War and peace, philosophy of

By Nardin, Terry

The war/peace dichotomy is a recurrent one in human thought and the range of experience it interprets is vast. Images of war and peace permeate religion, literature and ...

Global Justice

By Tan, Kok-Chor

For introductions to the current debate on global justice, the obvious entries to start with are Simon Caney’s Global Justice, recent work on and Charles Beitz’s International Relations, ...

Sunzi

By Ames, Roger T.

Sunzi: The Art of Warfare (or Sunzi bingfa), a text traditionally ascribed to Sun Wu, a contemporary of Confucius, is the most widely read military classic in human ...

Applied ethics

Applied ethics is marked out from ethics in general by its special focus on issues of practical concern. It is concerned with ethical issues in various fields of ...

Bushi philosophy

By Varley, Paul

Bushi is one of several terms for the warrior of premodern Japan; samurai is another. The ‘way of the warrior’ – that is, the beliefs, attitudes and ...

Augustine (AD 354–430)

By Matthews, Gareth B.

Augustine was the first of the great Christian philosophers. For well over eight centuries following his death, in fact until the ascendancy of Thomas Aquinas at the end ...

International relations, philosophy of

By Beitz, Charles R.

The philosophy of international relations – or more precisely its political philosophy – embraces problems about morality in diplomacy and war, the justice of international practices and ...

Innocence

By Hoose, Bernard

In its most general sense, innocence refers to the state of being without sin. A more restricted meaning is attributed to the word in the legal sphere, where ...

Grotius, Hugo (1583–1645)

By Ford, J.D.

Scholar, lawyer and statesman, Grotius contributed to a number of different disciplines. His reputation as the founder both of a new international order and of a new moral ...

Counter-terrorism, ethics of

Counterterrorist efforts by states are sometimes thought to be subject to different moral principles than superficially similar practices. For example, while the search for peaceful solutions is normally ...

Mohist philosophy

By Ivanhoe, Philip J.

Mohist philosophy describes the broad-ranging philosophical tradition initiated by Mo Ti or Mozi (Master Mo) in the fifth century bc. Mozi was probably of quite humble origins, ...

Political philosophy

By Miller, David

Political philosophy can be defined as philosophical reflection on how best to arrange our collective life - our political institutions and our social practices, such as our economic ...

Violence

By Coady, C.A.J.

Violence is a central concept for much discussion of moral and political life, but lots of debate employing the concept is confused by the lack of clarity about ...

Vitoria, Francisco de (c.1486–1546)

By Pagden, Anthony

Francisco de Vitoria, who spent most of his working life as Prime Professor of Theology at Salamanca, Spain, was one of the most influential political theorists in sixteenth-century ...

Terrorism

By Rodin, David

In recent years there has been an upsurge of interest in the philosophical and ethical analysis of terrorism. Despite this, ‘terrorism’ remains a contested and difficult concept. The ...

Suárez, Francisco (1548–1617)

By Doyle, John P.

Francisco Suárez was the main channel through which medieval philosophy flowed into the modern world. He was educated first in law and, after his entry into the Jesuits, ...

Tolstoi, Count Lev Nikolaevich (1828–1910)

By Morson, Gary Saul

Tolstoi expressed philosophical ideas in his novels Voina i mir (War and Peace) (1865–9) and Anna Karenina (1875–7), which are often regarded as the summit of realism, as ...

Erasmus, Desiderius (c.1466–1536)

By Rummel, Erika

Although Erasmus was not a systematic philosopher, he gave a philosophical cast to many of his writings. He believed in the human capacity for self-improvement through education and ...