James Turner Johnson

The Priority of Democracy: Political Consequences of Pragmatism

Preface ix Part One Chapter 1: Preliminaries 1 Chapter 2: Pragmatism and the Problem of Institutional Design 25 Chapter 3: The Appeal of Decentralization 51 Part Two Chapter 4: The Priority of Democracy and the Burden of Justification 93 Chapter 5: Reconsidering the Role of Political Argument in Democratic Politics 128 Chapter 6: Refining Reflexivity 167 Part Three Chapter 7: Formal Conditions: Institutionalizing Liberal Guarantees 193 Chapter 8: Substantive Conditions: Pragmatism and Effectiveness 222 Chapter 9: Conclusion 256 References 287 Index 307

The Quest for Peace: Three Moral Traditions in Western Cultural History

The Description for this book, The Quest for Peace: Three Moral Traditions in Western Cultural History, will be forthcoming.

Cross, crescent, and sword : the justification and limitation of war in Western and Islamic tradition

Foreword by Henry Warner Bowden Introduction by James Turner Johnson When Is War Justified? What Are Its Limits? Justice and Resort to War: A Sampling of Christian Ethical Thinking by Jeffrey Stout The Development of Jihad in Islamic Revelation and Theory by Abdulaziz A. Sachedina Approaches to Limits on War in Western Just War Discourse by Stephen E. Lammers Al-Farabis Statecraft: War and the Well-Ordered Regime by Charles E. Butterworth Irregular Warfare and Terrorism Moral Responsibility and Irregular War by Courtney S. Campbell Irregular Warfare and Terrorism in Islam: Asking the Right Questions by Tamara Sonn Akham al-Baghat: Irregular Warfare and the Law of Rebellion in Islam by Khaled Abou El Fadl Combatancy, Noncombatancy, and Noncombatant Immunity in Just War Tradition by Robert L. Phillips Islam and the Distinction between Combatants and Noncombatants by John Kelsay Select Bibliography Index

Inquiry into Democracy: What Might a Pragmatist Make of Rational Choice Theories?

We begin by positing a conception of pragmatism that is characterized by three basic philosophical commitments: consequentialism, fallibilism, and anti-skepticism. In light of that conception we challenge prevalent views that hold that pragmatism entails no particular moral and political positions. We argue instead that pragmatism generally has democratic implications and, more specifically, that it has implications for the assessment and justification of political institutions. To develop this position we draw in part on the political insights of Dewey. Dewey argued that the greater social and economic complexity of twentieth century life creates significant problems for democratic society and its institutions. The most important of these problems is that growing complexity makes it difficult for a democratic public to effectively identify either itself or its enduring interests. In lieu of a specific remedy, Dewey proposed a form of social inquiry that can, by entering into democratic deliberation, contribute to the process by which the public might more readily define its common interests and, thereby, itself. We argue that rational choice theory can assist us in undertaking such a pragmatist social inquiry. We draw on two main bodies of recent research-on the political economy of U.S. macroeconomic policy and on mechanism design-to show the relevance of the rational choice approach. We argue both that this research reinforces pragmatist preoccupation with democratic deliberation and, because pragmatists are naive about institutional matters, that their preoccupation is very nearly utopian in the pejorative sense.

THE JUST WAR IDEA: THE STATE OF THE QUESTION

This essay explores the idea of just war in two ways. Part I outlines the formation, early development, and substantive content of just war tradition in its classic form, sketches the subsequent development of this idea in the modern period, and examines three benchmarks in the recovery of just war thinking in American thought over the last four decades. Part II identifies and critiques several prominent themes in contemporary just war discourse, testing them against the context, purpose, and content of the just war idea in its classic form. My argument throughout is that the historical substance of just war tradition needs to be respected in contemporary just war discourse, both to discipline that discourse and to engage contemporary moral reflection with the values embodied in just war tradition.

Humanitarian Intervention after Iraq: Just War and International Law Perspectives

Abstract During the 1990s, particularly with reference to the context of the conflicts in Somalia, former Yugoslavia, and Rwanda, considerable sentiment favoring humanitarian intervention grew both in just war argument and in discussion of international law. This paper examines the arguments put forward in these two frames and their implications for international behaviour and law. But in 2002–2003, when US President Bush identified the egregious abuses of human rights perpetrated by Saddam Hussein and his regime over a long history as one of the reasons for using military force to oust that regime, this humanitarian intervention argument fell flat. Does this put in question the future of the idea of humanitarian intervention after the Iraq war of 2003? This paper argues that the experience of humanitarian intervention (or non-intervention) and its results during the 1990s must be taken together with the case of Iraq in thinking about the future of humanitarian intervention, and that this future may best be imagined not in terms of new developments in international law and international order but as a continuation of past practice.

Aquinas and Luther on War and Peace: Sovereign Authority and the Use of Armed Force

Recent just war thought has tended to prioritize just cause among the moral criteria to be satisfied for resort to armed force, reducing the requirement of sovereign authority to a secondary, supporting role: such authority is to act in response to the establishment of just cause. By contrast, Aquinas and Luther, two benchmark figures in the development of Christian thought on just war, unambiguously gave priority to the requirement of sovereign authority as instituted by God to carry out the responsibilities of ensuring a just and peaceful order in the world. On this conception it is the sovereign, in deciding whether to resort to armed force, who must make sure to satisfy the other moral requirements of the jus ad bellum. This paper examines Aquinas and Luther on sovereign authority for use of armed force. Recapturing the importance of this conception is important both for the proper understanding of just war tradition and for working out its implications for such contemporary issues as humanitarian intervention and “regime change.”

Communication, Criticism, and the Postmodern Consensus An Unfashionable Interpretation of Michel Foucault

A critique is not a matter of saying that things are not right as they are. It is a matter of pointing out on what kinds of assumptions, what kinds of familiar, unchallenged, unconsidered modes of thought, the practices that we accept rest.... Criticism is a matter of flushing out that thought and trying to change it: to show that things are not as self-evident as one believed, to see that what is accepted as self-evident will no longer be accepted as such. Practicing criticism is a matter of making facile gestures difficult. Michel Foucault (1988b, 154)

Thinking Historically about Just War

Abstract This essay responds to the six essays on my thought above, doing so both directly on particularly important points and indirectly through my own reflections on how I understand my work and its development.

Paul Ramsey and the Recovery of the Just War Idea

While the origin and development of the just war tradition until the early modern period blended concerns, ideas, and practices from the moral, legal, political, and military spheres, from the mid-seventeenth century until the mid-twentieth it largely disappeared as a conscious source of moral reflection about war and its restraint. Beginning in the 1960s, however, American theologian Paul Ramsey initiated a recovery of just war thinking in a series of writings applying the principles of discrimination and proportionality, ideas he traced both to Augustinian theology and to natural law, to the debate over nuclear weapons and later to the Vietnam War. Ramseys work directly engaged both theological and policy debate over military force, initiating lines of reflection that have since developed further and become increasingly institutionalized. This brief essay examines the nature of Ramseys just war thought and its influence over the last 40 years.