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The impact that warfare has on animals and, specifically, the place of animals in just-war theory

Posted on 8 September 2020

Sara Van Goozen's latest opinion piece

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Dr Sara Van Goozen and Dr Josh Milburn have written a blog post summarising a forthcoming paper written for the Vegan Society about The impact that warfare has on animals and, specifically, the place of animals in just-war theory

Sara and Josh were surprised to find that this topic had not been researched widely and decided to investigate whether it was possible to include animals in our judgments about the ethics of war. 

Their findings show that it is not only possible but actually fairly straightforward, though it does rule out some tactics and does require rethinking how they train and educate commanders and soldiers. As such, Sara and Josh have developed a way of making the ethics of war/just-war theory more "humane", which doesn't entail embracing pacifism.