War for peace: genealogies of a violent ideal in Western and Islamic thought
In: Oxford scholarship online
In: Political Science
Peace is the elimination of war, but peace also authorizes war. We are informed today that this universal ideal can only be secured by the wars that it eliminates. The paradoxical position of peace, opposed to war, authorizing war,is encapsulated by the claim that 'war is for the sake of peace'. 'War for Peace' is a genealogy of the political theoretic logics and morals of 'peace'. It examines peace in political theory, as an ideal that authorizes war, in the writings of ten thinkers, from ancient to contemporary thought: Plato, Abu Nasr al-Farabi, Thomas Aquinas, Desiderius Erasmus, Alberico Gentili, Hugo Grotius, Ibn Khaldun, Thomas Hobbes, Immanuel Kant, and Sayyid Qutb