War, Essays in Political Philosophy
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loginPhilosophers have written about war for as long as there have beenphilosophers. Indeed, the pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus (c.502b.c.), from whom we have only a few scattered words remaining, talksabout war and uses war as his main analogy to understand all other rela-tions.1Since ancient Greek times, nearly every major philosopher has hadsomething to say about war, and many have written special treatises on thetopic. There are several obvious, and several not so obvious, reasons whyphilosophers have been intrigued by war. Most obviously, many lived dur-ing times of war and war tends to color every part of one’s experience. Waris also the kind of experience that calls out for attempted justification,given the sheer amount of horror that often accompanies it. And war alsooffers considerable puzzles to be solved, such as why the killing of soldiersin war could be condoned but seemingly lesser offenses such as mistreat-ing soldiers who have been captured would be so strongly condemned.
