Chris Bertram/ Kristina Musholt
Tuesday 11 December 2012, 6.30 – 8pm
Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building, LSE
Chris Bertram, Professor of Social and Political Philosophy, University of Bristol
Chair: Kristina Musholt, LSE Fellow, Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method and Deputy Director of the Forum for European Philosophy
Rousseau’s fragment Principles of the Right of War has recently been reconstructed from various manuscript sources and we now have a coherent text expressing his views about war and so-called ‘just war’ theory. Here, as elsewhere, Rousseau suspects that the moral principles enunciated by philosophers and legal theorists are just rationalizations for amour propre, power and violence. This lecture argued that in the light of recent wars and ‘humanitarian interventions’, Rousseau’s text is as relevant as ever.
