with his deep theoretical knowledge, Miller builds a meaty, rewarding, important volume focusing on when, if ever, to go to war, and which duties arise in its aftermath. Terrific in breadth, research, application, and overall construction, its best achievement resides in its combination of historical mastery and moral plausibility.' Brian Orend, Author of The Morality of War (2013) and War and Political Theory (2019).

When is war just? What does justice require? If we lack a commonly-accepted understanding of justice – and thus of just war – what answers can we find in the intellectual history of just war? Miller argues that just war thinking should be understood as unfolding in three traditions: the Augustinian, the Westphalian, and the Liberal, each resting on distinct understandings of natural law, justice, and sovereignty. The central ideas of the Augustinian tradition (sovereignty as responsibility for the common good) can and should be recovered and worked into the Liberal tradition, for which human rights serves the same function. In this reconstructed Augustinian Liberal vision, the violent disruption of ordered liberty is the injury in response to which force may be used and war may be justly waged. Justice requires the vindication and restoration of ordered liberty in, through, and after warfare.

1. Thinking about war
2. The Augustinian tradition
3. The transition
4. The Westphalian tradition
5. Competing visions of a liberal tradition
6. Augustinian liberalism
7. Just war and ordered liberty
8. Case studies
9. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Public international law [LBB], International law [LB], Geopolitics [JPSL], International relations [JPS], Political science & theory [JPA], Politics & government [JP], Social & political philosophy [HPS]