Non-violence, Peace and Justice

This title presents a philosophical approach to questions of violence and nonviolence, war and peace, and justice as well as injustice in human affairs. This book is an exercise in both applied philosophy and comparative philosophy, with a primary emphasis on the ethical issues at stake in thinking about violence in human affairs generally, war especially, and the related quest for social justice. It offers the reader a broad introduction to underlying assumptions, values, concepts, theories, and the historical contexts informing much of the current discussion worldwide regarding these morally crucial topics and their wide-ranging variations. It provides brief summaries and analyses of a wide range of relevant belief systems, philosophical positions, and policy problems. While not first and foremost a book of advocacy, it is clearly oriented throughout by the ethical preference for nonviolent strategies in the achievement of human ends and a belief in the viability of a socially just, and thus truly peaceful, human future. It also maintains a consistently skeptical stance towards the all-too-easily accepted apologies, past and present, for violence, war, and the continuation of injustice. This is a broad ranging survey of many of the key figures and ideas in Peace Studies from a philosophical perspective written for an undergraduate audience. There is a bibliography of key works following each chapter.