Nonviolence, Peace, and Justice: A Philosophical Introduction

This book takes a philosophical approach to questions concerning violence, war, and justice in human affairs. It offers the reader a broad introduction to underlying assumptions, values, concepts, theories, and the historical contexts informing much of the current discussion worldwide regarding these morally crucial topics. It provides brief summaries and analyses of a wide range of relevant belief systems, philosophical positions, and policy problems. While not first and foremost a book of advocacy, it is clearly oriented throughout by the ethical preference for nonviolent strategies in the achievement of human ends and a belief in the viability of a socially just―and thus peaceful―human future. It also maintains a consistently skeptical stance towards the all-too-easily accepted apologies, past and present, for violence, war, and the continuation of injustice.

Kit R. Christensen is Professor of Philosophy, Bemidji State University. He is the author of The Politics of Character Development: A Marxist Reappraisal of the Moral Life (Greenwood Press, 1994) and the editor of Philosophy and Choice: Selected Readings from Around the World (Mayfield Publishing Co., 1999); Second Edition, 2002 (the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.).