Making Sense of “Ethics” of War: Just War, Just Peace, and Ethic of Care

This paper reviews briefly the main approaches in the literature on ethics of war and suggests the need to move beyond an ethic of justice towards an ethic of care. The analysis problematizes dominant understandings of “just war” and “just peace” in the literature and highlights that incorporating elements of an ethic of care, our understanding of ethics of war and peace can be redefined, sharpened, and redeployed through an enlarged ethical lens. The author suggests that scholars and practitioners in different fields of study and domains of social and political life can make important contributions by defining, elucidating, and advocating why both perspectives, those of ethic of justice and care, together allow us to capture the prospects of a broader understanding and the practice of peace.