Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

 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)

Michael Walzer has a new book out, THE PARADOX OF LIBERATION, from Yale University Press. (And no, the photo here isn't of him.) I haven't read the book and confess I probably never will: there are just so many books falling off the presses every day.... For many books, even if they seem of interest, I have to settle for an evocative review. For this purpose, a review by an admirer of the author is always preferable (a hostile review can not be relied upon to give a fair summary of the contents). Fortunately, Walzer -- who has been a figure of importance in US intellectual circles, especially of the leftward sort, for decades -- has an admirer in Michael Ignatieff, who has written a review of this book for the NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS. The book is about three revolutions/liberations of the mid-twentieth century that, in Walzer's review, started out promisingly and went bad. I'll just quote two paragraphs from the portion of Ignatieff's review devoted to su...