Dudley Knowles Memorial Lecture in Political Philosophy - A Moral Law for War
Published: 19 January 2017
Event 25 January 2017 with Professor Victor Tadros, Professor of Criminal Law and Legal Theory, University of Warwick
Date: 25th January 2017
Speaker: Professor Victor Tadros, Professor of Criminal Law and Legal Theory, University of Warwick
Discussant: Professor Sandra Marshall
Lecture Time: 6pm
Discussion and drinks reception: 7:30pm
Venue: Sir Charles Wilson Lecture Theatre
A substantial body of recent work in just war theory claims that the moral considerations that determine whether acts of individual combatants during a war are permissible or wrong are not reflected in the laws of armed conflict. Whereas morality prohibits the killing of combatants on the just side of a war, the law does not. And whereas morality sometimes permits the killing of non-combatants on the unjust side, again the law does not. Many also defend these divergences between law and morality. I will offer a cautious case for revising the law to achieve greater convergence between morality and the laws of war.
Professor Dudley Ross Knowles (1947 – 2014) was a renowned political philosopher who taught at Glasgow University from 1973 to 2011. He was a staunch supporter of the Stevenson Trust and insisted that the Trust’s commitment to public education must include the contribution of political philosophy to examining issues of contemporary relevance in a manner accessible to all citizens. In 2015 the Stevenson committee endorsed his view by instigating an annual public lecture on political philosophy in his memory.
All staff, students, and members of the public are welcome. No advance booking is necessary. For further information contact: stevensontrust@glasgow.ac.uk
First published: 19 January 2017