Last modified: Monday, December 2, 2002
Scholar to speak at IU on "The Triumph of Just War Theory"
Michael L. Walzer, one of America's leading intellectuals and a professor of social science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., will speak at Indiana University Bloomington on Wednesday (Dec. 4) at 4 p.m. in Woodburn 101. His topic is "The Triumph of Just War Theory (and the Dangers of Success)."
The lecture is free and open to the public. There will be two respondents: George Lopez, who is senior fellow and director of policy studies at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame; and Richard Miller, chair of the Department of Religious Studies at IU.
Walzer is the author of numerous books and articles including Spheres of Justice, Exodus and Revolution, What It Means to Be an American: Essays on the American Experience, and Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations. The latter was published in 1977 at the end of the U.S. involvement in Vietnam. In it, Walzer drew heavily on examples from World War II and the war in Vietnam. Currently, he is examining the situation in the Middle East.
In the Sept. 30 issue of The New Republic, Walzer argued that President George W. Bush's push for war with Iraq is neither just nor necessary.
Walzer has written about a wide variety of topics in political theory and moral philosophy. He has played a part in the revival of practical, issue-focused ethics and in the development of a pluralist approach to political and moral life. He is currently working on the tolerance and accommodation of difference in all its forms and also on a collaborative project focused on the history of Jewish political thought.
The lecture is sponsored by the Poynter Center for the Study of Ethics and American Institutions, the Department of Religious Studies and the Center on Philanthropy.
