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Rutgers University professor to speak on protection of noncombatants in contemporary warfare

By Trent Chaffee '09
October 18, 2007

As part of St. Olaf College's 2007-07 academic theme of Liberal Arts in Times of War, James T. Johnson, professor of religion and associate of the Graduate Program in Political Science at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., will speak on the moral and legal erosion of protection of noncombatants in contemporary warfare. His lecture, titled "New Face of War: Challenges to Moral and Legal Limits on War," will be Tuesday, Oct. 23 at 7 p.m. in the Buntrock Commons Ballrooms, and is free and open to the public.

Johnson's lecture is the continuation of an argument from his book Morality and Contemporary Warfare (Yale University Press, 1999), in which he states that the real face of contemporary war is low-level war that intentionally and preferably targets noncombatants. Rather than focusing on the welfare of these people, scholars and politicians tend to focus on other issues.

"By contrast, discourse on limiting war tends to focus elsewhere -- on the evil of war itself, on the nuclear debate, on the problems of national interest -- you name it," Johnson says.

Tuesday's talk is broken into four parts: identifying the problem, identifying resources in the moral and legal traditions with efforts to protect noncombatants in war, identifying the problems in recent developments undermining traditions of restraint, and making suggestions as where to go from here.

An author of numerous books, chapters, and articles, Johnson is an expert on morality and just war. His most recent works include The War to Oust Saddam: Just War and the New Face of Conflict (Rowman and Littefield, 2005), "Contemporary Just War," a chapter in The Ethics of War (Blackwell Publishing, 2006), and "The Just War Idea: The State of the Question," an article published in Social Philosophy and Policy.

Johnson earned a Ph.D. with Distinction from Princeton University in 1968, where he also completed his masters work in 1967. He graduated from Vanderbilt University Divinity School in 1963 and finished his undergraduate degree at Brown University in 1960.

Contact David Gonnerman at 507-786-3315 or gonnermd@stolaf.edu.