PHIL 3190: War and Morality

This course focuses on moral issues raised by war. When, if ever, can war be morally justified? Are rules of war globally applicable, or are they affected by local religious and cultural frameworks? Are colonized nations bound by the same rules of war as their colonizer states? Are states ever obligated to intervene to stop massacres or genocides in other states?

Learning Objectives

Students who complete the course will be able to explain

What traditional just war theory (TJWT) is;
Some of the major challenges to TJWT from within the tradition;
Some of the challenges to the entire tradition of TJWT;
The particular challenge of the tradition of nonviolence, both practical and theoretical nonviolence;
How to apply the ideas of TJWT to US foreign policy and US foreign engagements (the Vietnam War, the Iraq War, and so on);
How to apply the ideas of TJWT to other global conflicts (Russia and Ukraine, Israel and Palestine, and the tensions between mainland China/Taiwan/and the US, for example).

In this course, you will

Study abstract theories, with an emphasis on applying these abstract theories to real-world situations.听

Meet Your Instructor

David Youkey

听david.youkey@colorado.edu

I have a BS in Physics and a BA in Philosophy from the University of Arizona. My PhD in Philosophy is from the University of Colorado听Boulder. Once, my interests revolved around epistemology and philosophy of physics. At that time, to paraphrase Stephen Hawking, my goal was simple: to understand where the universe came from and why it exists at all. In recent years I鈥檝e mostly been teaching classes in and wrestling with issues in applied ethics, like Environmental Ethics and War and Morality and so on. My goal now is more complicated. I鈥檓 trying to figure out why people kill each other, and whether and in what circumstances killing is justified. What is the value of pristine nature. I taught philosophy for many years in Asia (China, Mongolia, Nepal) where I thought a lot about Asian philosophies and their differences from Western approaches. I sometimes teach classes on Eastern philosophy.
听
I am the faculty undergraduate mentor. I teach in the department, I am here to discuss questions about which philosophy classes might be interesting to take, questions about what different faculty are like, questions about graduate study in philosophy, for advice on how to convince your parents that being a philosophy major really is a good idea, or maybe just for a reading recommendation or to discuss a philosophical idea.

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