Logics of War: The Use of Force and the Problem of Mediation(T&T Clark Enquiries in Theological Ethics)

The modern ethics of war is a field of disparate, competing voices based on often unexplored theological and metaphysical assumptions. Therese Feiler approaches them from the borderline area between systematics, philosophical theology and religious studies. With reference to G. W. F. Hegel's and like-minded thinkers' 'theo–logic' that negotiates Christ’s mediation and immanent dialectics, Feiler identifies the logic and problem of mediation as the core concern of political ethics. Feiler unites five representative authors from now disparate strands of contemporary just war ethics, testing whether they offer a meaningful possibility of mediation and subsequent reconciliation: a sovereign realist and a cosmopolitan idealist; a rationalist individualist, an idealist Christian ethicist, and finally, an evangelical theologian. Opening the just war debate for comparative critical engagement, Feiler creates a fascinating study that locates a “dynamic point” at which faithful, free political action can be wrestled from irony, tragedy, and melancholic inertia in the face of totalitarian suffocation.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements Introduction Part I. A Modern Investiture: National Sovereignty versus International Law Chapter 1. Sovereign Demonology: The State of Exception(alism) Chapter 2. Challenge or Twin? The Global Rule of Law Part II. Heresies: Liberal(-Marxist) and Christian Ethics of War Chapter 3. Machiavelli for Everyone! Human Rights Reconsidered Chapter 4. Christian Ethics: Paul Ramsey’s Theo-Logics of War Haunted by Hegel and Nietzsche Part III. Theo–Logics of Mediation Chapter 5. An Eschatological Fusion—Oliver O’Donovan’s Evangelical Ethics of War Chapter 6. Mediations: History, Grace and Combat Conclusions Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Therese Feiler is Wellcome Trust Postdoctoral Researcher and Supernumerary Fellow at the University of Oxford, UK.

Review :
Without a doubt, Feiler is a careful and thorough reader of the five just war authors, along with an array of secondary literature and book reviews by others. I learned much from Logics of War. It is commendable project.