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

The modern ethics of war is a field of disparate, competing voices based on often unexplored theological assumptions and metaphysical implications. Therese Feiler approaches them from the borderline area between philosophical theology and religious studies, testing whether they offer a meaningful, practical logic of reconciliation. With reference to Hegel's and others' 'theo-logic' that negotiates Christ's mediation and immanent dialectics, the logic of mediation is identified as the core concern of political ethics. Feiler unites five representative authors from now disparate strands of contemporary just war ethics, testing their conceptual logic of mediation: a sovereign realist and a cosmopolitan idealist; a rationalist individualist defending terrorism, and a Hegelian Christian ethicist. Feile 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. 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