Just War

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961), who was part of the movement known as phenomenology. While less well-known than his contemporaries Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, his popularity has increased among philosophers in ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Plato's Crito and Phaedo, his accounts of the last days of Socrates in prison in 399 BC as he waited to be executed by drinking hemlock. Both works show Socrates preparing to die in the way he had lived: doing philosophy. In the Crito, Plato shows ...  Show more

Just-war theory was set in motion in the 5th century as St. Augustine agonized over how to reconcile Christianity’s high ethical ideals with the devastating world realities which were bringing about the fall of Rome. For 1,600 years, theologians, ethicists, diplomats, and politic ...  Show more

On Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument With Illustrations (1977), ch. 4-6 on "jus ad bellum," which refers to moral justifications for going to war. Self-defense is permissible while aggression is not, but this leaves many questions unanswered, and Walzer gives us many histori ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas brought together under Justinian I, Byzantine emperor in the 6th century AD, which were rediscovered in Western Europe in the Middle Ages and became very influential in the development of laws in many European nations and elsewhere.WithCa ...  Show more

Can there be such a thing as a ‘moral’ war? Can it ever be right to kill innocent people, even in self-defence? Can there be such a thing as a ‘moral’ war? Can it ever be right to kill innocent people, even in self-defence? How do autonomous weapons, remote control weapons and dr ...  Show more