Contribution to Book
Terrorism and the Responsibility to Protect
T&T Clark Handbook of Christian Ethics
(2021)
Abstract
Christian ethics examines terrorism and humanitarian crises as two problems with common features: they often arise when civil societies have broken down, they challenge the traditional authority of nation-states, and they sometimes seem to require military responses, but such responses are ethically and politically controversial. After summarizing five classic Christian positions on the use of force, this chapter applies those positions to the two problem. Analysis of terrorism includes investigating why such violence occurs, whether it can and should be stopped by militaristic actions, and what postwar and preventative strategies will forestall terrorism. Analysis of protecting populations includes the practicality and morality of military intervention before and during a humanitarian crisis, and how to build systems of national and international justice to prevent atrocities. Contemporary Christian ethicists generally take a cautious, even skeptical, attitude toward military answers to these problems and instead mostly favor a just peacemaking approach.
Keywords
- humanitarian intervention,
- just peacemaking,
- just war theory,
- terrorism,
- responsibility to protect
Disciplines
Publication Date
January 14, 2021
Editor
Tobias Winright
Publisher
T&T Clark
Series
T&T Clark Handbooks
ISBN
978-0567677174
Citation Information
Brian Stiltner. "Terrorism and the Responsibility to Protect" LondonT&T Clark Handbook of Christian Ethics (2021) p. 205 - 214 Available at: http://works.bepress.com/brian_stiltner/76/