Essay5 pages

Core 269 Final Examination 1

Fall 2017

Core 269-A: War in the Christian Tradition Fall, 2017

Final Examination Before you begin work on this examination, please carefully read and re-read the instructions and

grading rubric posted on Moodle.

Answer any one of the following questions, following the formatting guidelines on the instruction

sheet:

1. According to several probably-apocryphal accounts, Confederate General Robert E. Lee,

who was observing troops advancing into battle from a nearby hill at the beginning of the

Battle of Fredericksburg (1862), said to General James Longstreet, “It is well that war is so

terrible, lest we should grow too fond of it.”

Assume for the moment that Lee actually spoke these words. In conversation with the entire

breadth of your learning this semester, write a well-crafted essay: 1) Analyzing Lee’s

statement, both in its context and in light of what you have learned (from William James,

Chris Hedges, and others) about the potentially intoxicating power of war; and 2) Applying

the sentiment Lee expresses to the contemporary American context, especially with respect

to what Andrew Bacevich calls the “new American militarism.” In particular, say whether

and how Lee’s observation about the terrors of war has indeed moderated our fondness for

it.

2. The jus in bello criteria (discrimination and proportionality) have in the past been called the

“linchpin” of the just war tradition. As many recent commentators have suggested, the

nature of modern weaponry and the modern appetite for total war has made adherence to

these criteria at the very least complicated. In the words of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI,

“given the new weapons that make possible destructions that go beyond the combatant

groups, today we should be asking ourselves if it is still licit to admit the very existence of a

‘just war’. i

In conversation with what you have learned about the Christian just war tradition, write a

well-crafted essay: 1) Explaining the jus in bello criteria of discrimination and

proportionality; 2) Applying those criteria to the contemporary context; and 3) Arguing

whether or not a genuinely just war remains possible today. In your argument, name the

particular factors that most make discrimination and proportionality difficult to achieve in

prosecuting modern warfare.

Core 269 Final Examination 2

Fall 2017

3. You have learned that although the Christian just war tradition draws on pre-Christian and

non-Christian sources, it has at its roots certain basic theological notions—including, for

example, beliefs about the history of God’s work, human nature, and the duties of

Christians to God, neighbor, and civil authority.

In conversation with everything you have learned about the just war tradition, write a well-

crafted essay: 1) Naming the basic theological convictions upon which the just war tradition

is based; and 2) Analyzing how those convictions are apparent in the various criteria—both

jus ad bellum and jus in bello—of the just war tradition.

i At: http://catholicjustwartradition.blogspot.com/2008/01/cardinal-joseph-ratzinger-pope-benedict.html. A similar quotation from Benedict may be found in Tobias Winwright’s introduction to Can War Be Just in the 21st Century?, posted on the course

Moodle page.