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Biggar and Hauerwas: Just War vs. Pacifism
One hundred years after the beginning of WWI, Nigel Biggar and Stanley Hauerwas debate whether war can ever be justified. Their discussion, Just War or Pacifism?, was broadcast on Premier Christian Radio’s Unbelievable?
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Making Sense of Life: Can War Be Justified?
On 16 November 2014, the Director of the McDonald Centre, Prof. Nigel Biggar, was interviewed at St. Andrew’s Church, Oxford, by Revd. Andrew Wingfield-Digby. The interview was followed by an address in which the Director discussed his recent work on the moral and theological legitimacy of war with particular reference to the First World War…
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Scottish Independence Seems Like a False God
Church Times, 05 Sep 2014 Breaking up the UK would not help anyone, argues Nigel Biggar IN A COUPLE of weeks’ time, on 18 September, the residents of Scotland will vote whether or not to leave the United Kingdom (Comment, 2 November 2012, 14 March 2014; Paul Vallely 29 August). One way or another, the outcome will affect all…
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Yes, War Can Be Just
And just war reasoning is as sound as ever “In a recent column here at The Week, Damon Linker responded to my book In Defence of War by concluding that ‘just war thinking, even at its very best, is an intellectual, moral, and theological fraud.’” Read Nigel Biggar’s response to Damon Linker’s critique in The Week.
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Where’s the Virtue in the Humanities?
Whether in banks or on the battlefield, in the NHS or in national newspapers, the need for virtuous leadership is now patent. An education in the humanities is, in fact, an education in virtues that are at once intellectual and civic, underscoring its importance for non-economic public flourishing. Such moral formation would be much more…
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Michael Gove on Britain’s Involvement in the First World War
Last week Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Education, published a controversial article in The Daily Mail, decrying left-wing denigration of Britain’s involvement in the First World War. In it he praised Nigel Biggar’s “superb essay” in the September issue of Standpoint magazine. You may find Mr. Gove’s article here. And Nigel Biggar’s essay below.
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Conflict: A Moral Imperative?
Prof Nigel Biggar and The Rt Hon Clare Short (Former Secretary of State for International Development) spoke at The Veritas Forum in the Garden Auditorium at St John’s College on the ethics of war and the Iraq War in particular. The debate can be viewed here.
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Does Morality Need Religion?
2013 Annual McDonald Centre Conference, University of Oxford For centuries, atheism was suppressed because of its supposed amorality. Now, New Atheists such as A.C. Grayling and Sam Harris argue that decent, liberal morality is perfectly possible without religious belief—indeed, that it is only possible without it. Others, such as Jürgen Habermas, acknowledge that Christianity has had a…
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What’s the Good of the Union?
In recent years the rise of the Scottish National Party has called into question the 300 year-old Union of England and Scotland. Nationalists argue that the Scots would be better off with an independent state, and that the Anglo-Scottish Union has had its day. This might be true: after all, nation-states wax and wane, and none is…
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Colloquium: ‘The Ethics of Remote Warfare’
A fourth joint colloquium on Issues in International Affairs was held between the McDonald Centre and Chatham House on 1 February 2013. The impetus for the discussions lay in the growing interest in the potential of cyber capabilities, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and ‘autonomous’ weapons to revolutionise the way war is waged. As parts of a military arsenal these…