Ethics Of Our Fighters

What does it mean to fight an ethical war? This has become an essential question as Israel defends itself on the battlefield and in the court of public opinion. After centuries of military powerlessness, Jews in the 20th century began to ask themselves fundamental questions of military ethics. Wars - including current conflicts in Israel - are inherently brutal. How, then, should Jews respond to the great Arab revolt? What does Judaism say about the bombing of Dresden, the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, or how to push the British out of the land of Israel? Is "land for peace" a moral option? What about preemptive attacks in 1967 or after 9/11? Can we fight terrorists in urban settings while protecting our soldiers, avoiding non-combatants, and preserving our public image? Ethics of Our Fighters tells the story of these political dilemmas and moral debates. It draws from the pivotal historical moments of the last one hundred years to weave together the most important ideas of contemporary ethicists with the insights of the greatest rabbinic scholars. This book systemically presents, for the first time, a holistic Jewish perspective on military ethics. Jews and non-Jews alike, from the halls of Congress and West Point to batei midrash and IDF bases, can draw from Jewish wisdom on these life-and-death matters. This worldview that is at once distinctly Jewish and more broadly insightful can help all civilized nations fight wisely and act nobly.

Killing a person is in general among the most seriously wrongful forms of action, yet most of us accept that it can be permissible to kill people on a large scale in war. Does morality become more permissive in a state of war? Jeff McMahan argues that conditions in war make no difference to what morality permits and the justifications for killing people are the same in war as they are in other contexts, such as individual self-defence. This view is radically at odds with the traditional theory of the just war and has implications that challenge common sense views. McMahan argues, for example, that it is wrong to fight in a war that is unjust because it lacks a just cause.

Can a soldier be held responsible for fighting in a war that is illegal or unjust? This is the question at the heart of a new debate that has the potential to profoundly change our understanding of the moral and legal status of warriors, wars, and indeed of moral agency itself. The debate pits a widely shared and legally entrenched principle of war - that combatants have equal rights and equal responsibilities irrespective of whether they are fighting in a war that just or unjust - against a set of striking new arguments. These arguments challenge the idea that there is a separation between the rules governing the justice of going to war (the jus ad bellum) and the rules governing what combatants can do in war (the jus in bello). If ad bellum and in bello rules are connected in the way these new arguments suggest, then many aspects of just war theory and laws of war would have to be rethought and perhaps reformed. This book contains eleven original and closely argued essays by leading figures in the ethics and laws of war and provides an authoritative treatment of this important new debate. The essays both challenge and defend many deeply held convictions: about the liability of soldiers for crimes of aggression, about the nature and justifiability of terrorism, about the relationship between law and morality, the relationship between soldiers and states, and the relationship between the ethics of war and the ethics of ordinary life. This book is a project of the Oxford Leverhulme Programme on the Changing Character of War.

Foreword by Ward Churchill; cover design by Sue Coe The first anthology of writings on the history, ethics, politics and tactics of the Animal Liberation Front, Terrorists or Freedom Fighters? features both academic and activist perspectives and offers powerful insights into this international organization and its position within the animal rights movement. Calling on sources as venerable as Thomas Aquinas and as current as the Patriot Act--and, in some cases, personal experience--the contributors explore the history of civil disobedience and sabotage, and examine the philosophical and cultural meanings of words like "terrorism," "democracy" and "freedom," in a book that ultimately challenges the values and assumptions that pervade our culture. Contributors include Robin Webb, Rod Coronado, Ingrid Newkirk, Paul Watson, Karen Davis, Bruce Friedrich, pattrice jones and others.

Jack Hoban delivers a revolutionary view of moral values for our time epitomized by the Ethical Warrior - protector of self and others as equal human beings. Hoban's methodology reaches from the Greek ancients to the counterinsurgency efforts of today's Marines to provide ethical clarity and confidence in our moral actions.

Fire Service Ethics is the first textbook specifically developed to help fire service personnel deal with ethical dilemmas. Firefighters and fire service leaders will find benefit from this important tool to aid them in dealing with complex issues. No other profession places such discretionary burden on its practitioners as the fire service. The military, law enforcement, the medical profession, and legal profession all provide a robust set of ethical policies and guidelines to their members. Fire Service Ethics provides the foundation for creating ethical boundaries. Fire Service Ethics meets and exceeds the course outcomes and course objectives for the National Fire Academy FESHE Model Curriculum Bachelor's (Non-Core) course called Fire Service Ethics (C0303). It is also well suited for fire officer and administration development programs. Section 1 of the book is entitled Foundations. Its four chapters are intended to provide the reader with the basic understanding of ethics necessary to master the material in the succeeding three sections. Chapter 1 is recommended for all readers, as it addresses the important questions of ethical relevance to the fire service. Chapters 2, 3 & 4 are grounded in academic approaches to ethics and are specifically intended to be used in college courses. The material within the sections encourages critical analysis of ethical systems, and understanding of the basics of human behavior. Section 2 of the book is entitled Ethics on The Line. Its chapters address issues directly related to rank-and-file firefighters, and company officers. The section also deals with diversity; first as an abstract concept, and then as it applies specifically to the fire service. Section 2 is intended to serve dual purposes. First, it is designed to be included in an academic curriculum aimed at future firefighters. Secondly, Section 2 - combined with Section 4 - encompasses the majority of material appropriate for inclusion in fire service training programs. Section 3 of the text is dedicated to Administrative Ethics. The chapters within the section explore ethics issues faced by fire chiefs and senior administrative personnel. Included within the section are chapters on the building and maintenance of an ethical work culture, the ethical responsibilities associated with administration, and finally, ethics laws. Section 3 - combined with Sections 1 and 4 - is especially appropriate for officer development programs and collegiate programs in fire administration. Section 4 of the book is entitled Applied Ethics. The three chapters within the section deal with the application of ethics on the personal and department level. Included within the section are chapters on ethical decision-making, mechanisms by which unethical behavior is engaged, and a review of current ethical issues affecting local fire departments. Section 4 is universal in its application and should be used in all collegiate programs, as well as in firefighter and fire

"The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions; Or, Joints In Our Social Armour" by James Runciman is a collection of essays that portray the author's opinions on a variety of topics. From how much one should drink in society, to war, slang, and how to be a respectable man, this book was, in part, a manual of how to fit in with the upper elite if someone wanted to move up to a better place in the world.

This new Handbook offers a comprehensive overview of contemporary extensions and alternatives to the just war tradition in the field of the ethics of war. The modern history of just war has typically assumed the primacy of four particular elements: jus ad bellum, jus in bello, the state actor, and the solider. This book will put these four elements under close scrutiny, and will explore how they fare given the following challenges: • What role do the traditional elements of jus ad bellum and jus in bello—and the constituent principles that follow from this distinction—play in modern warfare? Do they adequately account for a normative theory of war? • What is the role of the state in warfare? Is it or should it be the primary actor in just war theory? • Can a just war be understood simply as a response to territorial aggression between state actors, or should other actions be accommodated under legitimate recourse to armed conflict? • Is the idea of combatant qua state-employed soldier a valid ethical characterization of actors in modern warfare? • What role does the technological backdrop of modern warfare play in understanding and realizing just war theories? Over the course of three key sections, the contributors examine these challenges to the just war tradition in a way that invigorates existing discussions and generates new debate on topical and prospective issues in just war theory. This book will be of great interest to students of just war theory, war and ethics, peace and conflict studies, philosophy and security studies.