
Thomas Aquinas on War and Peace
Cambridge University Press
Edition: Reprint, 1/24/2019
EAN 9781108730167, ISBN10: 1108730167
Paperback, 326 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm
Language: English
Inquiring 'whether any war can be just', Thomas Aquinas famously responded that this may hold true, provided the war is conducted by a legitimate authority, for a just cause, and with an upright intention. Virtually all accounts of just war, from the Middle Ages to the current day, make reference to this threefold formula. But due in large measure to its very succinctness, Aquinas's theory has prompted contrasting interpretations. This book sets the record straight by surveying the wide range of texts in his literary corpus that have bearing on peace and the ethics of war. Thereby emerges a coherent and nuanced picture of just war as set within his systematic moral theory. It is shown how Aquinas deftly combined elements from earlier authors, and how his teaching has fruitfully propelled inquiry on this important topic by his fellow scholastics, later legal theorists such as Grotius, and contemporary philosophers of just war.
Part I. Just War in Aquinas's Typology of the Virtues
1. Just war among the Quaestiones on charity
2. War's permissibility
3. Interpreting the gospel 'Precepts of Patience'
4. Military prudence
5. Battlefield courage
Part II. Selected Topics
6. Legitimate authority
7. War and punishment
8. Self-defense
9. Preventive war
10. The moral equality of combatants
Epilogue
11. St Thomas and the doctrine of bellum iustum today.