Dr David Rodin  Can Humanity Tame War?

Curriculum Vitae

David Rodin is a leading authority on the ethics of war and conflict. He is a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs in New York and Senior Research Fellow at the University of Oxford. His publications include War and Self-Defense (OUP 2002), which was awarded the American Philosophical Association Sharp Prize, articles in leading philosophy and law journals and a number of edited books. A Rhodes Scholar from New Zealand, David has a B.Phil. and D.Phil in philosophy from Oxford University. He was previously Senior Research Fellow at the Australian National University. He was the inaugural Director of Research at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, and a founding member of the Oxford Leverhulme Programme on the Changing Character of War. David has a busy teaching and consulting schedule and is a regular lecturer at the UK Joint Services Command and Staff College where he provides ethics training for senior officers up to the rank of two-star General. He has also worked in the private sector as a Senior Associate with the Boston Consulting Group.

Research Interests: War and international conflict; Terrorism and Asymmetric War; Torture; Business Ethics and International Justice.

Consultancy and advisory work: NATO, UNESCO, ICRC, the European Science Foundation, the British Military and MOD, Norwegian State Pension Fund, Oxford Analytica.

Teaching: Regular lecturer at the UK Joint Services Command and Staff College where he provides ethics training for senior officers.

Abstract

Can Humanity Tame War?

For over a thousand years a debate has raged between pacifists and just war theorists about the morality of war.  One important element of this debate has been whether war is an inevitable part of the human condition, or whether it can be tamed and perhaps eventually eliminated.  This talk will argue that intact we are making progress towards this goal and this has profound implications for how we understand the ethics of war.