War and Peace

3 credits · Undergraduate

(3 hrs Lecture) This is a study of the ethical issues connected with war and the securing of peace, as articulated in the writings of major philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Hobbes, Kant, James, Russell, and Camus, and perhaps selected political and military thinkers such as Machiavelli and Clausewitz. Relevant moral theories such as the ethics of non-violence, the idea of a holy war, the theory of the just war, and the doctrine of deterrence will be critically examined both in their historical context and in the context of the nuclear age.