Ideas, like people, have genealogies. And so it is with the just war tradition – a moral and ethical framework that seeks to inform political, military, and other leaders and individuals who are responsible for maintaining a just and peaceful social and political order in a turbulent and tumultuous world. The history of moral discussions of war, peace, and proper use of military force is long and complex. For centuries, philosophers, theologians, political theorists, jurists, and others in the West have upheld the viability and vitality of the just war tradition. In so doing, they have argued that war in the pursuit of justice may at times be necessary, but must be conducted with responsibility and restraint.
The essays in this volume analyze and honor the thought of James Turner Johnson, the preeminent historian of the just war tradition in the twenty-first century. Whether one considers the theological, cross-cultural, or secular strands of the centuries-old tradition, the scholarship and ideas of Johnson, spanning more than half a century, are prominent in academic literature, the academy, and the profession of arms. The ethics of war, justice, law of armed conflict, human rights, terrorism and the international order, international humanitarian law, and issues of faith and force are among the many topics addressed by Johnson that contributors discuss in these pages.
About the Editors:
Eric Patterson, Ph.D., serves as scholar-at-large and past dean of the Robertson School of Government at Regent University and a Research Fellow at Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs, where he previously served full-time. He has twice worked at the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, served for over twenty years as an Air National Guard officer and commander, and was a White House Fellow. He is the author or editor of 15 books, including Just American Wars (Routledge, 2019), The Ashgate Research Companion on Military Ethics (with James Turner Johnson, 2016), Ending Wars Well (Yale University Press, 2012), Ethics Beyond Wars End (editor, Georgetown University Press, 2012), Politics in a Religious World (Continuum, 2011), Debating the War of Ideas (with John Gallagher, 2009), Christianity and Power Politics Today (editor, 2008), and Just War Thinking: Morality and Pragmatism in the Struggle Against Contemporary Threats (2007). He has also published numerous scholarly articles in journals such Survival, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, Journal of Political Science, International Politics, Security Studies, and International Relations. Patterson holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California at Santa Barbara and a Master’s in International Politics from the University of Wales at Aberystwyth.
Marc LiVecche, Ph.D. (University of Chicago), is a research fellow at the Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, and executive editor at Providence: A Journal of Christianity & American Foreign Policy. He was McDonald Research Fellow at the McDonald Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Life in Christ Church College, Oxford University, in residence from 2018-2020.His first book, The Good Kill: Just War & Moral Injury, is forthcoming from Oxford University Press in early 2021.
