Philosophers On the Israel-Hamas Conflict
TagAmerican Philosophers Should Condemn the War in Gaza (guest post)
“American academic philosophers should speak out to condemn the Israeli assault on Gaza.” (more…)
Moral Philosophy as War Propaganda (guest post)
“The hellish reality of this war is transfigured by philosophers into abstract thought experiments and technical prose.” (more…)
Speech, Campuses, Antisemitism (guest post)
“If we don’t resort to censorship, we need to think more about the responsibilities of all actors involved with this difficult speech… This suggests an important role for colleges: helping students to exercise these responsibilities rather than simply trying to control them through speech codes.” (more…)
Disproportionate and Intended Harm to Innocents in Israel’s War in Gaza (guest post)
“Experts on just war disagree on what precisely counts as permissible proportion. But clearly this is grossly disproportionate.”
Israel, Hamas, and “Blowback” (guest post)
“The proportionality constraint is backward-looking in the following sense: to determine how bad a prospective harm is for a potential innocent victim, we sometimes need to look at what that victim has suffered in the past, and whether we’re responsible for what they’ve suffered” as well as “whether we should have acted differently in the past thereby avoiding the n..
Proportionality, Psychic Harm, and the Day After (guest post)
“Once we count psychic harm, it looks like Israel’s war might be proportional. But it could be proportional only if the Israelis aren’t imposing on basically all Gazans a greater psychic burden than the psychic burden that Israelis hope to avoid,” which could be the case “if Israel takes it upon itself, as soon as possible, to reassure the Gazans that Gaza will not ..
Condemnations, Moral Guidance, and Gaza (guest post)
“The absence of moral guidance by philosophical condemners conveys that they do not think of Israelis as friends whom they want to morally improve. Perhaps, worse, it reflects the sense that there is something morally improper about providing Israelis with guidance and advice…” (more…)
There Is No Military Objective In Gaza (guest post)
“There is no feasible or achievable military goal, legitimate or otherwise, for Israel’s bloody campaign in Gaza.” (more…)
How Not To Intervene In Public Discourse (guest post) (several updates)
“I think that philosophers (and other intellectuals and academics) can sometimes offer valuable contributions to public discourse. Still, I think this letter is a paradigmatic example of how not to do so.” (more…)
Israel, Hamas, and the Narratives of Atrocity (guest post)
“The need to stop the narratives that rationalize what is indefensible is clear. How to stop such narratives is not.” (more…)
Proportionality and Responsibility in the Israel-Hamas Conflict (guest post)
What do the “moral constraints that apply to defensive force” imply in a situation as complicated as the conflict between Israel and Hamas? (more…)