James Dubik, JUST WAR RECONSIDERED (2016)

Just a brief book note. Those of us who are but dabblers in medieval social philosophy know of "just war" theory as a body of thought that stresses proportionality and discrimination in the pursuit of war, and has something to do with the "principle of double effect."

It is one thing for a nation to go to war for bad (illegitimate) reasons. It is another for a nation to go to reason for legitimate reasons, which one branch of just war theory elucidates. But, separately, there is the question of how war is conducted, and the body of theory dating to Aquinas discusses the just conduct thereof as an issue distinct from its legitimacy.

James Dubik "reconsidered" this body of thought, not to reject it but to develop its intuitions further, in a 2016 volume. Here is a review:

Just War Reconsidered: Strategy, Ethics, and Theory (usnwc.edu)

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