War is barbaric and wrongful—at least for Kantians. For Kantians, there are no just causes for war as such. War is permissible only when it is the only way to secure peace, in self-defense. A Kantian theory of war is thus particularly interesting as it fleshes out the constitutive tensions of the use of violence. It may be seen as an alternative normative theory of war, similar but not identical to the just war theory tradition. This is interesting as in the last decades, the main dividing line among normative theorists of war has been between two wings of just war theory: Continue reading →