Category: War and Coercion
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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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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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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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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…
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‘After Libya: The Ethics of Military Intervention Revisited’
In an ongoing collaboration between Chatham House and the McDonald Centre, top scholars and other experts investigated the ethics of humanitarian intervention in a one-day colloquium in February 2011 entitled ‘After Libya: The Ethics of Military Intervention Revisited.’ Because the event was held under the Chatham House Rule, the full list of participants is confidential, but one of the observers…
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What Makes Torture Wrong?
The Financial Times Magazine has recently been exploring the morality, and the alleged effectiveness, of torture in cases where it would seem to save lives. John Lloyd, an news editor at Financial Times who has worked with the McDonald Centre on ethics and the media, wrote the initial article. Nigel Biggar’s response is now generating comments in the magazine’s letters column.
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Was Jesus a Pacifist? A Debate
On 30 October 2008, Richard B. Hays of Duke University and Nigel Biggar debated non-violence in the New Testament. The event was co-sponsored by the Hursley Theological Society and chaired by Markus Bockmuehl of Keble College. Hays is the author of the the bestselling The Moral Vision of the New Testament. A printed version of their…