How do you view war? Moral and intellectual approaches to war divide into four basic categories. Pacifism says that all war is morally wrong. Realism says that war is essentially about power and self-interest, and that moral analysis is therefore largely irrelevant. Holy war or crusade says that God, or some secular ideology of ultimate concern, can authorize the coercion or killing of non-believers. And just war says that universal moral criteria should be applied to specific situations to determine whether the use of force is morally justified.

I'm somewhere in the middle of Realism and Just War - probably leaning a bit towards the Just War theory.

« Benevolent Dictator? | Home | Redesign Metafilter »