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Asking the fox to guard the chicken coop: in defense of minimalism in the ethics of war and peace

Asking the fox to guard the chicken coop: in defense of minimalism in the ethics of war and peace
Asking the fox to guard the chicken coop: in defense of minimalism in the ethics of war and peace

Dominant normative theories of armed conflict orientate themselves around the ultimate goal of peace. Yet the deployment of these theories in the international sphere appears to have failed in advancing toward this goal. In this paper, we argue that one major reason for this failure is these theories’ use of essentially contested concepts—that is, concepts whose internally complex character results in no principled way of adjudicating between rival interpretations of them. This renders the theories susceptible to manipulation by international actors who are able to pursue bellicose policies under the cover of nominally pacific frameworks, and we show how this happened historically in a case study of the Korean War of 1950–1953. In order to better serve the goals of peace, we suggest, the rules of war should be reframed to simpler, but more restrictive, normative principles.


A response was published by Lonneke Peperkamp under the title “Restraining the fox: Minimalism in the ethics of war and peace” (2021) (https://doi.org/10.1177/17550882211034704)

Aggression, Korean War, essentially contested concepts, just war theory, legitimacy, peace
1755-0882
91-109
Forster, Elisabeth
5b83dcba-7458-48bc-bd25-e2833d542bb4
Taylor, Isaac
e9bd9a1a-5f5b-4111-b812-ae84efd94906
Forster, Elisabeth
5b83dcba-7458-48bc-bd25-e2833d542bb4
Taylor, Isaac
e9bd9a1a-5f5b-4111-b812-ae84efd94906

Forster, Elisabeth and Taylor, Isaac (2022) Asking the fox to guard the chicken coop: in defense of minimalism in the ethics of war and peace. Journal of International Political Theory, 18 (1), 91-109. (doi:10.1177/1755088220985882).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Dominant normative theories of armed conflict orientate themselves around the ultimate goal of peace. Yet the deployment of these theories in the international sphere appears to have failed in advancing toward this goal. In this paper, we argue that one major reason for this failure is these theories’ use of essentially contested concepts—that is, concepts whose internally complex character results in no principled way of adjudicating between rival interpretations of them. This renders the theories susceptible to manipulation by international actors who are able to pursue bellicose policies under the cover of nominally pacific frameworks, and we show how this happened historically in a case study of the Korean War of 1950–1953. In order to better serve the goals of peace, we suggest, the rules of war should be reframed to simpler, but more restrictive, normative principles.


A response was published by Lonneke Peperkamp under the title “Restraining the fox: Minimalism in the ethics of war and peace” (2021) (https://doi.org/10.1177/17550882211034704)

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Accepted/In Press date: 15 December 2020
e-pub ahead of print date: 7 January 2021
Published date: 1 February 2022
Additional Information: Funding Information: We would like to thank Jovana Davidovic, Tobias Voß, and the two anonymous reviewers for their very helpful feedback on this paper. Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2021.
Keywords: Aggression, Korean War, essentially contested concepts, just war theory, legitimacy, peace

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 447783
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/447783
ISSN: 1755-0882
PURE UUID: 6932eeb2-5a1a-4d64-8dc1-d85573db6332

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Date deposited: 22 Mar 2021 17:30
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 10:23

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Author: Isaac Taylor

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