Free & open to the public, to reserve your spot, please email: info@kibbitznest.org
A discussion led by Stephen C. Walker, PhD
Join us as we begin our Spring Liberal Arts Discussion Series
A collaboration with the
The University of Chicago Graham School
hosting presentations and discussions of original research
Why and How to Fight a War - A Classical Chinese Perspective
Tonight we’ll examine some of the basic premises of the classical Chinese understanding of war, drawing on a text (the Huainanzi, 2nd century BCE) that synthesizes many schools of thought. On this text’s understanding, the capacity to make war is an essential tool that governments use to control the distribution of resources and to ensure safety and health for their subjects. The paradox of war is that it uses killing, impoverishment, and destruction to promote their opposites—life, prosperity, and new creation—exposing not only one’s enemies but also one’s own people to potentially horrifying outcomes that nonetheless seem (time and again) to be worth the risk.
In contemporary debates about the morality of war—anchored in Western legalistic frameworks that center on concepts like justice and human rights—we tend to ask whether a particular military action was right/justified or wrong/unjustified in terms of how people have been treated, full-stop. The classical Chinese approach agrees that we should ask those questions, but it insists that the only way to properly evaluate how people have been treated is with an eye toward what people will do next. From the perspective of combatants and their commanders, what behavior best enhances morale, reputation, and the contribution made to their government’s long-term goals? From the perspective of noncombatants, what behaviors demonstrate that a military (whether our own or someone else’s) has plausible claims on our trust, that it merits our cooperation and respect? This approach translates moral concerns into pragmatic concerns and vice versa, showing us ways of arguing for humanitarian goals that even the most cold-hearted leaders might accept.
Stephen C. Walker holds a PhD in Philosophy of Religions from the University of Chicago Divinity School. He studies philosophy and the history of philosophy across multiple traditions; his research focuses on classical Chinese thought and especially on Daoism.
For more info please visit kibbitznest.com and kibbitznest.org and graham.uchicago.edu
Thursday, May 2nd, 2024
6:00-7:15pm
Free & open to the public, to reserve your spot, please email: info@kibbitznest.org