School of International Relations

In this essay, we criticize the tacit radical psychological materialist reduction of mental to brain behavior and the consequent 'elimination' of ethical categories from 'scientific' discourse. Our argument, following Wittgenstein, is that we do not know that a connection exists-causal or otherwise-between physical/brain and mental processes. Following Chomsky, we may never know whether it exists, because there is a crucial explanatory gap between, on the one hand, neuroscientific and genetic accounts of brain and human biology, and, on the other, our understanding of human action, ranging from simple motor functioning (like picking up a pencil) to moral deliberation. This is a gap that contemporary neuroscience and cognitive psychology have a hard time recognizing, much less overcoming. And, despite longstanding optimistic claims to the contrary, we cannot know at this time whether it will ever be overcome. We conclude that in order for moral deliberation and action to exist at all, brains and genes are necessary but not sufficient. We also require a language community from which ethical categories derive their meanings, a body with eyes, ears and limbs (as well as a brain), and a culture-a social environment (Umwelt) that interprets and constrains our choices of actions. We can never go 'beyond good and evil' because good and evil are social constructions, and, consequently, as long as there is human association, good and evil will continue to exist.

anthropology/anthropology--culture--based--on--instinct--the--human--propensity--for--violence.html 5 Abstract On September 11, 2011, although most Americans and virtually all U.S. media appropriately "remembered" the tragic day ten years earlier, few stopped to analyze the reasons for the attacks and the "effectiveness" of the world war that has ensued. Even fewer have performed a dispassionate "cost/benefit" analysis of the "Global War on Terror(ism)" (GWOT), both from strategic and ethical standpoints. The US--led counterterrorist strategy initiated by the Bush administration and largely preserved by Obama's should be reexamined because it has been shown to be largely ineffective in reducing the global incidence and lethality of acts of political violence Western leaders brand "terrorist," notwithstanding the widely publicized assassinations of Osama bin Laden and other notorious violent Islamists. This realpolitik strategy of negative peacemaking, put into effect in September 2001-more than a decade ago-has not defeated radical Islamism, has resulted in many thousands of casualties, has led to a global clash between extreme elements of Western and Islamist civilizations, and threatens to escalate to a war of the world in which nonstate terrorists and state counterterrorists may both employ weapons of mass destruction. A principal aim of this article is to examine critically official mainstream constructions of "terrorists," "terrorism" and "counterterrorism" as powerful rhetorical frames used to sell the GWOT and the justifications for initiating and continuing it. These frames also underlie numerous ethical assumptions-attempts to justify the morality of killing in "war"-which are called into question in this article. We suggest an alternative construction for understanding the roots of terrorism and for devising "antiterrorism" strategies to replace the largely ineffective "counterterrorism" policies being used to deal with terrifying acts of political violence. This framework is based both on an empirical analysis of how groups labeled "terrorist" end, as well as on a normative assessment of the utility and morality of "fighting terror with terror." Antiterrorism strategies consistent with moral and legal norms would lessen if not eliminate attacks on civilians while preserving the human rights of both the victims and alleged perpetrators. Antiterrorism is an ethical and possibly effective alternative to the largely unethical and ineffective "war on terrorism." 9

One of the most influential ideas of 20th-century Occidental culture is rationalization. The great German sociologist Max Weber conceived of rationalization as a universal historical process through which both societies and persons must pass in order to become more rational and efficient. Sigmund Freud viewed rationalization as the individual's unconscious inventing of a reason for an attitude or action for which the person's real motive is not acknowledged. Contemporary capitalism, liberalism, and globalization are examples of rationalization at the macro level. While making elaborate excuses and living in bad faith in order to defend oneself against anxiety and to get by in everyday life demonstrate micro-level rationalization.

Peace and Conflict Studies (PCS) investigates the reasons for and outcomes of largeand small-scale conflicts, as well as the preconditions for peace. PCS allows one to examine the reasons for and prevention of wars, as well as the nature of violence, including social oppression, discrimination and marginalisation, or what Johan Galtung and others call 'structural violence' . Through the rigorous analysis of peace and conflict, one can also learn peacemaking strategies. PCS accordingly analyses individual and collective violent and non-violent behaviours as well as the structural mechanisms underlying social conflicts in order to understand and transform those processes that might lead to a more peaceful planet. In this way, the field is explicitly value-oriented, since it assumes and provides evidence for the claim that peace is (almost always) preferable to war, and the job of peace researchers is not merely to understand the dynamics of war and peace, but also actively to promote the latter.

The idea of a "global ethics" is as old as philosophical and religious ethics, and dates back to at least the 5 th -century BCE. Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists, among others, asserted the existence of such universally desirable values as virtue, fortitude, compassion, temperance, self-control and integrity.

In The World as Idea , Charles P. Webel presents an intellectual history of one of the most influential concepts known to humanity-that of "the world." Webel traces the development of "the world" through the past, depicting the history of the world as an intellectual construct from its roots in ancient creation myths of the cosmos, to contemporary speculations about multiverses. He simultaneously offers probing analyses and critiques of "the world as idea" from thinkers ranging from Plato, Aristotle, and St. Augustine in the Greco-Roman period to Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Merleau-Ponty, and Derrida in modern times. While Webel mainly focuses on Occidental philosophical, theological, and cosmological notions of worldhood and worldliness, he also highlights important non-Western equivalents prominent in Islamic and Asian spiritual traditions. This ensures the book is a unique overview of what we all take for granted in our daily existence, but seldom if ever contemplate-the world as the uniquely meaningful environment for our lives in particular and for life on Earth in general. The World as Idea will be of great interest to those interested in the concept of "world as idea," scholars in fields ranging from philosophy and history to political and social theory, and students studying philosophy, the history of ideas, and humanities courses, both general and specialized.

Significantly expanded content on global terrorism, a topic of high interest in today's current events, includes a new section on ISIS, as well as new scholarly references and data from the most recent Global Terrorism Index. New material on key topics in world affairs today bring students up-to-date on income inequality, social justice, the current and ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and global peace and nonviolence. Coverage of recent developments in environmental politics and nuclear proliferation includes efforts to combat global climate change and the Iran nuclear agreement. Updated coverage of cutting-edge military technologies includes discussions of nanotechnological devices, drones, robots and "terminator"-like weapons, space technologies, biological and chemical weapons, and current developments in cyberwarfare. Updated chapters on Peace and Conflict Studies, Global Climate Change and the New Democracy Movements broaden the scope of the book. KEY FEATURES: An insightful combination of theoretical and historical insights with attention to significant recent events provides students with a solid grounding in peace and conflict sudies. Authoritative coverage of the important aspects of positive peace, individual violence, nationalism,

Handbook of Peace and Conflict Studies The fields of peace and conflict studies have grown exponentially since their initiation in Scandinavia about a half century ago by Johan Galtung. They have forged a transdisciplinary and professional identity distinct from ...

Prior to the Second World War, interstate conflict was the predominant form of organized violence in international relations. During the Cold War and the period that has followed it, intrastate violence and intercommunal conflict have replaced interstate violence as the principal form of conflict in international relations. However, what is striking about the international conflict trends is that over the past two decades the number of civil wars, measured by their frequency and aggregate levels of violence, has been on the decline. This trend is now well-documented in a large number of studies, including, most recently, the Human Security Report (Mack 2005) of the Liu Institute of International Studies at the University of British Columbia. What is also borne out in these studies is that many of these conflicts-Bosnia, Northern Ireland, South Africa, Mozambique, the conflict between North and South Sudan, El Salvador, Guatemala, the border dispute between Peru and Ecuador, and now perhaps the conflict in Aceh-have been settled or 'resolved' through a process of negotiation, upsetting a longstanding, post-Westphalian trend where wars traditionally ended when one party defeated the other on the battlefield. And even in those cases of those perennial conflicts-Israel-Palestine, Sri Lanka, Kashmir, Mindanao, and Korea-that are still ongoing , negotiations between the warring parties have rarely been off the table. In terms of war termination, there are two trends to explore. The first is the apparent decline in the outbreak of wars. There is obviously a need to explore the factors or forces that are shaping and influencing these international conflict trends in order to understand better why some conflicts are diminishing and whether or not this tendency will continue (Marshall and Gurr 2005). 1 The second trend is the growing interest in negotiated settlements, which is the area that this paper will explore. The objectives of this paper are as follows: (1) to discuss why warring parties in recent years have increasingly turned to the 'negotiation option'-usually with the assistance of third parties, including third-party mediators-in order to settle their differences; and (2) to explore some of the different approaches to the study and practice of negotiation in the burgeoning conflict management literature.

The World as Idea In The World as Idea, Charles P. Webel presents an intellectual history of one of the most influential concepts known to humanity-that of "the world." Webel traces the development of "the world" through the past, depicting the history of the world as an intellectual construct from its roots in ancient creation myths of the cosmos, to contemporary speculations about multiverses. He simultaneously offers probing analyses and critiques of "the world as idea" from thinkers ranging from Plato, Aristotle, and St. Augustine in the Greco-Roman period to Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Merleau-Ponty, and Derrida in modern times. While Webel mainly focuses on Occidental philosophical, theological, and cosmological notions of worldhood and worldliness, he also highlights important non-Western equivalents prominent in Islamic and Asian spiritual traditions. This ensures the book is a unique overview of what we all take for granted in our daily existence, but seldom if ever contemplate-the world as the uniquely meaningful environment for our lives in particular and for life on Earth in general. The World as Idea will be of great interest to those interested in the concept of "world as idea," scholars in fields ranging from philosophy and history to political and social theory, and students studying philosophy, the history of ideas, and humanities courses, both general and specialized.

Reviewed by Charles P. Webel aaa "Reality" ain't what it used to be. That is due to the "fact" that we are now living in a "post-truth" world. And this is because "the ability to separate real from artificial has become increasingly difficult." Or so claims R. McDermott, a contributor to the book under review (pp. 17-18). This notion of "post-truth," according to McDermott, relies heavily on appeals to such emotions as fear and anger. Post-truth arguments separate the specific details of a political policy from the facts; and "in a post-truth world, repetition reigns." The result, as McDermott and the editors of this book see it, is that "facts no longer weigh as heavily as the emotional triggers that politicians can elicit … [and] through these mechanisms, partisans can choose to believe the world is only as they see it …" (pp. 21-22). The consequences of abandoning, or at least subordinating, facts to ideologically convenient fictions, are potentially catastrophic, even omnicidal, since in a "post-truth" world, ill-informed and sometimes irrational policy makers who have the fate of the world in their hands are empowered to make decisions regarding the use or nonuse of nuclear weapons. Furthermore, these political and military leaders may make such "hard choices" based on information or disinformation that may or may not reflect the reality of situation. Consequently, they may ignite Armageddon under conditions of extreme stress, induced by a range of emotional and cognitive factors, including confusion, hostility, terror, rage, "fast thinking" over calm deliberation, and a host of perceptions and misperceptions regarding the real or imagined threat and the "enemy" posing it. The reasons for this parlous state of affairs are explored by several contributors to this volume, including K. M. Greenhill, J. Lewis, and B. O' Laughlin, as well as the editors, in Chapters 6, 8, 9, and the conclusion, Chapter 10. This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.