Rosemary Kellison: Expanding Responsibility for the Just War: A Feminist Critique

Rosemary Kellison: Expanding Responsibility for the Just War: A Feminist Critique

As demonstrated in any conflict, war is violent and causes grave harms toinnocent persons, even when fought in compliance with just war criteria. Inthis book, Rosemary Kellison presents a feminist critique of just warreasoning, with particular focus on the issue of responsibility for harm tononcombatants. Contemporary just war reasoning denies the violence ofwar by suggesting that many of the harms caused by war are necessary,though regrettable, injuries for which inflicting agents bear noresponsibility. She challenges this narrow understanding of responsibilitythrough a feminist ethical approach that emphasizes the relationality ofhumans and the resulting asymmetries in their relative power andvulnerability. According to this approach, the powerful individual andcollective agents who inflict harm during war are responsible forrecognizing and responding to the vulnerable persons they harm, andthereby reducing the likelihood of future violence. Kellison's volume goesbeyond abstract theoretical work to consider the real implications of animportant ethical problem.

Hošman, Mirek Tobiáš

Czech Journal of International Relations; Vol. 54 No. 4 (2019); 77-80

2788-2993

2788-2985

10.32422/mv.54.4

Institute of International Relations Prague

2019-12-01

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0

application/pdf

eng

info:eu-repo/semantics/article

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

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