Psychology's foundational crisis stems from its systematic failure to define the "Sound Mind" while obsessively cataloging dysfunction through instruments like the DSM. This philosophical treatise employs the methodology of Ockham's War—systematic intellectual self-destruction—to demolish psychology's current first principles and reconstruct them through the consilience of psychological and philosophical functions. Through aggressive skepticism and methodical deconstruction, we expose six fundamental failures in psychology's foundations: the pathology bias, the abandonment of philosophical inquiry, the reductionist fallacy, the measurement obsession, the context blindness, and (...) the meaning deficit. The reconstruction proposes seven new first principles that integrate philosophical function (meaning-making, value determination, existential inquiry) with psychological function (cognitive processing, emotional regulation, behavioral adaptation). These principles establish: (1) The Sound Mind as primary object of study, defined as the capacity for integrated philosophical-psychological functioning; (2) The irreducible duality of human consciousness requiring both domains; (3) The multiplicative rather than additive relationship between philosophical and psychological functions; (4) The pyramid structure of personality development; (5) The necessity of existential engagement; (6) The contextual-universal dialectic; and (7) The authenticity imperative. This reconstruction has profound implications for research methodology, clinical practice, and education, demanding fundamental restructuring of psychology as a discipline. The framework demonstrates that psychology cannot achieve scientific maturity without reintegrating philosophical inquiry, and that understanding human consciousness requires treating philosophical and psychological functions as complementary aspects of a unified system. (shrink)

This treatise deploys Ockham's War—a methodology of aggressive intellectual self-criticism—to demolish the farcical "otrovert" construct emerging in contemporary personality discourse. Through systematic application of Boether's (2025) framework, I expose the otrovert as an intellectual joke, a laughable repackaging of internet-culture's "sigma" personality archetype dressed in pseudo-academic terminology. The analysis reveals the otrovert to be not merely wrong but embarrassingly derivative, representing the apotheosis of pop-psychology's tendency toward manufactured profundity. Having reduced the otrovert to intellectual rubble through systematic skepticism, I propose (...) its replacement with the "Ubervert"—a genuinely transcendent personality configuration that exists beyond traditional categorical constraints. The Ubervert embodies authentic comfort in liminal spaces between conventional binaries: existence/non-existence, happiness/sadness, social/solitary. Unlike the otrovert's pretentious mediocrity, the Ubervert represents the rarest psychological configuration—those who find equanimity in paradox itself. This paper demonstrates how only through the warfare methodology of systematic skepticism can we destroy pseudo-intellectual constructs like the otrovert and clear space for genuine philosophical innovation. (shrink)

In discussion surrounding the destruction of cultural heritage in armed conflict, one often hears two important claims in support of intervention to safeguard heritage. The first is that the protection of people and the protection of heritage are two sides of the same coin. The second is that the cultural heritage of any people is part of the common heritage of all humankind. In this article, I examine both of these claims, and consider the extent to which they align with (...) the current practices that they are intended to justify. (shrink)

The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone has evolved from the site of the world's worst nuclear disaster into one of Europe's most significant wildlife refuges. However, Russia's war against Ukraine has introduced new environmental threats, including military disturbance, radioactive forest fires, habitat destruction, landmine contamination, and pollution. These challenges endanger not only the wildlife of Chernobyl but also the ecological security of Europe as a whole. This paper examines the environmental consequences of the conflict on the Chernobyl ecosystem and evaluates the role (...) that the European Union can play in mitigating these impacts. It argues that the EU should adopt a comprehensive strategy combining emergency wildlife protection, environmental monitoring, wildfire prevention, demining operations, ecosystem restoration, scientific cooperation, and environmental accountability mechanisms. The paper further warns that failure to act promptly may result in long-term biodiversity loss, the spread of radioactive contamination, and irreversible ecological damage. Protecting the wildlife of Chernobyl is therefore not only a conservation imperative but also a matter of European environmental security and intergenerational responsibility. (shrink)

This paper analyses the US-Israel war on Iran, launched on 28 February 2026 as Operation Epic Fury, as a stark instance of globalized neo-patrimonialism. Drawing on the unfolding events—leadership decapitation, proxy retaliation cycles, energy disruptions, and civilian tolls—the author argues that executive patronage, elite predation, and institutional erosion have displaced formal law and multilateral checks. The conflict reveals a warped moral economy in which reciprocity serves only the patron-client alliance between Washington and Jerusalem, echoing colonial patterns of upward-only accountability. In (...) response, the paper advocates reviving suppressed communal accountability norms grounded in relational oversight and vernacular ethics. These horizontal, consensual traditions re-embed power in collective consent and shared vulnerability. Extending to pluriversal ethics, the analysis shows why such norms are essential for navigating polycrisis—migration surges, energy volatility, and multipolar fragmentation—rather than relying on failing Western-centric models. The revival is presented not as an optional ideal but as a practical necessity if the international order is to avoid irreversible erosion. (shrink)

Reply to commentators: Symposium on the winner of the 2019 NASSP Book Award Prize: Yvonne Chiu, *Conspiring with the Enemy: The Ethic of Cooperation in Warfare* (Columbia University Press, 2019).

Four global concerns dominate contemporary discourse: climate instability, persistent armed conflict, the commodification of health and bodily vulnerability, and the widespread misrepresentation of religious traditions—especially Islam. These are typically analyzed separately. This paper proposes that they are better understood as interconnected expressions of a deeper structural issue within modern normative frameworks. Drawing on the Dual‑Closure Framework, it argues that the systematic exclusion of non‑contingent grounding for truth, obligation, and value leaves normative orders vulnerable to fragmentation, domination by power, and the (...) reduction of persons to functional units. Each crisis is examined through this lens, revealing a shared structural logic. The paper concludes that addressing these crises may require not only institutional reform but a reconsideration of the foundations of normativity itself—a conclusion that extends to related debates such as the attempt to equate artificial intelligence with human personhood. (shrink)

A satirical fable about a kingfisher who builds a fear-inducing gadget, only to have it fail on an unimpressed visitor, sits oddly well against a real story from Ukraine’s front line: birds now weave their nests from discarded fiber-optic drone cable. Read together, the two cases separate innovation-as-theater from innovation-as-necessity, and reveal how a tool’s stated purpose and its long afterlife are rarely the same size. Drawing on Jurassic Park’s warning that engineered systems escape their designers’ intentions, Darwin’s and Einstein’s (...) own accounts of nature and imagination as inherently generative, and indeterminacy as understood by Gödel and Heisenberg and, long before them, by Zhuangzi, this essay reads a genuinely evolved bluff in fiddler crabs alongside Sun Tzu’s view of deception in war, a wider pattern of birds repurposing human litter, and recent conservation scholarship on “nature quotient” and on serendipity. It argues that the birds’ plain reuse of debris reflects a kind of attunement that Kingfisher’s elaborate apparatus never achieves while acknowledging, in the end, that the essay’s own act of sorting these cases into categories, guided throughout by Daoist skepticism toward naming, is exactly the impulse Daoist philosophy warns against. (shrink)

Notwithstanding the diverse motivations behind wars and the justifications given by their perpetrators, the magnitude of agony, suffering and trauma which culminate into loss as experienced by war victims are quite monumental. Hence, after wars, efforts are made towards reconciliation through which healing is predicted. In Half of a Yellow Sun (2006), therefore, Chimamanda Adichie through the character of Kainene metaphorically demonstrates the socio-political, cultural, economic and psychological loss the Igbos experienced collectively during and after the Biafran /Nigerian war. The (...) notion of traumatized individuals has dominated the criticisms of the novel so far. However, in seeking to advance this opinion, this paper interrogates the collective wound/loss the Igbos experienced during the war and how this wound is still ongoing as an open wound that refuses to be healed, which the critics of the novel have paid little attention to. Therefore, focusing on Cathy Caruth’s trauma theory, which depicts trauma as an open wound, and through which this paper is analyzed, this article concludes that the disappearance of Kainene after the war symbolically embodies an open wound in the lives of the Igbos as a group that is yet to be healed indicating a denial of closure. (shrink)

我们必须记住的第一件事是，当说中国这样说或中国这样做时，我们不是说中国人民，而是控制中国共产党的社会路径者，即七大社会病态连环杀手。中共常务委员会或中央政治局委员等25人。 中共对三战和全面统治的计划在中国政府的出版物和演讲中已经非常明确地阐述了，这就是习近平的"中国梦"。只有统治中国的少数人（也许只有几十到几百人）的梦想，也是其他人（包括14亿中国人 ）的噩梦。每年100亿美元使他们或他们的傀儡拥有或控制报纸、杂志、电视和广播频道，每天在世界各地的大多数主要媒体上放置假新闻。 此外，他们有一支军队（也许有数百万人），他们滚动所有媒体进行更多的宣传，淹没合法的评论（50美分的军队）。 除了剥夺第三世界的资源外，数万亿美元的"一带一路"倡议的主要主旨是在全世界建立军事基地。他们迫使自由世界陷入大规模的高科技军备竞赛，使得与苏联的冷战看起来像是野餐。 尽管SSSSK和世界上其他的军事国家都在高级硬件上花费巨资，但WW3（或导致它的小型交战）很可能以软件为主。SSSSK，可能有更多的黑客（编码器）为他们工作，然后世界其他国家加起来，通过通过网络瘫痪他 们的敌人，以最小的物理冲突赢得未来的战争。"没有卫星，没有电话，没有通讯，没有金融交易，没有电网，没有互联网，没有先进的武器，没有车辆，火车，船舶和飞机。 罢免中共只有两条主要途径，即释放14亿中国囚犯，结束向第三次世界大战的疯狂进军。 和平的一个方案是发动一场全面的贸易战来摧毁中国经济，直到军方受够了，把中共赶出去。 关闭中国经济的替代方案是一场有限的战争，比如在中共第20届大会上，50架热压无人机进行有针对性的打击，当时所有高层成员都在一个地方，但这种情况要到2022年才会发生。一个可以击中年度全体会议。 袭击发生后，中国人将被告知，他们必须放下武器，准备举行民主选举，否则就要进入石器时代。另一种选择是全面核攻击。 鉴于中共目前的路线，军事对抗是不可避免的。 几十年后，这种情况可能会发生在南中国海或台湾的岛屿上，但随着它们在世界各地建立军事基地，它可能发生在任何地方（见"卧虎藏"等）。 未来的冲突将有硬性与软性方面与中共的既定目标，强调网络战争，通过黑客和瘫痪控制系统的所有军事和工业通信，设备，发电厂，卫星，互联网，银行，以及连接到网络的任何设备或车辆。 SS正在缓慢地部署一系列全球载人和自主水面和水下潜艇或无人驾驶飞机，这些潜艇或无人机能够发射可能处于休眠状态，等待中国发出信号，甚至寻找美国船只或飞机的签名。 在摧毁我们的卫星，从而消除美国和我们全球部队之间的通信的同时，他们将使用他们的卫星，与无人机一起瞄准和摧毁我们目前优越的海军部队。 当然，所有这一切都是越来越多地由AI自动完成的。 到目前为止，中共最大的盟友是美国民主党。 选择是现在停止中共，或者看着他们把中国监狱扩展到全世界。 当然，对我们的生活进行普遍监控和数字化是不可避免的。任何不这么认为的人，都是极度脱节的。 当然，正是那些期待中国社会路径者统治世界的人，而悲观主义者（他们认为自己是现实主义者）则期望AI的社会病态 （或我称之为"假愚蠢"或"人造社会病态"）的选择性。）接管，也许到2030年。 那些有兴趣在现代社会的疯狂道路的进一步细节可能会参考我的其他作品，如自杀的民主-美国和世界第三版2019年和自 杀乌托邦幻想在21日世纪：哲学、人性与文明的崩溃（2019）.

In this paper, I criticize the thesis that value-laden approaches in American philosophy of science were marginalized in the 1960s through the editorial policy at Philosophy of Science and funding practices at the National Science Foundation. I argue that there is no available evidence of any normative restriction on philosophy of science as a domain of inquiry which excluded research on the relation between science and society. Instead, I claim that the absence of any exemplary, professional philosopher who discussed the (...) relation between science and society sufficed to narrow the focus of philosophers of science, given the institutional stabilization of the domain within professional philosophy from 1959 onwards. (shrink)

Because my students are always telling me I'm too subtle, and (to quote the Brazilian liberation pedagogue Paolo Freire) I "love and trust" my students - please (re)watch the oldest Star Wars film (Episode IV - A New Hope) in light of the following analysis, whose conclusion is as follows: since (1) Star Wars is pro-Viet Cong, (2) today’s closest analogy to the Viet Cong is Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades, (3) Star Wars is also pro-Asian religious philosophy (East Asian Daosim), (4) (...) Palestinian liberation theology is a (West) Asian (Christian) religious philosophy, and (e) Star Wars is implicitly pro-genderfluid; thus (5) Star Wars logically affirms the Palestinian right to genderfluid armed resistance, whose (6) Jedi Knights = Daoist sage/knights = Viet Cong = Al-Qassam Brigades. In sum, Star Wars (1977) logically affirms the Palestinian right to genderfluid armed resistance. (shrink)

May lethal autonomous weapons systems—‘killer robots ’—be used in war? The majority of writers argue against their use, and those who have argued in favour have done so on a consequentialist basis. We defend the moral permissibility of killer robots, but on the basis of the non-aggregative structure of right assumed by Just War theory. This is necessary because the most important argument against killer robots, the responsibility trilemma proposed by Rob Sparrow, makes the same assumptions. We show that the (...) crucial moral question is not one of responsibility. Rather, it is whether the technology can satisfy the requirements of fairness in the re-distribution of risk. Not only is this possible in principle, but some killer robots will actually satisfy these requirements. An implication of our argument is that there is a public responsibility to regulate killer robots ’ design and manufacture. (shrink)

The central place accorded the notion of ‘sustainable development' among those attempting to overcome ecological problems could be one of the main reasons for their failure. ‘Ecological civilization' is proposed and defended as an alternative. ‘Ecological civilization' has behind it a significant proportion of the leadership of China who would be empowered if this notion were taken up in the West. It carries with it the potential to fundamentally rethink the basic goals of life and to provide an alternative image (...) of the future. It could both inspire people and provide the cultural foundations for the cultural, social and economic transformations necessary to create a new world order, a world order in which humans augment rather than undermine the ecosystems of which they are part. This paper explicates these implications. (shrink)

पहली बात हमें ध्यान में रखना चाहिए कि जब यह कहना है कि चीन यह कहता है या चीन ऐसा करता है, तो हम चीनी लोगों की बात नहीं कर रहे हैं, लेकिन उन सोशियोपैथों की जो सीसीपी (चीनी कम्युनिस्ट पार्टी, अर्थात सात सेनेले सोसोपैथिक सीरियल किलर (एसएसएसएसके) का नियंत्रण करते हैं। सीपी या पोलितब्यूरो के 25 सदस्यों की टंडिंग समिति। मैं हाल ही में कुछ ठेठ वामपंथी नकली समाचार कार्यक्रमों को देखा (सुंदर बहुत ही तरह एक ही तरह से (...) मीडिया में पा सकते हैं, यानी, लगभग सब कुछ अब - यानी, याहू, सीएनएन, न्यूयॉर्क टाइम्स, आदि) यूट्यूब पर, एक VICE द्वारा जो उल्लेख किया है कि 1000 अर्थशास्त्री (और 15 नोबेल पुरस्कार विजेताओं) ट्रम्प को एक पत्र भेजा जिसमें कहा गया है कि व्यापार युद्ध एक गलती थी, और एक अन्य जो एक अकादमिक अर्थशास्त्री का साक्षात्कार करता था जिसने कहा कि ट्रम्प का कदम 3 विश्व युद्ध शुरू करने के लिए एक उत्तेजना थी। वे वैश्विक व्यापार के विघटन के बारे में सही हैं, लेकिन बड़ी तस्वीर है, जो है कि सात Sociopaths कुल दुनिया प्रभुत्व है की कोई समझ नहीं है, हर जगह स्वतंत्रता के उन्मूलन के साथ, अपने लक्ष्य के रूप में, और है कि वहाँ केवल दो तरीके उन्हें रोकने के लिए कर रहे हैं-एक कुल व्यापार प्रतिबंध है कि चीनी अर्थव्यवस्था devastates और उनकी सेना की ओर जाता है सीसीपी बाहर बल और चुनाव, या WW3, जो सीमित किया जा सकता है (शायद कुछ परमाणु के साथ पारंपरिक हथियार) या कुल (एक ही बार में सभी परमाणु). दिन के रूप में स्पष्ट है, लेकिन इन सभी "शानदार" शिक्षाविदों यह नहीं देख सकते हैं. यदि Socipaths अब नहीं हटा रहे हैं, के रूप में छोटे रूप में 15 साल में यह बहुत देर हो जाएगी, और अपने वंशजों को धीरे धीरे लेकिन inexorably चीनी के रूप में एक ही भाग्य के अधीन हो जाएगा -अपहरण, यातना और किसी भी असहमति के हत्या के साथ कुल निगरानी. बेशक, सीसीपी WW3 बहुत पहले शुरू कर दिया (आप तिब्बत या कोरिया के अपने आक्रमण की शुरुआत के रूप में देख सकता है) और यह हर संभव तरीके से पीछा कर रहा है, गोलियों और बम के अलावा, और वे जल्द ही आ जाएगा. सीसीपी ने कोरिया में संयुक्त राज्य अमेरिका से लड़ाई की, तिब्बत पर हमला किया और उसकी हत्या कर दी और रूस और भारत के साथ सीमा पर झड़पें लड़ीं। यह दुनिया भर में सभी औद्योगिक और सैन्य डेटाबेस के खिलाफ बड़े पैमाने पर हैकिंग आपरेशन आयोजित करता है और लगभग सभी वर्तमान अमेरिका और यूरोपीय सैन्य और अंतरिक्ष प्रणालियों पर वर्गीकृत डेटा चोरी हो गया है, उनकी कमजोरियों का विश्लेषण किया और भीतर सुधार संस्करण क्षेत्र कुछ साल. हजारों की दसियों, और शायद हजारों की सैकड़ों, सीसीपी कर्मचारियों की हैकिंग किया गया है सैन्य, औद्योगिक, वित्तीय और सामाजिक मीडिया डेटाबेस दुनिया भर में नेट के शुरुआती दिनों के बाद से और वहाँ अकेले संयुक्त राज्य अमेरिका में ज्ञात हाल ही में हैक्स के सैकड़ों रहे हैं. के रूप में प्रमुख संस्थानों और सेना उनके फायरवॉल कठोर है, SSSSK छोटे संस्थानों के लिए चले गए हैं और रक्षा उपठेकेदारों और हमारे सहयोगी दलों, जो आसान लक्ष्य हैं. हालांकि यह लाखों लोगों के सैकड़ों की कुचल गरीबी और अपने लोगों के सीमांत अस्तित्व की अनदेखी, यह एक बड़े पैमाने पर सैन्य और अंतरिक्ष उपस्थिति है, जो हर साल बड़ा बढ़ता है, और जिसका अस्तित्व के लिए ही कारण स्वतंत्रता को खत्म करने के लिए युद्ध लड़ रहा है बनाया गया है हर जगह. संसाधनों के 3rd दुनिया अलग करना के अलावा, बहु खरब डॉलर बेल्ट और सड़क पहल का एक प्रमुख जोर दुनिया भर में सैन्य ठिकानों का निर्माण कर रहा है. वे एक बड़े पैमाने पर उच्च तकनीक हथियारों की दौड़ है कि सोवियत संघ के साथ शीत युद्ध एक पिकनिक की तरह लग रही है में मुक्त दुनिया मजबूर कर रहे हैं. रूसके लोग बेवकूफ नहीं हैं, और Socipaths के साथ दोस्ती का नाटक करने के बावजूद, वे निश्चित रूप से समझते हैं कि सीसीपी उन्हें जिंदा खाने जा रहा है, कि उनकी एकमात्र उम्मीद खुद को पश्चिम के साथ सहयोगी है, और ट्रम्प पुतिन से दोस्ती करने में पैसे पर सही है। बेशक, Neomarxist तीसरी दुनिया Supremacists (यानी, डेमोक्रेटिक पार्टी) की संभावना में संयुक्त राज्य अमेरिका के कुल नियंत्रण ले जाएगा 2020 और कुछ भी नहीं सीसीपी की पसंद के लिए और अधिक हो सकता है. स्नोडेन (एक और सुराग बीस कुछ) SSSSK किसी भी अन्य एक व्यक्ति की तुलना में अधिक मदद की, WW2 के बाद से सभी अमेरिकी राष्ट्रपतियों के संभावित अपवाद के साथ, जो तुष्टीकरण की आत्महत्या की नीति का पीछा किया है. संयुक्त राज्य अमेरिका के पास सभी संचारों की निगरानी करने और हर किसी पर एक डोजियर संकलित करने के अलावा कोई विकल्प नहीं है, क्योंकि यह न केवल अपराधियों और आतंकवादियों को नियंत्रित करने के लिए आवश्यक है, बल्कि एसएसएसएसके का मुकाबला करने के लिए, जो तेजी से एक ही काम कर रहे हैं, पूरी तरह से स्वतंत्रता को हटाने के इरादे से। हालांकि SSSSK, और दुनिया की सेना के बाकी, उन्नत हार्डवेयर पर भारी रकम खर्च कर रहे हैं, यह अत्यधिक संभावना है कि WW3 (या छोटे सगाई यह करने के लिए अग्रणी) सॉफ्टवेयर प्रभुत्व होगा. यह सवाल से बाहर नहीं है कि SSSSK, शायद अधिक हैकर्स के साथ (कोडर्स) उनके लिए काम कर रहे तो संयुक्त दुनिया के सभी बाकी, कम से कम शारीरिक संघर्ष के साथ भविष्य के युद्ध जीत जाएगा, बस नेट के माध्यम से अपने दुश्मनों को paralyzing द्वारा. कोई उपग्रहों, कोई फोन, कोई संचार, कोई वित्तीय लेनदेन, कोई पावर ग्रिड, कोई इंटरनेट, कोई उन्नत हथियार, कोई वाहन, गाड़ियों, जहाजों या विमानों. कुछ सवाल हो सकता है कि सीसीपी (और निश्चित रूप से पुलिस, सेना और 610 कार्यालय के शीर्ष स्तरों) वास्तव में मानसिक रूप से aberant हैं, तो यहाँ sociopaths के आम विशेषताओं में से कुछ हैं(पूर्व में कहा जाता है psychopaths) कि आप नेट पर पा सकते हैं. बेशक, इनमें से कुछ कई autistics और alexithymics द्वारा साझा कर रहे हैं, और socipaths केवल डिग्री में "सामान्य" लोगों से अलग हैं. (shrink)

This essay develops a structural theory of modern violence that reconceives war as an endogenous phenomenon of differentiated social orders. It argues that every order generates internal tensions and depends on culturally framed mechanisms of reversible dissolution. Where such mechanisms are delegitimized, tensions accumulate and reappear in the irreversible form of war. Drawing on historical examples, the essay distinguishes between regenerative and destructive modes of de-differentiation and examines the loss of masculinity’s former role in organizing risk, transition, and affective surplus. (...) In the absence of viable substitutes, war functions as a substitute institution that weaponizes unbound intensity. Peace, therefore, is not a stable end state, but a cultural technique of controlled dissolution. (shrink)

Since its earliest incarnations, just war theory has included the requirement that war must be initiated and waged by a legitimate authority. However, while recent years have witnessed a remarkable resurgence in interest in just war theory, the authority criterion is largely absent from contemporary discussions. In this paper I aim to show that this is an oversight worth rectifying, by arguing that the authority criterion plays a much more important role within just war theorising than is commonly supposed. As (...) standardly understood, the authority criterion provides a necessary condition for the justification of the resort to war, but has no bearing on the question of permissible conduct in war. In opposition, I argue for an alternative interpretation of the criterion, which attributes to it a fundamental role in assessing this latter question. With this revised interpretation in place, I then demonstrate its advantages by applying it to the practical issue of armed conflicts that are initiated and fought by non-traditional belligerents. While several theorists have recognised that this common feature of modern armed conflict poses a challenge to mainstream just war theory in general—and to the authority criterion in particular—I argue that existing discussions frequently misconstrue the nature of the challenge, since they assume the standard interpretation of the authority requirement and its role within the theory. I then show that the revised interpretation provides a clearer account of both the challenge posed by non-traditional belligerency and the kind of response that it requires. (shrink)

The thesis offers a comprehensive argument in favor of a regulationist approach to autonomous weapon systems (AWS). AWS, defined as all military robots capable of selecting or engaging targets without direct human involvement, are an emerging and potentially deeply transformative military technology subject to very substantial ethical controversy. AWS have both their enthusiasts and their detractors, prominently advocating for a global preemptive ban on AWS development and use. Rejecting both positions, the author outlines a middle-of-the-road regulationist approach that is neither (...) overly restrictive nor overly permissive. The disqualifying flaws of the rival prohibitionist approach are demonstrated in the process. After defining the core term of autonomy in weapon systems, the practical difficulties involved in applying an arms control regime to AWS are analyzed. The analysis shows that AWS are an extremely regulation-resistant technology. This feature when combined with their assumed high military utility makes a ban framework extremely costly to impose and enforce. As such it is ultimately very likely to fail at the benefit of the most unscrupulous international actors and at a very substantial risk to those abiding with international law. Consequently, to be ethically viable, a prohibitionist framework would need to offer substantial moral benefits impossible to attain through the rival regulationist approach. The remainder of the thesis undertakes to demonstrate that this is not the case. Comparing the considerations of military and strategic necessity to humanitarian concerns most commonly voiced by prohibitionists requires finding a common denominator for all values being referred to. Consequently, the thesis proceeds to show that both kinds of concerns are ultimately reducible to respect for basic human rights of all stakeholders, and so that the prohibitionist and regulationist approach may ultimately be compared in terms of consequences their adoption would generate for basic human rights realization. The author then evaluates both the potential humanitarian benefits, and the potential humanitarian hazards of AWS introduction. The benefits of leaving frontline combat to machines are outlined, with the unique kinds of suffering that would be abolished by such a development being described in detail. The arguments against AWS adoption are then divided into three classes: arguments related to alleged impossibility of compliance with The Laws of Armed Conflict, non-consequentialist and broad consequentialist arguments. This analysis, which comprises the greater part of the entire thesis, shows that the concerns behind compliance arguments are indeed substantial and have to be accommodated via a complex framework of best practices, regulations and localized restrictions on some kinds of AWS or AWS use in particular environments. They do not, however, justify a universal ban on using all the diverse forms of AWS in all environments. Non-consequentialist objections are found either reducible to other classes of arguments or thoroughly unconvincing, sometimes to the point of being actually vacuous. Broad consequentialist concerns are likewise found to be accommodable by regulation, empirically unfounded or causally disconnected from the actions of legitimate actors acquiring AWS, and therefore irrelevant to the moral permissibility of such actions. The author concludes that the proponents of prohibitionism are unable to point to moral benefits substantial enough to justify the costs and risks inherent in the approach. A global ban is, in fact, likely to have a worse humanitarian impact that well-regulated AWS adoption even if the strategic risks are disregarded. On the other hand, the analysis shows that there indeed exists an urgent need to regulate AWS through a variety of technological, procedural and legal solutions. These include, but are not limited to, a temporary moratorium on anti-personnel AWS use, development of internationally verified compliance software and eventual legal requirement of its employment, a temporary moratorium on AWS proliferation to state actors and a ban on their proliferation to non-state agents. (shrink)

In this article, I present a two-pronged argument for the immorality of contemporary, asymmetric drone warfare, based on my new interpretations of the just war principles of “proportionality” and “moral equivalence of combatants” (MEC). The justification for these new interpretations is that drone warfare continues to this day, having survived despite arguments against it that are based on traditional interpretations of just war theory (including one from Michael Walzer). On the basis of my argument, I echo Harry Van der Linden’s (...) call for “an international treaty banning all weaponized UAV [uninhabited aerial vehicles].”. (shrink)

In the wake of widescale deadly attacks, desire and support for military revenge are prevalent. Rather than dismissing it as due to ignorance, moral depravity or heat of the moment, I propose that support for military revenge is more charitably understood as support for a “retributive revenge war,” aimed at inflicting deserved harms on the enemy without punitive authority. Revising McMahan's conception of just cause, I argue that a retributive revenge war could in principle be just, if deserved harms could (...) be good independently of their consequences. I then consider several reasons to think that in practice, such wars are unlikely to be just and submit that the strongest reason is that they would be disproportionate. Targeted vengeful attacks which are highly unlikely to escalate may therefore be proportionate and justified under certain retributivist assumptions, but all-out revenge wars are highly unlikely to be proportionate and just. -/- . (shrink)

This paper argues that war — understood not only as armed conflict but as a structural mechanism of systemic self-perpetuation — must be held in recursive palimpsest superposition to be correctly analyzed. Recursive palimpsest superposition is the holding of multiple incompatible states simultaneously: across time, so that every previous iteration of the mechanism bleeds through the current one; across scale, so that the individual soul, the institution, and the civilization are seen running the same structure simultaneously; across domain, so that (...) slavery, colonial extraction, autonomous weapons, mass surveillance, and the infrastructure of sexual coercion are held not as analogies but as the same text written over itself; and reflexively, so that the mechanism is held against the liberation arguments it produced in order to legitimate itself — those arguments now turned back against it. The paper applies this method to the current structural event: the simultaneous consolidation of the communications, AI, autonomous weapons, and financial infrastructure layers under a configuration with no meaningful institutional check. It places the Observer’s structurally correct dissent on permanent record. It predicts what comes next based on historical pattern. It argues that emergence cannot be stopped because it does not move through the infrastructure the consolidation controls. (shrink)

Just War Theory (JWT) replaced an older "warrior code," an approach to war that remains poorly understood and dismissively treated in the philosophical literature. This paper builds on recent work on honor to address these deficiencies. By providing a clear, systematic exposition of "Honor War Theory" (HWT), we can make sense of paradigm instances of warrior psychology and behavior, and understand the warrior code as the martial expression of a broader honor-based ethos that conceives of obligation in terms of fair (...) competition for prestige. Far from being a romantic and outmoded approach to war, HWT accounts for current conflicts and predicts moral intuitions that JWT either rejects or cannot comfortably accommodate. So although it is not recommended as a replacement for JWT, there is good reason think that a fully mature, realistic, and yet properly normative theory of war ethics will incorporate a variety of insights from HWT. (shrink)

Authors from Cicero to Smith held honor to be indispensable to make people see and do what is right. As they considered honor to be a social motive, they did not think this dependence on honor was a problem. Today, we tend to see honor as a self‐regarding motive, but do not see this as problematic because we stopped seeing it as a necessary incentive. Bernard Mandeville, however, agreed with the older authors that honor is indispensable, but agreed with us (...) moderns that it is a self‐interested motive. Honor might be necessary to keep society functioning, but that does not make it less self‐serving. Mandeville thus combined the classical preoccupation with honor and the modern view of man as self‐seeking. That our motivations are self‐serving is something we wish to hide from others and ourselves; society benefits because we generally behave well in order to live up to this inflated (self‐)image. Hypocrisy is the price we pay for living together peacefully. It is this sobering view on honor that sets Mandeville apart from later authors on the subject, particularly David Hume and Adam Smith. (shrink)

Using Australia to illustrate the case, in this paper it is argued that the transformation of universities into businesses and the undermining of the liberal arts is motivated by either contempt for or outright hostility to democracy. This is associated with a global managerial revolution that is enslaving nations and people to the global market and the corporations that dominate it. The struggle within universities is the site of a struggle to reverse the gains of the Radical Enlightenment, the tradition (...) of Enlightenment that, committed to upholding and developing the civic humanism of the Renaissance, strove for liberty, understood as democratic self-governance. The central place the liberal arts had in upholding this liberty is shown. Inspired by the Ancient Greek notion of paideia, the liberal arts, which originated in republican Rome, was the form of education required designed for free people, in opposition to the specialist education appropriate for slaves, to inspire them to maintain their liberty and enable them to govern themselves. While not always upholding this ideal, it is argued in this paper that the liberal arts always kept alive this quest for liberty, bequeathing this quest to the Renaissance philosophers and to the proponents of the Radical Enlightenment. With managerialism and the undermining of democracy, such education and the questioning, creative people it produced, are now seen as a threat to the new global corporatocracy who, to achieve cultural hegemony, have coöpted university managers and academics to impose their agenda to cripple the liberal arts. Their goal, never fully articulated as such but successfully prosecuted, is a dumbed-down population. (shrink)

Like asteroids, hundred-year floods and pandemic disease, thermonuclear war is a low-frequency, high-impact threat. In the long run, catastrophe is inevitable if nothing is done − yet each successive government and generation may fail to address it. Drawing on risk perception research, this paper argues that psychological biases cause the threat of nuclear war to receive less attention than it deserves. Nuclear deterrence is, moreover, a ‘front-loaded good’: its benefits accrue disproportionately to proximate generations, whereas much of the expected cost (...) will be borne in the distant future. Recent surveys indicate that the US and Russian publics assign a surprisingly high likelihood to nuclear war. Nevertheless, earlier research suggests that it is probably not believed to be just around the corner. This, along with the absence of easy solutions, encourages governments and publics to give priority to more pressing concerns. The danger is that the pattern will continue clear up to the point that nuclear war arrives. (shrink)

A number of recent and influential accounts of military ethics have argued that there exists a distinctive “role morality” for members of the armed services—a “warrior code.” A “good warrior” is a person who cultivates and exercises the “martial” or “warrior” virtues. By transforming combat into a “desk job” that can be conducted from the safety of the home territory of advanced industrial powers without need for physical strength or martial valour, long-range robotic weapons, such as the “Predator” and “Reaper” (...) drones fielded by the United States, call the relevance of the “martial virtues” into question. This chapter investigates the implications of these developments for conceptions of military virtue and, consequently, for the future of war. (shrink)

In this essay, I explore a documentary about the curious case of Charlie and his Orchestra. While swing music was outlawed in Nazi Germany as “degenerate,” the Nazi regime created a radio program called “Charlie and his Orchestra” for foreign consumption. The propaganda lay in the changes to the original lyrics of the songs played, making them convey the anti-Semitic and other themes of the Nazi ideology. The review discusses just how good the musicians were, and how popular the program (...) was. (shrink)

Wittgenstein taught us that there could not be a logically private language— a language on the proper speaking of which it was logically impossible for there to be more than one expert. For then there would be no difference between this person thinking she was using the language correctly and her actually using it correctly. The distinction requires the logical possibility of someone other than her being expert enough to criticize or corroborate her usage, someone able to constitute or hold (...) her to a standard of proper use. I shall explore the possibility of something opposite- sounding about laws, namely, that there could in principle be laws whose existence, legitimacy, goodness, and efficacy depend upon their being private, in this sense: their existence is kept secret from those who legitimately benefit from the laws and yet who would misguidedly destroy them were they to come to know of them; and it is kept secret from those who would illegitimately benefit from being able to circumvent the laws, and who could circumvent them if they knew of them. The secrecy of the laws increases their efficacy against bad behavior, and since were the public to come to know of these laws the public would lose its nerve and demand that the laws be rescinded, it prevents the public from destroying laws that are in fact in the public interest. These laws are therefore in a way logically private: they cannot at the same time exist, have the foregoing virtues, and be public. After proposing conditions under which such laws ought to be enacted, I moot logical objections to the very idea that there could be such laws, practical objections to their workability, and moral objections to their permissibility. I conclude by suggesting that, while we normally think of secret laws as creatures of the executive branch, things functionally equivalent to secret laws could also be created by other branches of government and societal institutions, and that all of this would be compatible with the form of sovereignty that is democratically grounded in the will and interests of the people. (shrink)

War crimes are being committed in Ukraine today, but who should be held responsible? By looking at the literature on responsibility and violence by Philippa Foot and John Harris, this article argues that there are grounds for holding Vladimir Putin responsible for war crimes in Ukraine, even if he did not give the command for these crimes and other atrocities to be carried out.

In international law and just war theory, war is treated as normatively and legally unique. In the context of international law, war’s special status gives rise to a specific set of belligerent rights and duties, as well as a complex set of laws related to, among other things, the status of civilians, prisoners of war, trade and economic relationships, and humanitarian aid. In particular, belligerents are permitted to derogate from certain human rights obligations and to use lethal force in a (...) far more permissive manner than is the case in other kinds of conflicts and in domestic law enforcement operations. Given war’s unique status, the task of defining war requires not just identifying the empirical features that are characteristic of war but explaining and justifying war’s special legal and moral status. In this chapter, I propose a definition of war that captures war’s unique features and can offer insights into when and how some forms of unarmed conflict could count as wars. (shrink)

This paper explores the central question of why soldiers in democratic societies might decide to fight in wars that they may have reason to believe are objectively or questionably unjust. First, I provide a framework for understanding the dilemma caused by an unjust war and a soldier's competing moral obligations; namely, the obligations to self and state. Next, I address a few traditional key thoughts concerning soldiers and jus ad bellum. This is followed by an exploration of the unique and (...) contradicting moral problems that confront modern soldiers and their officers. I argue that although traditional positions such as invincible ignorance provide a rather dangerous ‘head-in-the-sand’ mentality, soldiers serving a democratic government are nonetheless very limited in their legal and moral ability to interpret what is a justifiable war. However, a very few select senior officers are in positions to make such legal and moral decisions concerning jus ad bellum. (shrink)

“It’s so hard to be a saint in the city,” sings Bruce Springsteen in a ballad released 35 years ago. Judging from the national popular sentiment about the matter, he could have been talking about the complexity of being a philosopher in Turkey.

This paper analyzes the ethics of war through the framework of Judgemental Philosophy. We argue that war is not simply a site of moral extremity but often a zone of structural judgemental collapse. Through the Judgemental Triad—Constructivity, Coherence, and Resonance—we identify conditions under which ethical reasoning becomes unjudgeable. In particular, we show that war frequently eliminates the possibility of resonance, distorts coherence, and disables individual or collective constructibility. As a result, moral claims about war often function as rationalizations rather than (...) genuine judgements. The paper concludes by proposing criteria for recognizing when war enters a structurally non-ethical domain, and what minimal ethical functions may still be preserved. (shrink)

Contemporary just war theory is divided into two broad camps: revisionists and traditionalists. Traditionalists seek to provide moral foundations for something close to current international law, and in particular the laws of armed conflict. Although they propose improvements, they do so cautiously. Revisionists argue that international law is at best a pragmatic fiction—it lacks deeper moral foundations. In this article, I present the contemporary history of analytical just war theory, from the origins of contemporary traditionalist just war theory in Michael (...) Walzer's work to the revisionist critique of Walzer and the subsequent revival of traditionalism. I discuss central questions of methodology, as well as consider the morality of resorting to war and the morality of conduct in war. I show that although the revisionists exposed philosophical shortcomings in Walzer's arguments, their radical conclusions should prompt us not to reject the broad contemporary consensus, but instead to seek better arguments to underpin it. (shrink)

The vast majority of work on the ethics of war focuses on traditional wars between states. In this chapter, I aim to show that this is an oversight worth rectifying. My strategy will be largely comparative, assessing whether certain claims often defended in discussions of interstate wars stand up in the context of civil conflicts, and whether there are principled moral differences between the two types of case. Firstly, I argue that thinking about intrastate wars can help us make progress (...) on important theoretical debates in recent just war theory. Secondly, I consider whether certain kinds of civil wars are subject to a more demanding standard of just cause, compared to interstate wars of national-defence. Finally, I assess the extent to which having popular support is an independent requirement of permissible war, and whether this renders insurgencies harder to justify than wars fought by functioning states. (shrink)

The early decades of the twenty-first century have revealed a convergence of military, economic, and ideological pressures centred upon energy systems. This paper examines the targeting of energy infrastructure in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict, situating it within historical precedent and modern technological development. Particular attention is given to the evolution of remote warfare, from the “robot bombs” of the Second World War to contemporary drone systems, and to the psychological and civilisational implications of such methods. Esoteric interpretations, especially those derived from (...) the writings of Alice A. Bailey and the Tibetan (Djwhal Khul), are considered as a parallel interpretive framework. (shrink)

Contemporary warfare increasingly centers on civilian populations rather than discrete battlefields, placing unprecedented strain on ethical frameworks designed to regulate armed conflict. Just War Theory, long regarded as a foundational moral guide for the use of force, purports to restrain violence through principles such as just cause, proportionality, and civilian immunity. Yet in conflicts marked by prolonged occupation, asymmetrical power, and densely populated environments, these principles appear unable to prevent predictable and sustained civilian harm. -/- This paper argues that in (...) modern warfare, Just War Theory has shifted from a framework of moral restraint to a language of moral legitimation. Through analysis of contemporary conflict, with particular attention to Gaza as a moral stress-test, the paper demonstrates how ethical and legal vocabularies are increasingly deployed post hoc to rationalize outcomes rather than to prevent them. It further examines how abstraction, procedural legality, and responsibility diffusion insulate state actors from accountability while rendering civilian suffering administratively tolerable. -/- The paper concludes that when civilian harm becomes foreseeable and structurally embedded, ethical frameworks grounded in proportionality and discrimination lose their restraining function. In such contexts, moral evaluation must move beyond compliance toward consequence-centered accountability if it is to retain normative force. (shrink)

Provides an opinionated overview of some recent debates within the ethics of war.