Rules for Wrongdoers: Law, Morality, War

Arthur Ripstein's lectures focus on the two bodies of rules governing war: the ius ad bellum, which regulates resort to armed force, and the ius in bello, which sets forth rules governing the conduct of armed force and applies equally to all parties. Ripstein argues that recognizing both sets of rules as distinctive prohibitions, rather than as permissions, can reconcile the supposed tension between them. In his first lecture, "Rules for Wrongdoers," he explains how moral principles governing an activity apply even to those who are not permitted to engage in them. In his second lecture, "Combatants and Civilians," he develops a parallel account of the distinction between combatants and civilians. The book includes subsequent essays by commentators Oona A. Hathaway, Christopher Kutz, and Jeff McMahan, followed by a response from Ripstein.

Arthur Ripstein, Professor of Law and Philosophy and University Professor, the University of Toronto, Saira Mohamed, Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley, School of Law

Arthur Ripstein is Professor of Law and Philosophy and University Professor at the University of Toronto, where he has taught since 1987. He teaches and writes about legal and political philosophy and torts. Ripstein has been at the forefront of renewed interest in Immanuel Kant's legal and political philosophy. He is the author of Private Wrongs (Harvard 2016), Force and Freedom: Kant's Legal and Political Philosophy (Harvard 2009) and Equality, Responsibility and the Law (Cambridge 1999). His next book, Kant and the Law of War, is forthcoming from Oxford University Press in 2021. From 2016 to 2018 he held a Killam Fellowship from the Canada Council. In 2021, he was awarded the prestigious Killam Prize for the Humanities.