Volume 3, Issue 3, 2015
Symposium on Religion, War, and Ethics: A Sourcebook of Textual Traditions
G. Scott Davis
Pages 365-368
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.