Pacifism and the philosophy of war

The latest post at Philosophy Bites has philosopher Jeff McMahan talking about ethics and war. I found it of interest, given my dislike of the just war theory, so I looked him up. Here's what Wikipedia has on him ...

Jeff McMahan is an American philosopher. McMahan took his first degree at the University of Oxford and his PhD at the University of Cambridge, and is currently professor of philosophy at Rutgers University. He has written extensively on normative and applied ethics. His publications include The Morality of Nationalism (co-edited with Robert McKim; Oxford, 1997) and The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life (Oxford, 2002). Killing in War (published by Oxford University Press) is due to be released Jan 15, 2009. The work will deal with Just War theory and will argue against the deeply held beliefs within the theory ...

From there I went to his webpage where he has a list of his publications, some downloadable in pdf, on the ethics of life and death issues like abortion, war, disability, torture, and the questionable difference between human beings and animals (yep, he's a vegetarian :)

Here's a video of him giving a talk about pacifism and the philosophy of war. I didn't agree with everything he had to say in the talk, but it was interesting .......