Realism and the Value of Peace

05 May 2008

Professor Hugh White

In this lecture, Professor White discusses the morality and ethical challenges of war, as examined by Professor Coady in his new book, Morality & Political Violence. Political violence, in the form of wars, insurgencies, violent revolutions and counter-revolutions, and terrorism constitutes a major human challenge today as so often in the past. The challenge is not only to life and limb, but also to morality itself. Professor Coady puts the problems posed by this challenge into the frame of reflective ethics. Against the background of a contemporary approach to just war thinking, he examines the right to make war, moral dimensions to the conduct of war, terrorism, mercenary warriors, conscientious objection, the rights of combatants and non-combatants, the ideal of peace and much else.

Broad Topics: Arts and Social Sciences

Sub-topics: Law, Justice & Law Enforcement, Policy & Political Science

Areas: ANU College of Asia and the Pacific

Professor White has written and commented on a wide range of defence policy issues including the ethics of invasion. He is currently Head of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, ANU College of Asia and the Pacific at ANU. He has served as an intelligence analyst with the Office of National Assessments, as a journalist with The Sydney Morning Herald, and as a senior adviser on the staffs of Defence Minister Kim Beazley and Prime Minister Bob Hawke. Before moving to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, he was a senior official in the Department of Defence, where from 1995–2000 he was Deputy Secretary for Strategy and Intelligence.