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Cargando... Guerras Justas e Injustas (1977)por Michael Walzer
Política - Clásicos (96) Cargando...
Inscríbete en LibraryThing para averiguar si este libro te gustará. Actualmente no hay Conversaciones sobre este libro. I thought the initial portion of the book asks some good questions and contains some thought provoking analysis. However, towards the latter part of the book I found myself disagreeing with the author about the WWII strategic bombing campaign and the use of nuclear devices in Japan. Two general things I did not feel he took into account are the differences in total war vs limited engagement (World war with entire nations using all elements of society to support the war effort vs a fraction of society committed to the war effort). The second issue is the judgment of the past by the standards of the present. I wanted more info on the WWII bombing campaign from the position of the people who defended it. He mentions those people but I don't feel he gave me good info on why they felt the strategic bombing campaign was appropriate. He gives his opinion early in the discussion by calling the allied bombing campaign "terror bombing" over and over. A specific issue I didn't agree with the author was his dismissiveness of the evil of the WWII era Japanese empire. He feels there is no comparison between the Japanese and the Germans from a moral standpoint and considers the Germans infinitely worse. My great-grandparents fled Indonesia to go back to Holland because they felt the Germans in general were not as evil as the Japanese. A review of the atrocities by the Japanese reveal a terrifying record of genocide and death that earns them a ranking among the worst in the WWII axis of evil. I recommend Paul Tibbets book on his life and dropping the bomb titled (The Return of the Enola Gay) for a defense of dropping the bomb from someone who was part of the situation. sin reseñas | añadir una reseña
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Walzer entro en 1977 en la historia de la teoria y filosofia politica con Guerras justas e injustas, que se convirtio, y sigue siendo, un clasico o mejor, el clasico contemporaneo del tratamiento de la relacion entre guerra y moral, insustituible incluso cuando las guerras actuales no suelen ser ya guerras entre estados soberanos. Walzer partio de un ataque frontal al realismo, al negarse a mantener dos tesis interrelacionadas: que "cuando las armas hablan, callan las leyes," y por tanto calla tambien la reflexion moral y politica sobre estas y sobre la conducta practica de los seres humanos en los conflictos armados; en segundo lugar, que el silencio de las leyes y de la moral es unicamente el correlato de una verdad, descubierta por el realismo politico, al despojarnos la guerra de nuestros civilizados aderezos y poner de manifiesto nuestra desnudez, resulta evidente que lo que convencionalmente se ha denominado inhumanidad o conducta inhumana es unicamente la humanidad sometida a presion extrema. El caracter fragmentario y discursivo del razonamiento de Walzer ha dificultado la percepcion de la fuerte interconexion de toda su obra, a no ser que se entrelacen textos de, al menos, la primera y ultima etapa, como se hace en la presente seleccion. De ahi que pueda afirmarse que Guerra, politica y moral que incluye una entrevista en que habla de la totalidad de su obra, textos de la primera epoca de Walzer "Contra el realismo," capitulo inicial de Guerras justas e injustas, entre otros y una seleccion de sus reflexiones recientes mas importantes constituye una introduccion general a la vision minimalista de la moral universal que siempre ha defendido Walzer. Los textos que aqui sepresentan permiten la continuidad en el razonamiento de Walzer a lo largo de las tres decadas, No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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Google Books — Cargando... GénerosSistema Decimal Melvil (DDC)355.02Social sciences Public Administration, Military Science Military Science WarClasificación de la Biblioteca del CongresoValoraciónPromedio:
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Pros: Good questions (What *are* the morals of war? What is just war? What is justice *in* war?), and clear explanation of the viewpoint of the author.
Cons: There is a recurring "rights vs. utilitarianism" argument/tension throughout the book with the greater weight going to rights. Specifically the rights of non-combatants. This seems obvious... and yet I keep finding myself wondering...
There is a great (real-life) example in the book: soldiers clearing a village in WWII. Before throwing grenades into cellars the soldier in question shouts a warning down, taking on the risk of e.g. getting shot by hiding Germans soldiers. He shouts this warning in order to protect potential civilian victims. As it turns out there is a French family in one cellar, who come out at the last minute and are saved, essentially, by the risk taken by -the right action of- the soldier.
The book argues this is correct because the soldier has to take on soldierly risks (getting shot/surprised) to protect civilians even though it would be safer for him to just toss a grenade in each cellar without warning. The reason the soldier is required to do this is because... he's a soldier. When he picked up a gun, he took on this extra responsibility; the civilians, not having picked up guns, retain their peace-time rights (not to get shot, blown up, etc.) So long as the soldier holds his gun (figuratively, somewhat) he has lost some rights (namely, the right to not be shot) AND taken on extra responsibilities. (He gets his rights back, more or less, as soon as he puts down his gun.)
I think I see a problem in this because it creates a kind of perverse moral reward for not fighting. Those people who choose not to fight (say, the Nazis) offload moral duty to those who do "choose" to fight. The author goes through a lot of contortions dealing with this. Which is fine; he is not leaving it unaddressed, even if I don't think he ever calls it out in just this way. But all the discussion of "immoral means in moral causes" and such didn't leave me feeling that this has been satisfactorily addressed.
Which may be because there isn't a good, clean, simple answer.
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