Book review of Empowering Our Military Conscience: Transforming Just War Theory and Military Moral Education

Empowering Our Military Conscience seeks to accomplish two goals. First, it highlights new and often critical perspectives on just war theory. Second, it attempts to discern more practical lessons for both trainee and practising military professionals by assessing the ethical standards of the profession of arms via the lens of just war theorising, and by establishing the implications for Professional Military Ethics Education (PMEE). Divided into three parts, the first addresses jus ad bellum (the propriety of resorting to war), the second jus in bello (just conduct within war) and the third jus ante bellum, particularly the moral conditioning of military officers via PMEE. The lead chapter is contributed by Michael Walzer, the doyen of contemporary just war theorists whose 1977 work, Just and Unjust Wars, remains the classic treatment of the subject. In part the book is structured so that subsequent chapters can challenge or refute some ofWalzer’s views as the dominant theorist.