Journal of Religion and Violence

Volume 3, Issue 3, 2015

Symposium on Religion, War, and Ethics: A Sourcebook of Textual Traditions

The Elimination of “Violence” in Just War Thinking

This article applauds the rich collection of texts assembled by Reichberg, Syse, and Hartwell, but agrees with the other commentators that those texts must be situated in their social time and place if they are to be understood. Furthermore, the term “violence” is analytically worthless and should be eliminated from our critical vocabulary as an impediment to understanding how different communities have attempted to regulate recourse to lethal force in the pursuit of their ends.