NEH Enduring Questions Course on the Just War Tradition

FAIN: AQ-50979-14

Macomb County Community College (Warren, MI 48088-3870)
Elliott Meyrowitz (Project Director: September 2013 to October 2015)

The development of a community college course on the circumstances under which war may be justified and whether it can be conducted ethically once begun.

The development of a community college course on the circumstances under which war may be justified and whether it can be conducted ethically once begun. Elliott Meyrowitz, a Vietnam combat veteran with a J.D. degree and a Ph.D. in history, develops a course for community college students on the question, What is a just war? Meyrowitz argues that the position that "all war should be condemned" is untenable; as a result, "from the time of the Roman Empire and early Christianity philosophers and theologians began to develop the concept of a 'just war.'" Given contemporary problems of war and conflict, the enhancement of "students' ability to distinguish between justifiable and unjustifiable use of armed force" is pressing. The course is organized into four units: 1) just war theories over time and in the western and eastern traditions, as exemplified by important writers; 2) how these thinkers as well as military strategists have developed alternatives to just war theory; 3) case studies of World Wars I and II, Vietnam, and recent American actions in the Middle East and Afghanistan; 4) application of just war theory to a range of circumstances such as total war, nuclear war, guerrilla war, genocide, ethnic cleansing, civil war, asymmetric war, and terrorism. The core readings for the course include writings by Thucydides, Cicero, Augustine, Aquinas, Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Kant and recent scholars and theorists including Michael Walzer, John Keegan, James Turner Johnson, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Christopher Paul, and David Fisher.

Media Coverage

MCC to offer course on morality of war (Media Coverage)
Author(s): Fran DeFrank
Publication: The Macomb Daily
Date: 6/5/2014
Abstract: Article discusses the NEH grant award to me and the course that I will be teaching under the Enduring Questions Program.